Learning to cope: Year-old charity opens second home for recovering addicts

Photo by Nathan Gray

A ministry group is held at a house in Homeland Park for men recovering from drug addiction as part of the New Vision Recovery.

Photo by Nathan Gray

A ministry group is held at a house in Homeland Park for men recovering from drug addiction as part of the New Vision Recovery.

ANDERSON — Kim Blackwell tried for years to resist her craving for the deadly, yet addictive chemicals in heroin and alcohol.

“I was in and out of a 12-step program for three years, and I could never get more than 80 days of sobriety,” Blackwell said.

Her slow slide into a life of addiction began at 13. Then it was marijuana and alcohol. Then at 18, she had a hysterectomy. She learned then that she couldn’t have children. And the young Anderson woman battled cancer. Drugs turned into a crutch.

“It was then that I realized what the drugs could do for me. They helped me cope. Over the years, it got worse and worse,” Blackwell said. “For 15 years, I used. I stole and even turned to prostitution.”

This December, this 34-year-old waitress will celebrate a year of sobriety. And she couldn’t be happier. She’s one of the 56 women who’ve made it through the New Vision Recovery Center on Anderson’s south side since it opened in 2008.

Now, that house has expanded to two.

Right across the street from the house where Blackwell spent three months of her life learning to work, pay rent and lean on God — instead of drugs — is another house. One for men who are struggling like Blackwell was.

Connie Burkey, who heads up New Vision Recovery, found a former drug house in September 2008. With the backing of her husband and a friend of theirs, they moved the first woman tenant into the home on Sept. 15.

About a year later, on Oct. 8, the second house opened its doors.

All along, Burkey, who battled addictions herself for years, said she has simply felt that God has moved her heart to start this work, to help others who are struggling with the same mountain that she has overcome.

Now, almost every bed in both houses is full. Three women are waiting to get into the red-brick house on South Main Street Extension.

Burkey said the charity is renting the women’s halfway house and is planning to actually purchase the house where the men are staying. Ultimately, she said she would like to have five houses in Anderson where men and women can recover from addictions while learning how to live normal, productive lives.

New Vision Recovery is a place for men and women to live while using the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program to recover from lives lived with addictions — some to alcohol, some to drugs and some to both.

Burkey said there are 25 of the 56 women who’ve been through the program who are still sober. Blackwell is one of them. Burkey said she feels good about those numbers. However, she has changed the program from a three-month stay in the house to six months.

“To have 25 women still sober, those are fantastic odds,” Burkey said. “But I believe if they stay here six months, that will give them a better foundation for sobriety.”

Rules are in place for residents of the house. If residents break them, they must leave, Burkey said. They pay rent and have to work while they are part of the program. Burkey said that teaches the men and the women who come through those doors to deal with life without leaning on drugs or alcohol.

For Blackwell, living in the world while learning how to stay clean is what has helped her stay sober for a year.

“We are taking responsibility,” Blackwell said. “Women have gotten their kids back. We are not stealing, selling our bodies or harming other people. I owe God for my life. And I owe New Vision because they taught me how to live my life and to be a lady. A place like New Vision lets us be in the world, but we are not of it.”