A LOCAL WOMAN ADDICTED TO DRUGS SEEKS HELP FROM COURTS AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH only to find herself addicted to another drug and having to leave her home at 4:30 every morning to legally obtain it or she will go into withdrawal or worse, go back to the street for relief. She could be your mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, daughter or friend. She just may be. What happens when the behavioral health services run out? Does she know how to stay clean, or does she go back to the street, use illegal drugs and start the cycle with behavioral health all over? In the case of this woman, as is the case with many others, the services are running out and the woman is being returned to homelessness without the means to legally continue to get the drug the system got her hooked on.
MAT: Medication Assisted Therapy: (MAT) is the use of medications, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to provide a “whole-patient” approach to the treatment of substance use disorders.
DRT: Drug Replacement Therapy: Drug replacement and maintenance therapy have a long history of providing individuals struggling with problematic drug use with legal access to drugs that would otherwise be obtained through illegal means.
Sounds great in theory.
In reality it’s a big money maker and no one really wants to help you/your addict stop. The profits are huge. Some places have as many as one thousand patients, twenty dollars a day per patient is a lot of money.
Stories from addicts and families whose addicts have been tied to these therapies for many years are abundant. The clinics tell them the addict will be “tapered” off the drug and counseled on staying clean but in reality, after many years of being addicted to the replacement drugs, the word taper is no longer in the conversation.
This story is the reality for many people. Our nation, state, and county are suffering the effects of the opioid epidemic. The woman we headlined is real. She ended up in the care of our local Behavioral Health Services and legal system. When the people who agreed to help her were asked why Recovering Hands, our only local residential recovery center for women, wasn’t considered as an alternative to homelessness and/or addiction their response was “Recovering Hands doesn’t meet the criteria”.
We, at Recovering Hands, can’t seem to get a straight answer regarding what criteria it is that we don’t meet. One possible reason? Recovering Hands doesn’t condone the use of MAT or DRT. Our program utilizes a life skills program, 12 step meetings and connections with others who are also on the same path; a decades old, proven way for people to find recovery and stay abstinent from any substances. Recovering Hands, a Consumer Operated 501-3(c) organization, is accredited by the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences. We are dedicated to providing support and residential extended-care to women suffering the effects of substance use. Recovering Hands is located on a 150-acre property in Nathalie, VA and has four beds. Our mission is to help women suffering from the effects of alcohol and drug abuse improve their health and wellness, learn to live a self-directed life and begin to utilize the recovery skills necessary to reach their full potential. For women who want to turn their lives around, our program creates the resiliency necessary to thrive.
From a former resident: “During a previous stay in another rehab there was so much drug talk that all I wanted to do was use. After 21 days I ended up leaving early and I overdosed. Another time the CSB sent me to GALAX for 8 days. They said there wasn’t any additional funding to send me anywhere else. Within a week of being home, I was back out there and doing way worse. My experience with Treatment Centers is that they made me want to use drugs, not get off them.”
“The program at Recovering Hands was not so focused on the drugs as on the life skills that I needed in order to sustain long term recovery. The tools I learned during my 90 days built my foundation and now I am still using these tools to deal with life on life’s terms.”
Recovering Hands adheres to a professional competency standard and uses evidence-based practice models in our program. Recovering Hands offers a safe recovery-based living environment for women struggling with addiction and alcoholism, insulating them from the triggers that might otherwise pull them off their paths, giving them a chance to move into long-term recovery with a solid base in place.

Recovering Hands teaches women how to stay clean without replacing one addiction.   Please speak out against a system that won’t consider Recovery over MAT and DRT.