Cleveland sober facilities have worked for many Trumbull County addicts


By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

CLEVELAND

Craig Sallaz says miracles happen at the Ed Keating Center, where he has been getting treatment for his drug addiction for the past seven months.

“If it weren’t for this place, I wouldn’t know how to live. I couldn’t make a bed, nothing,” he said.

In the beginning, he was in a fog.

“I don’t think I even knew where I was the first month,” he said, but he took pride in the job he got and two months ago started his own company, providing upkeep on foreclosed properties in Cleveland. He is proud of the progress he has made.

“It’s all because of this place,” Sallaz said recently. “Miracles do happen. They give you the tools to stay sober.”

Sallaz says he’s been in rehab in programs lasting between six and 30 days “probably 20” times.

He has tried any facility you want to name, including ones that use the drugs Suboxone and methodone to alleviate the sickness that comes from withdrawal from drugs of addiction.

“You can say any detox facility in Ohio, I’ve done them. They don’t work. They get you off the drugs, but so will a psych ward. They won’t keep you sober when you get out,” he said.

Mark Hines, crisis referral specialist with the Mahoning Valley Hope Center, a nonprofit facility on Eastland Avenue in Warren, says the success rate among the 30 or so men he has taken to the Ed Keating Center in the past two years is around 70 percent, using the benchmark of still clean one year after completing the nine-month program.

Hines also is affiliated with the Basement Outreach Ministries, another Warren-based nonprofit organization that works with addicts and others in crisis.

Judge Thomas Gysegem of Warren Municipal Court is among several Trumbull County municipal court judges who believe in Hines and the two Cleveland facilities — Ed Keating for men and Edna House for women — that Hines works with. Edna House provided a list of the 37 women from Trumbull County who have come through the program since 2012. Twenty-one are still sober today — 57 percent.

“It’s one of the best things we’ve got going,” Judge Gysegem said. “When Mark wants someone to go there — an addicted person that he feels will benefit — I will release that person to Mark for treatment. Mark Hines consistently bats better than any treatment program that I’ve been involved with.”

Andrea DeBiasio, executive director of Edna House, says the national average success rate for addicts still being clean one year after leaving treatment is 10 percent.

Hines meets with individuals facing criminal charges because of drug addiction and assesses them. He will recommend someone for the program with the understanding that if they fail there, they will come back to Trumbull County to serve jail time.

Marty Taft, director of operations at the Ed Keating Center, said some of the keys to achieving sobriety are love and maturity. “If you care about the kids, they’ll care about themselves. They know you have love for them,” he said.

Taft, DeBiasio and Hines agree that the 12 steps of a program such as Alcoholics Anonymous and their programs are what help addicts recover.

“These kids need basic, old-school AA. It’s time to grow up. You need to get your head out of your butt,” Taft said. “They need hugs. This has to be No. 1 in my life. I still get high today, and it’s free — when their eyes are shining and their families care and get those hugs, that’s my high.”

Two weeks ago, Hines took three 20-something males from the Trumbull County jail to the Ed Keating Center and one female to the Edna House.

All of them have long histories of drug abuse.

Julie Davis, 29, smoked pot the first time at age 12, when her drug-addicted mother handed it to her. By 13, she had done crack cocaine, she said. “I have been in treatment 23 times since I was 13,” she said.

A probation officer in Girard Municipal Court called Hines and referred Davis after her most recent arrest. Hines went to see her in the jail, and she said she wasn’t interested in six months at the Edna House because six months was too long.

“My words were, ‘I’m a junkie. If it’s God’s will that I die, then I’m OK with it.’ I was extremely dope sick,” Davis said.

Two weeks after that conversation with Hines, however, Hines returned to talk with her again, and the “fog” had cleared enough for her to think about her two children, ages 10 and 8.

“I don’t want my daughter to think this is the way to live life – hustling around to get money, doing drugs, shooting up,” Davis said. “I love my daughter. I take her everywhere with me.

“My daughter knows not to talk to me first thing in the morning until I could feel OK again because I was dope sick. I have to take her to drug houses. This takes such a strong hold on you. After just using it two weeks, it has a real hold on you. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep. You think you are physically dying until you could get the drug in you.”

DeBiasio; Jen Caresani, resident coordinator; and Judi Sparano, program director, are all alumni of the Edna House. They also have connections to the Mahoning Valley, with Jen being from Mahoning County and Andrea being from Trumbull.

DeBiasio said she thinks the reason Edna House works is because it is “peer-run and peer-supported” with more than 100 volunteers per week who were addicts “teach[ing] them how to live sober, how to be responsible and do the things in life most people do.”

DiBiasio said the right term for her facility is “structured sober living environment.” It’s not a treatment facility, and it’s not a sober house, she said.

Lauren Thorp of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board and Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention said she endorses the work of the Edna House and Ed Keating Center, which are not like the treatment facilities in the Mahoning Valley because Edna House and Ed Keating Center are not state-certified treatment facilities.

“I’ve referred people to Edna House and Ed Keating. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback,” Thorp said.

The cost for Edna House is $100 per month for the first three to four months and $375 per month during the final months, assuming that the woman has employment after three months or so. The cost for the Ed Keating Center is around $1,000 for the entire nine months. In both cases, financial help is available, Hines said.

Plans are being formulated to create facilities such as the Ed Keating Center and Edna House in the Mahoning Valley, Hines said. “We need that type of program in Trumbull County,” Judge Gysegem said.