Though a struggle, Arise helped Lynchburg woman reclaim sobriety

By Cynthia Pegram

Published: June 28, 2008

The folks who came into Arise had to come a long way down to get there.

The 28-day substance abuse treatment program run by Central Virginia Community Services program, which closes Tuesday, was sometimes an access to a route back home.

Ask Connie Windsor.

Outpatient treatment didn’t work for her.

What happens, she said, is that after the meetings, you go back to the settings that got you in trouble to start with.

Windsor has told her story in the past, speaking publicly on behalf of Miriam’s House in Lynchburg.

Her addictions had landed her in jail. Her children went to a group home. She agreed to go into Arise, then in Forest.

“They said if you can successfully complete the 28-day program, it would possibly lessen your sentence if you were successful. I went in, thinking that’s what I would do.”

Everything was structured, she said. There were chores and meetings — lots of meetings. And people who know about addiction disease.

“It felt good to have someone to relate to,” she said. “On the outside, I felt so alone.”

Shared stories helped her understand that some of the residents were like her, and others were in far worse shape. “But we were all there for a reason.”

She returned to jail after Arise, and when she got out she went back to the trouble she’d left. She was on the waiting list for Miriam’s House, a residential program in Lynchburg for women on the verge of homelessness and their children. But she’d used drugs and was caught by the urine screen, and she was back in jail.

Windsor believes her counselor saw something positive in her because she got a second chance for Arise residential. Even though she had not succeeded the first time, she said she learned a lot.

“The first time was like an awakening, because you don’t think you have a problem.”

The second time was different.

“I was totally focused. I was a nerd. I was like a sponge. … I was doing my homework, reading, writing.”

When she got out, Hope House, a Salvation Army short-term shelter, made space for her. Then the room she was waiting for in Miriam’s House opened up. She entered in June 2001 and graduated in 2003.

A cashier job with a chain store led into a management-training slot and self-support. She was transferred several times, and now she and her children live in the Lynchburg area again. Windsor is still with the same employer.

She says she’s been drug-free for seven and a half years.

Closing Arise “is awful,” she said. “Addiction is crazy.”