GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) - Serenity Place, at 6 Dunean St., sits along the Norfolk Southern railroad line near what once was the largest mill in Greenville County. A hundred years ago, the Dunean Mills community thrived with a school, daycare, churches and services for the hundreds of mill workers and their families who lived there.
Though the community built around the mill withered over the years, signs of revitalization are creeping into the old mill village just southwest of the city of Greenville.
For the last five years, hundreds of women battling drug addiction have come to Dunean for Serenity Place, a residential treatment facility that accepts mothers with substance use disorders and their young children.
For 50 hours each week, they rebuild their lives as they begin their lives as mothers.
Now, their stories are coming alive in the pages of a compilation called “Blossoming in Recovery.”
Dale Savidge, a drama therapist and executive director of the Applied Theatre Center, handles the creative side of recovery, has spent the last year-and-a-half compiling poems, writings and art created by the women of Serenity Place for the new book.
“We really want to introduce the women to a variety of therapy because not every therapy is going to be a right fit for every client,” he said. “We really use any therapy that we think would help them open up, and it seems like they’ve really opened up and flourished in this psychodrama group.”
On every page a woman shares a little bit of herself in whatever creative way she chooses. Many of them write about their addictions, regrets, lessons learned and hopes they have for themselves and their children.
A GOODBYE LETTER TO DRUGS
Holland Hagy is one of them. She returned to Serenity Place for the second time after relapsing this year.
“I spiraled so quickly in three months, and I didn’t have a DSS (Department of Social Services) case, I didn’t have anything that brought me here but her,” she said as she bounced her daughter, Tayla-Lee, on her lap. “I knew the road I was headed down, and I knew Serenity Place would be a safe place for me to grow and keep her here with me.”
During therapy, she tried writing for the first time.
She came to Savidge’s group intending to write a letter to her parents to let them know how she was beating her addiction, but then the letter turned into a poem. And the poem took on a much more powerful meaning.
“I didn’t even know what I was writing about until I did it,” she said. “And then it kind of spiraled into a goodbye letter to drugs, and when I read it to Dale, he really, really liked it, and the more I read it and thought about it I decided I wanted it in the book.”
THE ART OF RECOVERY
By the time Shantel Lee got to Serenity, her decades-long addiction had taken over her life. She quit her job and brought her 3-year-old son, Jahlil Ritter, to Serenity, the scariest decision she says she’s ever made.
“I just told my son that it would be our new adventure,” she said.
When she arrived, she imagined her thoughts were like a New York City subway - a hodgepodge of different sorts of people standing together shoulder-to-shoulder, she said. It’s what she captures in her colorful, chaotic artwork.
“I’d like people to grasp the concept of the chaos that we come in with in our minds and in our hearts, and the chaos that we experience and how we feel, because 90 days later, it’s nothing like that,” she said.
A MOTHER’S STORY
In contrast, Faith Godfrey shows how she came to find clarity and direction in motherhood.
In the book, she writes a short, direct statement about overdosing six times in a year. Nothing was ever enough, not until a few months ago when she had her daughter, Sophia Rosemond, she said.
“When I write it down, I can read it and understand more of what I’m feeling without getting nervous,” she said. “I want to write a book for her, a book about my life and how it came to her and how she changed everything.”
She says her goal is to be independent and provide stability for her daughter.
“She’s my purpose, my reason for everything,” she said. “She saved my life, and I just want other people to see that your children can be enough.”
And Alexis Ball’s poem, “I Am Built From Every Mistake” recalls the pain and time she’s lost with her children due to her addiction.
“It just all hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said.
Ball, a mother of three, was wrapping up her time at Serenity and looking for a job by the time the book was published.
“I was thinking about the time I’ve spent without them and how I miss spending time with them,” she said.
The Greenville County Medical Society sponsored and paid to publish the book, which will be available for purchase at local bookstores and copies will be provided to future women entering Serenity Place.
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