Success Stories
Ashley's Story
"For me art was a way to not think; it was a therapy the way yoga or meditation or working out is for other people. Art helped me heal" says Ashley, an alumni and current volunteer at Interim House.
Family Services: Rosie's Story
When Rosie was seventeen, two significant changes occurred in her life: she started using drugs and gave birth to her first child. When he daughter was nine months old, Rosie's mother offered to babysit one day. Rosie walked out of the house and didn't come back for more than a year. During that time she took pills, used marijuana and, while working in a brothel, got turned on to methamphetamine and heroin. But during the entire time she was on drugs, she never stopped thinking about her daughter.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Program: Cynthia's Story
When she was seven years old, after being regularly molested by her grandfather, Cynthia had her first drink. Over the years, she used crack cocaine, heroin, alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and occasionally pills. After she entered a recovery program in 2006, she tried to stay clean but relapsed. Ultimately, she was incarcerated. She finally came to Interim House in April 2009. Now, at 38, she says "I'm two months shy of three years clean. I'm loving the recovery process. I have no excuse to ever get high again."
Job Readiness Program: Bella's Story
For fifteen years Bella used drugs: marijuana, alcohol, crack cocaine and particularly PCP. Between stays in prison, Bella cared for her young daughter, but after a traumatizing miscarriage, followed by a day-long PCP binge, Bella decided she needed help. The next day, August 10, Bella entered Interim House and has been clean and sober ever since.
Therapeutic Knitting Program: Keisha's Story
Keisha, a 43-year-old single mother with an eleven-year-old son, lives just three blocks from Interim House, in the same neighborhood where she grew up. After she was kicked out of her father's home because of her alcohol use, Keisha entered Interim House. She had heard about Interim House from a woman at Alcoholics Anonymous.
