Recovery Month more than a slogan for Cope-Bridgewell clients

LYNN – September is Recovery Month for people treating addicts and alcoholics, and for Ericka Evans and Ashley Goucher, it is a chance to help people gripped by the same disease that almost killed them.Goucher, 24, and Evans, 27, live in a downtown recovery home run by Lynnfield-based human service agencies Project Cope and Bridgewell for women rebuilding their lives after spending months, even years, as drug addicts and active alcoholics.?I?m trying to work on learning how to live life,” Goucher said.The Army veteran said an injury led her to pain medication abuse and heroin use. She has lived in the Cope-Bridgewell recovery home for five months and lived without drugs for 13 months. Evans has lived in the house with almost two dozen other women for eight months. She sees drug users and illegal drug activity when she walks out the home?s front door.Cocaine use led the Cambridge native into legal trouble. She is recovering by meeting in groups with other women in the home and talking to treatment workers like Marie DeVito. Evans wants to clear up her court problems and provide an example to other people seeking substance abuse treatment.?It is possible to get clean. I tell people, ?Have faith no matter what and don?t feel ashamed,?” she said.Addiction treatment workers have marked Recovery Month for 25 years as a way, said Bridgewell recovery and housing services director Beverly Clarke, to provide hope to people suffering from drug addiction and to reach out to addicts? loved ones.?To us, it?s an opportunity to focus on educating people who might not have made a decision to deal with addiction, but it?s also a time to celebrate success,” Clarke said.Heroin, including potent strains of the drug available to addicts, is killing people in Lynn and surrounding communities, Clarke said. Addicts who get help, including the women living in the recovery home, spend their first 30 days in treatment getting medical help to stay away from drugs and alcohol and then getting a new look at themselves through the eyes of other addicts and alcoholics.?They start talking about their experiences. They hear other people?s experiences. They let go of the guilt and shame that are barriers to overcoming addiction,” Clarke said.Women living in the recovery home eventually start rebuilding their lives by rebuilding their sense of responsibility and accountability, said Bridgewell housing director Elaine White. They learn basic skills, including cooking, shopping, attending to medical problems and resolving court cases.?The focus is on daily living,” Clarke said.Bridgewell combined its development disability treatment services with Project Cope?s substance abuse programs in a January merger giving Cope access to residential programs run by Bridgewell and Bridgewell access to Cope?s addiction treatment.Clarke said women who spend up to six months in the downtown recovery home – up to a year, if they have children – can move on to other residences where they can take on more day-to-day responsibilities while receiving substance abuse recovery help.Goucher and Evans said they stay away from drugs by surrounding themselves with other people who are recovering from addiction and by taking suggestions on how they can change their lives.They hope Recovery Month is a call to other addicts to follow the path they have taken.?Recovery Month means making other people aware there is a way out,” Goucher said.