Daniels working toward women’s recovery home
ANDERSON — Casey Daniels and wife Latasha of Anderson are working toward starting a drug and alcohol recovery home for women.
Anderson already has a recovery home for men.
Daniels explained that, in the past, he had been in some trouble with the law and had been in prison before, and drugs and alcohol were the root of the problem.
“Every addict you talk to wants to get clean, but they don’t know how,” he said.
Daniels said he got into some trouble about a year and a half ago and talked to John Bartholomew, founder of Renewal 12:2 Ministries, the recovery home for men in Anderson. Daniels and Latasha were able to get into drug court. He said it was the best decision they ever made.
“We wanted to get clean, and that was our opportunity,” he said.
In drug court, they had to do regular drug testing, go to support meetings, and appear before a judge who monitored their progress for 13 months. Daniels said they succeeded without any trouble. They also started going to church on Sundays and Wednesdays to fill the time void that being sober for the first time left, he said.
He said he began to notice his friends who were still using would have someone staying on their couch, and those men were cycling through the recovery home in Anderson. Later, those couches had women on them, he said. Daniels asked the women what was holding them back from getting where they wanted to be in life, and they told him jobs, transportation, and a safe living environment.
He began thinking about starting a recovery home for women where the staff could help them find jobs and provide transportation for them.
“It was rough from the beginning,” he said, explaining he was working with almost no money and found a first location but could not get a loan to purchase it.
“I prayed about it and said, ‘God, I can’t do this. If this is something you want to do, you have to do it,’” he said.
Then a friend called with a location and everything started falling into place, he said. People from the church have helped. Several steps remain, but he estimates the home could be open in three months.
“I’m a farmer. I work at a feed mill. I don’t know anything about it. Every single thing I’ve had to learn as we go. The legal aspect, filing for a nonprofit,” he said. “It’s not overwhelming. That’s one of the ways I know God is involved in it. All that anxiety is gone. It’s changed my life and it’s not even open yet.”
He added that John Bartholomew has been through all the steps of starting the men’s recovery home, so he has helped a lot.
Bartholomew said of the women’s recovery home, “I think it’s great to see God opening more doors to recovery. I’m excited to see what God does through it. There’s a desperate need for both men and women.”
“The thing people in addiction don’t understand is, if you can get around four or five like-minded people, you start to adopt their mindset,” Daniels said. “Eventually, you start changing. When you’re just trying to get through another day with your habit, you can lose everything.”
He said he and the other men he knows who went through recovery were society’s worst-case scenario, and now they all have jobs.
“I’m glad I didn’t live the rest of my life so deep in that that I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “We’re just trying to make the community better and help some struggling friends out of the hole they’re in.”
“I’m not going to live the rest of my life knowing I could have done something and didn’t,” he concluded.