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Detox center opens in Austintown at height of local heroin epidemic
AUSTINTOWN
Due to the increase in heroin addiction cases, a newly opened detox facility is ready to tackle the problem.
“There’s a heroin epidemic here,” said Kortney Gherardi, program director of Braking Point Recovery Center.
The center is located at the former Austintown Health Care Center, 45 N. Canfield-Niles Road, and celebrated the opening of its Robert J. Scotchie Detox Wing during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday evening. The 15-bed facility will provide detox services for drug and alcohol addicts for about five to seven days, she said. Patients are then transferred to other programs.
Within the next three months, Braking Point plans to open a 28-day residential stay for up to 36 graduate patients.
Ryan Sheridan, the owner of Braking Point, said the center has 25 employees now and is currently hiring nurses and counselors. He plans to add another 25 employees over the next three to four months.
“This facility is going to help people,” he said.
Sheridan experienced his own problems with addiction. When he attended a three-day class for driving under the influence in 2003, he brought several drugs with him, including a bottle of rum, pills and marijuana – all of which was confiscated. He said he remembers all the tickets he was issued for that incident. But in the after moments of that, Sheridan met the late Robert “Bob” Scotchie, who helped others with drug addiction for 27 years. The two started working closely together helping other addicts in need.
They started Braking Point in 2009. Bob’s unexpected death last year put the project into some uncertainty, but eventually Sheridan and his staff were able to move forward.
“It’s an emotional time because this is what Bob wanted,” Gherardi said.
Rick Stauffer, an Austintown trustee and pastor of Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church, said drug and alcohol addiction is certainly an issue in the Mahoning Valley. Stauffer, who has some recovering addicts attending his church, emphasized that it’s an issue even if only one person in the area suffers from addiction.
“We need to find that one person help,” he said.
Braking Point also offers DUI school, outpatient treatment, house arrest and drug testing services.