New Life for Women

New Life for Women is a drug and alcohol treatment center for homeless women and that's what I was – homeless. It is located on a tree-lined street close to the Mississippi State Capitol. It was a former residence for retired Catholic priests. The building has great character on the outside. The inside leaves a little to be desired but it was warm, inviting and I felt loved immediately by the staff there. It is an approximately 15 bed facility and usually stays at capacity.

I arrived in August 2007 on a Wednesday afternoon. While my bags were still in the lobby waiting to be gone through by the house manager – standard procedure to be certain there are no drugs, weapons or cell phones hidden in the bags – I was whisked away to the kitchen to cook dinner for 15 women. Seems the girl scheduled to cook that night couldn't do it so they got the new girl to do it. Chores were assigned weekly similar to the other treatment centers I had been in. Each cook had a helper so my helper and I rustled up some pork chops, mashed potatoes and salad for the clients. We did a pretty darn good job even if I do say so myself.

After dinner some of the girls helped me carry my bags up the stairs to my bedroom. When I got to Harbor House I literally had the clothes on my back and one other pair of pants. By the time I left I had been given so many clothes that I had 6 bags to be hauled up the stairs of New Life. God is good and so are His people. The outpouring of love and generosity I had received was humbling.

I'll just go ahead and say it. My new roommate was crazy. She had no filter between her brain and her mouth but I adjusted myself to accommodate her personality as I had done with others all my life. We had twin trundle beds, night stands and lamps for reading. It was carpeted and comfortable. There were as many different stories as their were women at this facility. Some were as young as 18 with some as old as 50. Some were alcoholics, some addicted to marijuana, some crack, some methamphetamine and some heroin. These women, including myself, all had their own mental crosses to bare. You name the disorder, there was a woman that had it. From depression to panic attacks to bi-polar to schizophrenia (mild), all were represented. I made several dear friends while there who were just like me and only wanted, well, a new life.  Relapse has taken the lives of 4 of them in the past 5 years.  We were family and many of us still are.

One of my best friends from Harbor House was already there. She had actually entered Harbor House the day after I did. The way things worked there you sat in the order you came in for everything – at mealtime, group, lecture, etc. She and I became fast friends right away. It's a good thing because if you had to spend that much time in such close proximity to someone you couldn't stand you would have had big problems in addition to the problems you were in treatment for. It was a comfort having her in the bedroom next to mine.

Regarding drug and alcohol treatment in general, if you are not willing to accept it you might as well not be there. You are wasting your own time, the time of the staff and you're taking up bed space from someone who really wants treatment. I cannot say I got sober at Harbor House. I was not using but I never really got to the heart of the matter. Never did I talk about the emotional and physical abuse I had experienced. I stayed under the radar, doing what I was expected to do but I never truly opened up to pierce the core of the reasons I was an addict. New Life is where I got sober.

The lectures were so interesting and gave me great insight into why I was an addict. You can use the excuse that somebody was mean to me all day long but that is only one part of why one becomes an addict. It has been proven that heredity is a factor and I have to think of my dear biological father who drank his 6-pack of beer every night. There may have been others in my family tree that I am not aware of. Walter was an alcoholic so being brought up around his drinking could have had an affect on my addiction. Many are born addicts as I have mentioned in an earlier post. My addiction was a combination of many of these factors. My brutal insecurity about my physical condition, the abuse, physical, emotional and mental, and heredity all played a part.

Where I really got to the core of my problems was in group therapy. Many times we would have peer group where clients told one client what they saw them doing that was wrong and detrimental to their goal of getting sober. Forgive the pun, but that could be a very sobering experience. We also role played where we would be seated face to face with a counselor or another client and pretend they were a person that had hurt us deeply in our past and tell them how much damage they had done to our psyches. I felt especially bad for the clients who had experienced sexual abuse. Hearing the recounting of what that had done to them psychologically was heart wrenching.

New Life is the only treatment center in the central Mississippi area that offers women a way out of homelessness. I entered their secondary program for a month and then moved into a transition apartment. New Life had a federally funded HUD grant that allowed them to rent approximately 10 apartments for transition clients to live in. Each two bedroom, one bath apartment was occupied by 2 clients. Clients must have a job and were required to pay the electric bill and give 30% of their paycheck to New Life to be held in savings for them. Whenever they decided they were ready to get their own place every dime of their savings was given back to them for deposits, furniture, rent, etc. The program was designed to end their homelessness and it did that for many, many women, including myself.

Mentioning jobs in the previous paragraph reminded me to tell you about my transportation to work. Still working at Good Will, I would catch the 7:00 AM bus on State Street for the 50 minute ride to the Good Will location near Metrocenter. I had never been on a city bus in my life much less depend on one as my only mode of transportation! You can meet some very interesting people on a bus, let me just tell you. There was a mentally challenged older man that sort of adopted me as his girlfriend. We sat next to each other on my way to work and on his way to his adult daycare. He would bring me little gifts every day like a pen or a purse sized packet of tissues. He was so very sweet and I think of him every day hoping he is doing well in his child-like world.