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SWEET VALLEY — Every day, Tee Simpkins and daughter Cleo Lebron have to take a look at the “transportation board” at the Graniteville House of Recovery and figure out the transportation schedule for each of the house’s 20 residents.
For example, some have to get to doctor’s appointments or make other important stops and all their transportation needs have to be coordinated by Simpkins, CEO of the facility.
The Sweet Valley-based inpatient treatment site serves as a halfway house for women battling alcoholism and substance abuse issues and was started by Simpkins and Lebron in August 2017. Residents are usually enrolled in a 90-day program, which includes clinical treatment as well as peer support. Participants are helped with “life skills” such as finding housing, jobs, pursuing training programs or schooling, and also personal issues such as relationships with their children and other relatives. Most of Graniteville’s residents come to the house after they’ve completed a rehab program.
“It really is more of a halfway point of integration back into the community,” explained Lebron, director of admissions. “You’re still in treatment, but kind of getting your feet back into the community — figuring out what life looks like going forward.”
She also said the site has taken in many people impacted by Northeastern Pennsylvania’s drug and opioid crisis. According to the county coroner’s office, 155 people died in 2017 in Luzerne County from accidental drug overdoses.
“We’re definitely seeing a result of that crisis in treatment facilities,” said Lebron. Age-wise, the participants of Graniteville’s program range from teens to women in their 60s, she added. “It’s not one particular demographic suffering with it over another from what I’m seeing.”
‘One step at a time’
For Simpkins, alcoholism and drug addiction is an issue that hits close to home, since she dealt with these problems for 35 years. Her own excessive drinking started at age 15.
“I was a blackout drunk right from the beginning,” she said. Simpkins also used many different types of drugs, including LSD, heroin, ecstasy, and crack cocaine.
She went through rehab twice and is currently in her ninth year of sobriety. “It’s a miracle. It really is.”
Simpkins’ past experiences help her guide the women in the house, because they feel more at ease talking to someone who has also been through the recovery process.
“I think one of the biggest things is knowing that they’re not alone, knowing that somebody showed me how to do it and I continue to just pass that information on,” she said. “I pass on my experience really is all it is.”
Simpkins, Lebron and other staff members at the house encourage the residents not to worry about trying to fix everything in their lives all at once, but to surround themselves with people who encourage healthy and positive behavior.
“I think the best advice is to take it one step at a time,” said Lebron.