October 17, 2009
Pregnant women, mothers battle addiction, find hope and recovery
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Kathleen Montgomery, left, program manager of Mercy Perinatal Recovery Network, and clients Jessica, center, and Kelly discuss issues during a group counseling session. Luis Gris/Herald photo
In a bleak economy, with county clinics and social service agencies reducing
services or closing altogether, Mercy Perinatal Recovery Network in Sacramento
steadily offers its free outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation program
to mothers who want to make a better life for themselves and their children.
Taking a holistic approach to sobriety instead of merely treating the client’s addiction, the program treats the entire client — her body, mind and spirit.
“There’s a difference between abstinence and recovery,” client Jessica told The Herald. “Abstinence is when you’re not using. Recovery is when you don’t use. Recovery is a new life.”
Created by and sponsored by Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento since 1997, Mercy Perinatal Recovery Network recently won the Achievement Citation Award from the Catholic Health Association of the United States in recognition of its bold and innovative initiative in service to the community.
The program’s success rate is remarkable. More than 70 percent of clients complete the first 90 days of treatment, compared to a national average of 30 percent. Nearly 60 percent complete 180 days of treatment, compared with 38 percent nationwide. Three-quarters of the women enter the program from an unstable living situation, and three-quarters have achieved a stable living situation when they graduate.
Mercy Women’s Center on Howe Avenue in Sacramento, which houses the program, is a welcoming, homelike environment. Floors are carpeted, art hangs on the walls, lamps and chairs make the rooms inviting. An on-site educational enrichment program in an open, cheerful area provides child care for clients’ children under age five. The women are treated with respect.
The network’s nine-month program is divided into three trimesters: for the first three months, they get sober and begin to recover from addiction; in the second trimester, they receive continuing care; in the final trimester, they learn how to sustain a sober life.
The program runs three days a week, six hours a day, with morning sessions in group counseling on substance abuse and afternoon classes tailored to each client. Classes include art therapy, yoga, parenting, anger management, domestic violence, self-esteem, and life skills, such as budgeting and grocery shopping.
“You never know what is going to reach a woman,” according to Kathleen Montgomery, the network’s program manager. For some women it’s nonverbal art. For others it is journaling. Some understand their feelings through yoga.
Understanding their feelings, and finding new ways to live with those feelings, is crucial to the womens’ sobriety. They’ve “self-medicated” through drug and alcohol abuse for years.
One client, Jessica, told The Herald she began using drugs and alcohol when she was 14. She’s 27 now, with four children ranging from 11 months to nine years old. Another client, Kelly, started using marijuana at age 13, moving to methamphetamine the following year. Kelly has two children, ages three and four.
Women from all levels of society are vulnerable to addiction, Montgomery noted, but unlike women with education and financial resources who struggle with substance abuse, the Perinatal Recovery Network’s clients live on government assistance or have no income at all. Seventy percent are high school dropouts, she said. Every one of them has suffered physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
“We treat the poorest, most isolated women, who face their addiction with the fewest resources,” Montgomery said. “These are the women and children Catherine McAuley cared for.” McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland in 1827.
In the Perinatal Recovery Network, women learn new coping strategies to handle problems and stay in recovery. One of the central tenets of recovery is to create community. Jessica says she’s learned to “stay connected, call my sponsor and stay in service.”
Each client is given a list of the names and phone numbers of all of the other women in the program, Jessica said. The single-spaced, typed list covers a standard sheet of paper. Each woman must call two other clients every evening, to ask how they are doing. If a client doesn’t make the calls, she’ll have to call five or six women the next evening. If she misses that goal, she’ll have to call every single woman in the program, each day, for as long as her counselor deems necessary, Jessica said.
The purpose of the phone calls is to create a network of friends who aren’t using, Kelly explained. People in recovery need to learn how to reach out to one another instead of withdrawing, she added, noting that “staying in service” is another way that the women stay connected.
“Calling my sponsor” refers to the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous model used at the network. Following the AA model, a former addict sponsors the network client in recovery, simultaneously supporting the client and remaining in service herself.
The women in the Perinatal Recovery Network have few life skills and no self-esteem, Montgomery said. Most of them have never been praised, never had an accomplishment noted.
At the program, however, they’re recognized for every milestone. They’re given a little angel stone when they enter the program, for their courage in choosing recovery. Montgomery explained that the angel is accompanied by a quotation from Michaelangelo, who said of one of his sculptures that the angel was already inside the stone — he merely set it free.
Each woman has an angel inside her, the clients are told. It’s her true self.
At the end of the first trimester at the Perinatal Recovery Network, the women are given a lapel pin. After the second trimester, they receive a larger pin. At graduation, which is a huge celebration complete with guest speakers, each graduate is given an angel locket, in honor of her setting herself free.
After graduation, the women are encouraged to stay connected and return whenever they choose, Montgomery said. Graduates from several years back still drop by, still in recovery. They are free.
Editor’s note: Last names of clients of Mercy Perinatal Recovery Network included in this article were withheld to protect their privacy.
