The Grace House was initially opened in 2010 by Phil and Gerri Shober to assist women in the recovery community as they transition back to full independent living. Starting with just one location in Ephrata, the concept grew to include three houses in the Ephrata, Denver, and Akron areas. In 2021, Grace House Berks was opened to serve women in the Wernersville and surrounding areas. As Phil and Gerri enjoy retirement, the Grace House continues to be a family endeavor, with their daughters, Grace and Kathleen, continuing the mission that began in 2010.

Grace House provides a sober and safe living environment in Lancaster and Berks counties for women who are in recovery from the disease of addiction. We help facilitate success in sobriety for motivated women. We seek women who have the sincere desire to remain in a supportive recovering community as they practice and develop their sober lifestyle. We support continued growth as our residents work towards full independent living.

Core Values

• Demonstrate love and compassion while also providing clear structure and support.
• Be good neighbors-clean, quiet, and respectful.
• Re-establish and/or develop life skills.
• Strive to put spiritual principles to work in our lives.
  
  

Vision

• To focus on our residents and provide them the support and guidance they need to succeed.
• To provide our residents with a comfortable, safe environment they will appreciate and enjoy calling home though their journey in recovery.
• To monitor our effectiveness and to continue to evolve for the better.

Colleen is a Certified Recovery Specialist and a former Grace House resident. She believes in giving women the same compassion that was given to her as she worked to overcome addiction. She has been working in the treatment field for the past 5 years and enjoys assisting residents in setting their goals.

Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner. You're invited to hang with us as we discuss how we live today, the choices we make, what we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around for a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, welcome again, to the Behavioral Corner. It's me, Steve Martorano, your host and guide. What we do here is talk about everything. It's a podcast about everything because everything affects our behavioral health. The whole shootin' match is made possible by our underwriting partners, Retreat, Behavioral Health, good people, experts in what they do, and great partners for this program. And you'll find out more about them a little bit down the road. You know, we spend a lot of time here on the podcast, talking about substance abuse, among many other things. But we often find ourselves dealing with clinicians and treatment, and what's available out there and maybe causes all of which we hope is been informational and helpful, because it is, you got to know your subject before you can do anything about it. But we also never want to lose sight of the fact that there's another story to tell as well. It's not all about the horrors of substance abuse. There are millions of stories of successful recovery. It's very important to remind people that this is possible. And it is accomplished by as I said, millions of people all the time. And so we call these episodes, "Voices in Recovery," just to remind us of all that is possible. Our guest is a perfect example of this. Colleen Elliott is eight years sober now, which constitutes success and long-term recovery as far as I'm concerned. And she has used her experience with substance abuse and recovery in her field of work now, which is as a certified recovery specialist. In addition to which she is a house manager of a sober living facility, which is no stranger to this program. We've known about Grace House through Grace Shober, and her family for a long time. And Colleen is a house manager, we're gonna get into that as well. So let me welcome calling into the corner. Hi, Colleen, thanks so much for joining us.

Colleen Elliott 
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Steve Martorano 
I got most of that, right? I think you're, you're like a walk-around advertisement for this kind of a topic. Tell me a little bit about yourself, where you grew up and with the family was like, if you can a little bit of your history, with substance abuse.

Colleen Elliott 
Okay, so I grew up in New Jersey in a place called Roselle, which was quite close. But it was like Elizabeth north, that's where people mostly know. I was born to like a family with two brothers and a sister. But when I was like, five, my uncle passed away from alcoholism. And I didn't understand what alcoholism was. And my cousins moved in. So I always say like, I'm a baby of seven. So growing up, I was the baby. And you know, everybody, and I feel like there was always addiction in my family. But my sister struggled for years. And she's passed away from this disease. But when I started looking like at myself, I see all my patterns of alcoholism is, as a young child. You know, I got married, I had two beautiful kids, I have an ex-husband, but my substance abuse got very bad, like stealing a lot. I called in fraudulent prescriptions. Because I worked in the dental field, you know, and there were a lot of consequences that started coming. So I went to like, my first treatment center came out, I went back home, and said, like, my choice substance was opiates, so I could still drink. So I was manipulating all then. Then I went to a sober living in Jersey for maybe like a month, but didn't really, you know, stick to what people suggested. And then I ended up back in another, you know, into it in a behavioral health place in Jersey, and they sent me to Retreat for my first time. And I kind of did what they told me, you know, I went to meetings with gotten to the sober house and didn't really practice program recovery. You know, I was still doing really, my behaviors never changed. And then I left a sober living on my own and started using for seven months. And it got very bad quickly. This time. My kids hadn't talked to me in like two years. There was nobody wanted anything to do with me. My brothers and sisters were like, we're done. So I entered back into retreat in 2015. So my sober date is in St. Patrick's Day for an Irish Catholic girl like me.

Steve Martorano 
Perfect.

Colleen Elliott 
And this time when I went, I listened to what people were telling me, you know, as they told me like, you have to change your behaviors, you know, and like you said before, like there are millions of people that got sober, and I used to think that the 12 steps were not gonna work for me, right? But then they would tell me that it doesn't say your name and the book that you're not going to get sober. So you know, like, just try it and see what happens. So I went back to the Grace House and started my journey. And, you know, things have gotten so much better in my life since I decided to turn my well over.

Steve Martorano 
So yeah, surrender is a very big part of this understanding that what you're doing is not working. So why not just stop what you're doing and give it up to something else? You know, it's a very mysterious process, you talk about being in and out of, or in and out of a couple of treatment facilities. And nothing surprises me anymore when friends of mine who don't know about this disease, go come on to the people go 10 times the treatment, it doesn't work. I tell him, Well, it doesn't work until it works. And the mysterious thing for me still remains that moment when, as you just said, you decided to start, okay, this time, I'll listen. Maybe you have an opinion, I've never been able to really put my finger on what that moment is when people go, I'm gonna really try it. Do you remember that? Was it a gradual thing when you went? Now this time I pay attention. Or did it just occur to you once, you know, is it a flash of light or something? How did that process begin for you?

Colleen Elliott 
I think my process started when I had to get a job to pay for my ex-husband have given me the first month to stay in my recovery house. And he said that if you choose not to go to work, then you're gonna be homeless. And that's your problem. So I would walk to work every day, it was like three miles. And I had like four songs. I like this little iPod Shuffle. But every day got easier. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna give it 30 days, and then things just started changing, right? And I don't think there was like ever like an aha like, they say that you know, this white light or burning bush. None of that happened. But life got better. And I think that's what, let me keep on going because like things started changing my life.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. It's amazing. Because it's so simple. When you think about it, you begin to change the well we know what cognitive behavioral therapy is, when you begin thinking differently, you begin acting differently. And then when you begin to see that acting differently results in positive outcomes. That's reinforcing.

Colleen Elliott 
Right.

Steve Martorano 
And there, I know that there are people that resist treatment because they think that they're supposed to wait for the white light to flash and it really doesn't work like that. Let me back up just a second. Before we move on to a little more about your experiences and talk about your family background, you say that there was addiction and death in your family history. Looking back on it, we know that there is a lot of that evidence of family history filled with this stuff. Do you think it is a learned behavior? Did you think you'd learned the behavior of addiction? Or do you really think you were sort of born into it?

Colleen Elliott 
I think I was born into it but just the addictive behaviors. Like one story of my life what I used to think like it was this is like a genetic thing or something. My niece who was also an she was an addict from my sister, had gotten into a really bad accident, and was like, beaten and was in a hospital and she went to a she was in like a mental health hospital because she was only like 12 years old after this accident happened. So for two years, I was our health proxy, she lived in California. But when she came out, the first thing she did was go back to drugs. She didn't remember anything from her childhood and didn't really remember me. But she realized that the transmitter feels good. And then she overdoses three days of being out of there. So I believe that it's in our system in my family.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, yeah. Believe me, there's, you know, as you know, that you a lot of studies about this, if they could figure that out how to turn the switch on, we would be turning the switch on. It doesn't work like that. We know, there are still unfortunate stigmas attached to this whole process. But they're wearing away I think over the years, but there are myths about it that I think can hinder all of this. And for me, the largest myth about how you get where you are is that somehow, well, you know, you do this, and then bang, you're better. Talk about how your experience was recovery as a process. It's not 28 days here, or just a meeting every week. Talk a little bit about the process, but particularly taking us up to that sober living aspect.

Colleen Elliott 
Okay, yeah. So I went into a sober living house and I didn't believe that I was like, I had no other place to go, right? I was homeless, let's just be honest. Like, I didn't know my choices, and I went there. But those people taught me how to live life, right? They taught me how to get into a routine every day. And also not just go to 28 days but like go into an app. outpatient afterward, that's where I met most of my sober friends, in the beginning, was like in the outpatient program, you know, stepping down into an environment that was safe for me. Because if I went home, the people at home don't really understand what I say I'm struggling, like, I come home and say, oh my God I want to use today, they have no idea. But being that Sober Living house, those people knew what I was talking about. And they would be able to there to listen to me and like say, Hey, let's go to a meeting. Why don't we do this? And also, like, my family giving me like, no, ultimately, like, it was like, either you do this, or you don't. But I like with my kids, my ex-husband was like, You're not gonna talk to them if you continue to do what you're doing. And he gave me one day a week, that I was allowed to call them at seven o'clock. And if I didn't call, then you'd wait till next week. So I think that's what it was. And living in the sober living house taught me how to, you know, remember how to do chores, you know, just being with a bunch of women and learning life all over again, because they do say, when you stop your drugs, like when you stop your drugs where your brain goes on, I was probably like, you know, 25 year old when I first came out of treatment, you know,

Steve Martorano 
yeah, you had two children, you you say, Yes. How old were they, for the most part during this process?

Colleen Elliott 
When I went to the Retreat, the first time my daughter started in high school, she was 14, I think my son was 13. And then it just evolved that I just, they just thought they were not going to really see me, you know?

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. For children of substance abusers. There's never an optimum time to deal with that. But it's particularly difficult when they're young teenagers, right?

Colleen Elliott 
Yes, it is.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. So as the avenues get cut off, you know, people, people think tough love is just like being, you know, going to be tough here. What they're really doing is, while they're saving themselves, number one, they're also cutting off all these avenues of escape that addicts want to use. And so sort of forces you in that position. How long did it take you to get over the notion, for instance, at an AA meeting, your first experience in AA, or moving into sober living? Did you experience that moment where you looked around and went? I'm not like these people. How long did it take you to go? Oh, yeah, I am.

Colleen Elliott 
When I first got to...I went to a lot of speaker meetings, the first like when I came out of treatment because I want to hear other people's experiences. And I also remember, like being at like, somebody's means, like, I'm not gonna have anything in common with this speaker. And then she would say the same story as me, right? And that was like, somebody else or like getting a sponsor and being able to sit down with them and tell them stuff that I was feeling. And she got it. She understood what I was feeling. Right. So I think it took a little while for me to really think about that. But I do remember saying all these people, I guess they aren't like that.

Steve Martorano 
Isn't it remarkable that you people in deep in substance abuse, dragged themselves to let's say, a meeting and their immediate reaction -- now think about it, they've dragged themselves to a meeting for people who have substance abuse issues. And your first reaction early on is I don't have anything in common with that. That's an amazing process. But it shows us what drugs and alcohol do to your brain just lie to you, you would think there is no other group more suited for you to be it than people in the same situation. So when that starts to wear away, then I think the benefits of something like that begin to take hold. Are you convinced that you could not have gotten sober without AA?

Colleen Elliott 
I'm trying every other way I possibly could. I did Colleen's way all the time. And because steps are in line for me to just, it's changed my life. It's a design for living. I've tried in other ways. For me personally. It was my way of staying sober. I do believe there are other pathways people use. But my pathway was to go through AA and the 12 steps and continue to do that every day in my life. You know, practice the steps.

Steve Martorano 
Your colleague, Greg Shober joins us many times he's just talking about the individual steps. She's a firm believer in AA. I, I tell people I have not been in recovery myself. But I tell people at this point now who go come on AA does it work? I say well works for the people it works for. There's just no other way of describing AA. Let's talk about when did you as you began seeing your life get better. When did you pivot and say, This is something I may want to devote my life to tell me about that period of time?

Colleen Elliott  
I think it was when I got the job at the great I was out of the Grace House for like a year and I got the I was offered a position as an assistant manager of the house. And I started liking it right? I started thinking well, all right. And then I also went back and worked for Retreat after I was out of treatment for 18 months. And I think that's when I realized like, this is something I want to do. This is something that I think I can share with some things and people and maybe be able to like even just put a seed in their mind about how recovery is.

Steve Martorano 
Very common. It's I think it's less common today than it used to be. But a lot of people were on that path, they wind up in substance abuse treatment. I think some people think that that is sort of an extension of the recovery. And it may, it may certainly be, but it's interesting that something as terrible as substance abuse should really put you in a place ultimately, where you find out what you're good at.

Colleen Elliott 
Right. It's true. I mean, I didn't think I wasn't, and I just kind of started realizing like, Alright, I have something to offer, right, I think I may have something to offer some people especially like when I went to work for the Grace House, I had something to offer these women and tell them my experience, strength and hope.

Steve Martorano 
In terms of work, regardless of substance abuse, it's always the dream of all of us that wind up with some kind of vocation that we're good at and can make a living at. And so it's strange to have to go through what people do to wind up sober and doing it. But you know, Life is funny that way, our guest, incidentally, Colleen Elliott, is a certified recovery specialist and house manager of a sober living facility, a gracious house, what does the house manager do?

Colleen Elliott 
I try and guide the women. So I feel like if I if I'm asking them to do something, I should be also doing that for my recovery. So weekly, we have an in-house meeting with the ladies and them, you know, share what we also we'd like the 12 steps in the grace house, if you want to come to the grace house, we, you know, it has to be an A, we have a lot of dharma. And we encourage them to get a sponsor, we share our experience once a week with the ladies. And every day, they send us an update on what's going on in their day. So I respond to them, usually at the end of the day, but it's I check to make sure that they're you know, they're being accountable to themselves. That's what I'm really there for, to just to guide them and give them direction or suggestions on like, you know, job situations, or if they have a doctor's appointment, make sure they're making their appointments and things like that.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Do you do any of these women had their children with them during this period of time or not?

Colleen Elliott 
No children are not allowed at the house. I mean, some people are rebuilding their relationships. And that's one thing that we do in our house, we want our ladies to start building rebuilding relationships with their families. So even if they come in, and they're all like a 21-day blackout, they just got out of treatment. We like them to like they're going about their family, we welcome that we feel like that should be something that they were able to do.

Steve Martorano 
Let's talk about rebuilding relationships. Because you know, this is we know this is a disease of the family. And they need to recover as well, in a sense from the trauma of seeing your case, you know, mom, and, you know, go down that road. How did that process begin for you? How do you begin to regain and build relationships, particularly with your children? How did you begin to do that?

Colleen Elliott 
Yes, so I would call them once a week, and their dad allowed them to come visit me twice. The first year was sober. I think. When I was going through it, I was like, I can't believe he's keeping them from me. Thank God that that man did it that way, right? Because I was able to regain that. So like showing up for my kids. And I remember I would call up every time and be like, Oh, I have 30 days. So by six days sober. And somebody said, Why aren't you asking them "What's up with them?" So it got to a point where we started talking more my son, I know when we first would meet up, he wouldn't even want to like to hug me. Like I had cooties. He was like, oh, wouldn't share a drink with me. Today, my son calls me every day. facetime me, he's 24 years old now. So like, it's been a process and being able to make amends to my children. And I remember telling them what my choice of substance was and it was heroin. And I didn't know how to tell them this right. And I kept thinking, they're gonna think of that CD person they see in the movies. And my son said to me, you don't look like a heroin addict. And I asked him, what would it look like? And he told me what like in the movies, a seedy person, right? And they started realizing that this can happen to anybody, you know, and then my kids, you know, no to watch themselves with drinking or anything like that. I guide them, but I can't keep them from doing what they're going to do you their adult children, and, but my relationship with them today is amazing. You know, we talk all the time I go there, usually every other month, or they come here to visit me. So it's rebuilt, rebuilt that, and my ex-husband and I have truly like gained back a friendship, you know, and being able to watch our kids together. And I just give him a lot of credit for being able to take that burden on himself.

Steve Martorano 
I imagine that during that process, you have to really manage not only your expectations but your other emotions. It must have been both frustrating and I'm sure you got angry at times. Thinking you were why are they still punishing me? Why why are they still punishing me? When did that go away? When did you stop thinking of yourself as the victim and move on?

Colleen Elliott 
I think it was when I started realizing that they were trusting me more when I would first go visit my daughter's save, I think she was probably 17 or 18. And I would take the train and have a car at the time, I would take the train to Jersey, and she started leaving her wallet in the car, right? And I started saying, Oh, this is getting better. She's trusting me more, you know, I think was when I started building trust back. Like my brothers, it was harder for me to get back in with my, to my brothers, really anything to do with me. Because they, they thought I was gonna do it all over again, you know, but when I was like five years sober, my one brother called me and said, Hey, I just want to tell you like, I'm really proud of you, and I'm gonna start crying. And he said, Well, I'm also getting help now because my mental health isn't good. Do you know? So he kind of understood it after that, you know, and like rebuilding that relationship. It was amazing.

Steve Martorano 
Do you have any, it's an emotional story. Do you have the occasion to speak to people and tell them how possible it is for anybody to wind up in this situation? You did? Because a lot of your son was confused. He looked...that's, mom. I mean, maybe she could be an alcoholic. Maybe she could be abusing pills, but her What? What do you tell people about how easy it is for all kinds of people to wind up in this kind of shape?

Colleen Elliott 
Yeah, I think I try to explain that it really can help get you to know, I try and give examples of different people that I have met throughout my journey of sobriety and different backgrounds that they came from, and how it just, you know, it can take over anybody's life a, you know, a pain pill, and it can just start out like that, right? You can't get the medication. And because there are so many differences, everybody kind of the stereotype is that we're all like low life, right? These addicts and alcoholics, they, you know, I used to think that, you know, the alcoholic was under a bridge with a bottle, right? But that's not it. But that was my perception. So what I have to do in life is get out there to show people that we do recover. And I try and make any kind of recovery event that they have just show up and say, We can do this, you know, we can definitely change people's outlook on us.

Steve Martorano 
Eight years is a healthy time to be not using, you know, congratulations for that. What can you tell us about urges, the urges to use even just the thought, do they still occur? And they occur less frequently? Are they is that part of your life gone?

Colleen Elliott 
I don't obsess about it anymore. I do think about it. You know, I'm not saying I do it every single day. But I do think about it or like, if I'm out with friends that are not alcoholics and they're having a drink, I'd be like, it would be really good now. But it's like a fleeting thought, you know, but I have a support system that I would call. I was having a like a difficult time about a year and a half ago. And if it wasn't for the three women that I called, I was making my mind up, but I'm just gonna go get a drink. Right? That was my thing. But I reached out, they called me back and immediately talked me through it came to my house and went to a meeting with me. So like, because of that sober support. I think that's how I get through any kind of stress or anything I'm struggling with in life.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, the other thing people need to know is that they're not going to if they're going to be successful at this, they've got to understand that there are people they can rely on. Because it seems a lot you know, when you're using It's a lonely thing. And the idea that you have to do this by yourself, I guess stops people sometimes because they just go I can't do it by myself. It's an amazing process, you know, in a sense, and tell me if you think I'm wrong here, those moments where you think, Well, it'd be nice to have a glass of wine here. While dangerous, because you might give it to them, or also a kind of way to remind yourself, uh oh. Right?

Colleen Elliott 
Yeah, it sometimes reminds me that maybe I'm not putting as much recovery time into my recovery right now. Right? Because I get stressed like you're working I do three 12 hours and a four. And sometimes I just feel like on Fridays, I just want to relax. But it gave me my roommate can tell my behavior. She'll tell me I'm isolating too much. And then I which is good. She reminds me she's my support, and she'll and then I get more active, I got to start reaching out to more women again and start getting back into what I'm supposed to do.

Steve Martorano 
I only mentioned that notion of urges because you know, it's kind of a lie that they go away. For everybody, you probably don't, but it is instructive to notice how they can wind up getting you back on track. A reminder that you know, I gotta keep working at this. Finally, let's take a moment to talk about what you do as a certified recovery specialist. Do you meet individual...with individuals or in groups? What do you what are you doing?

Colleen Elliott 
Um, you can we do groups, and then we also can we do individuals for like an hour a week and we go over like a recovery plan. Make sure that they're on, you know, they're compliant with their legal obligations. Make sure that they're compliant with their medications, make sure their appointments are set up that they're, you know, I talked about making meetings, seeing a sponsor, and just trying and guide them. And sometimes you can take them to I take them to a meeting if they don't have a ride, I can pick them up, take them to me, because as a certified recovery specialist, you're allowed to take your client out and go into meetings and recovery events.

Steve Martorano 
Colleen Elliott, appreciate your time. I know you're busy. I don't want to put you on the spot here. Now, if there's somebody on the brink, you know, and don't know what I mean, really on the break, they know it's not working. They know they can't keep doing it. What do you advise them to do? First thing. The first thing to do? Who do you call? Where do you go? What do you think?

Colleen Elliott 
If they think they were working or program recovery, and they, you know, are having a breakdown or whatever, maybe call a, you know, sober support. But a lot of times, maybe if you're not, I mean, I think there's so many programs now, like through the hospitals, like emergency rooms, if somebody really wants to get some kind of treatment, there's like programs like warm handoff, second chance that will, you know, find them a place to go to, because if you don't have the support, going into a hospital will at least allow somebody to come in and be your support and try and aid you in getting into treatment.

Steve Martorano 
I always like to say that it's important to realize that treatment and sobriety, they don't deliver to the house. You know, you've got to make that first step. So great advice. Make a phone call, and ask a friend or your physician. But don't sit around waiting for somebody to bring it to your front door. Colleen, thanks so much. We appreciate it. I can't believe how long have you been at Grace House as a manager now,

Colleen Elliott 
About probably seven years like it was assistant manager. And then I moved when our parents decide when they stepped back. Her mom made me mad are so Grace and I've been doing it together for like, like just the two of us for four years. And Grace is also my sponsor, so it's kind of like works out that way. You know, she was the one who told me, you know, this is what you got to do.

Steve Martorano 
I know Grace, I know her family, her mother, and father amazing. And you're surrounded by great people, so it's no surprise that you listen to them. And that's a good calling. Thanks so much. I'd love to have you back again sometime.

Colleen Elliott 
Okay, I would definitely love to.

Steve Martorano 
Alright, terrific. Thanks for your time. Thanks for you guys as well. Don't forget about us. You know you follow us on Facebook and Instagram and wherever else you follow people. And like us when you get a chance to like us. We even like to hear from you in terms of a review. We're not afraid of those either. The behavioral corner tells a friend.

Retreat Behavioral Health 
Retreat Behavioral Health has proudly been serving the community for over ten years. Here at Retreat, we believe in the power of connection and quality care. We offer comprehensive, holistic, and compassionate treatment from industry-leading experts. Call 855-802-6600 or visit us at www.retreatbehavioralhealth.com to begin your journey today.

The Behavioral Corner 
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