Purpose:

Transforming the lives of women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction by providing a long-term residential program to experience physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through recovery.

About Me

My photo
Breakthru House, Inc., is a member of the Action Ministries family of ministries. Action Ministries, Inc. is an independent, faith-based, Georgia non-profit corporation with roots in the United Methodist Church. As the first long-term residential recovery program for women in Georgia, Breakthru House is designed to meet the unique needs of women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. Utilizing the 12 Steps and a Therapeutic Community, Breakthru House provides a safe, structured drug free environment to foster a life of recovery while therapeutically addressing addiction as a disease, unresolved grief, trauma, and poor self-esteem issues commonly associated with female addicts. Since its founding in 1969, Breakthru House's founding principle remains constant: physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through recovery is possible when each woman's treatment program is designed to meet their individual needs.

Share:

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Gardening at Breakthru House

Wow! What a garden!!! 











Breakthru House utilizes a garden for our client for both therapeutic reasons as well as to save money on nutritious foods!

We'd like to extend a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us with our garden:

Shanna Wood - for working weekly with the clients to research, plan, and prepare the garden plots - THANK YOU!!!

To our nurse volunteer, JoAnn Akers and The Pilot Club, along with Bob and Martha Forrest - for donating garden supplies - THANK YOU!!

To Kim Little, St. James UMC, and their FABULOUS volunteers for teaching us about composting and organic gardening, donating supplies, full-size plants and tools, and for a lot of hard work - THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!



The garden is an exciting, therapeutic, and tangibly useful project for our clients! Check out this zucchini - the clients were amazed!!


The clients are reporting some squirrel issues - they are eating our tomatoes!!! Anyone have great organic remedies for keeping squirrels and other critters away?? Leave us a comment!!

by Melanie Storrusten, LCSW, Clinical Coordinator

Monday, June 13, 2011

Board Members Admitted to Breakthru House!

by Melanie Storrusten, LCSW, Clinical Coordinator

Last Wednesday, Breakthru House staff held a board member training event where board members were "admitted" to treatment!

Board members arrived at our office, 


and had their wallets, cell phones, and keys confiscated by Kaysha Corniffe, our Administrative Coordinator and Jessica Jenkins, one of our Counselors.


Then they were drug screened,


and breathalyzed.

They all passed, so they were admitted to treatment and proceeded to our group room where they reviewed consents with our Resident Manager, Gail Whitton.



Their bags were searched, and any contraband items were confiscated. No cleansers, lotions, perfumes, or items containing alcohol allowed!



Board members were then paired up with clients, and received a tour of the residences, highlighting first aid and emergency procedures, and an overview of program rules and schedules.

We then had a working dinner - our Clinical Coordinator, Melanie Storrusten reviewed various assessment tools used in our Assessment Phase to assist us in providing individualized treatment to each client. Then Kate Boyer, our Executive Director, joined in to lead a very information Question and Answer session. The board members' passion was evident - they had lots of questions!

After the Q&A, Sarah Postich, our newest staff member and Lead Counselor, joined Jessica in co-leading a group in which board members and clients could share about the experiences of coming to treatment. 


Each board member left with a Big Book, AA's 12-Step book, which is one part of the Recovery Kit that incoming clients receive.

Thank you so much to our board for attending and learning more about addiction and the excellent therapeutic services that we provide at Breakthru House! We hope that you all enjoyed the evening and learned a lot! Leave us a comment to share about your experience!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

ELO - Mr. Blue Skies, a great client theme song!


...
Runnin' down the avenue
See how the sun shines brightly in the city
On the streets where once was pity
Mister blue sky is living here today hey, hey

Mister blue sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?
...