Program Details

    Statistics show that long-term addiction recovery is most successful after a full year of being sober. Brand New Mercies is a structured, year-long program that requires discipline and dedication from its participants.

    Intake

    Women seeking to enter the program are interviewed by our house mother, to make sure that the program is a good fit. We assess whether their needs fit within our capabilities, and whether they are committed to putting in the work necessary to succeed and be sober for life.

    Phase 1

    The first 30-60 days of the program are dedicated to physical recovery and healing. Participants are required to attend a relevant meeting each day (Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, etc.). The program is faith-based, but does not require adherence to any faith; we only ask that women be open to the ideas included in the program.

    everything that participants need, from toiletries to food to clothing.

    Phase 2

    When participants are ready for the second phase of recovery, we help them to seek employment so they can begin to provide for some of their own needs. They are allowed to work up to 40 hours a week, but the program continues to take priority.

    During this phase, we introduce more training for life skills such as how to budget, alternative banking options for participants hampered by a criminal history, household management, child care, and whatever else is needed to learn independence and self-sufficiency.

    Relapse Prevention

    The most up-to-date scientific research suggests that while a tendency to addiction cannot be cured, it is treatable with an effective program. While someone may have a long history of addiction, they can still learn how to stay clean and sober.

    The Brand New Mercies program includes developing an individualized relapse prevention plan for each participant. It is key for each woman to know her own triggers, and to recognize when she is in “relapse mode”: a state of mind when she hasn’t yet sought drugs, but she is being triggered and her resolve is sliding. It is also key for her to know what she needs to do to stop the slide, and where she will go for support.

    Our goal is that each program graduate makes a daily routine of looking at her plan, taking a self-inventory, and making sure she is staying on a good path.

    Three Aspects of Recovery

    Brand New Mercies follows a recovery model that has been in use for 50 years by the CityTeam program House of Grace, with a 94% recovery rate. There are three aspects of recovery:

    1. Physical recovery:
    Abstinence from all mind-altering drugs.

    2. Thinking recovery:
    Getting out of the mental mode of being an addict and into the mental mode of being a recovered, whole person. This also requires confronting and dealing with past behavior, especially the harmful things participants have done to feed their addictions.

    3. Feeling recovery:
    Building emotional maturity. At the point in life when a person becomes addicted to a drug, they stop emotionally maturing, as the drug becomes a substitute for growth and personal development. To move forward with their emotional growth, participants must take an honest self-inventory and take responsibility for their own behavior—past, present, and future.

    Community Partners

    Our community partners help provide our participants with services like day care, medical care, and dental care. These services are invaluable for helping women in the program maintain employment, ­recover physically from the effects of addiction, and recover their aesthetic self-image.

    Special Support for Mothers

    The Brand New Mercies residence is set up to allow children to stay with their mothers. Life skills such as newborn and child care, as well as household management, are an integral part of our program.

    Our program has also earned credibility with the court system and built a strong relationship with CPS. This allows us to assist our participants in regaining maternal rights or visitation, turning a painful and discouraging situation into a powerful goal and source of hope.