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REIDSVILLE - Annie Baldwin’s first week at the REMMSCO women’s group home for substance abusers reflected her seriousness about this chance.

“I wasn’t used to anyone telling me what to do,” said Baldwin, 51 , who had spent nearly two decades addicted to crack. “But I knew to be successful I had to listen to somebody for a change.”

That first week under the thumb of the nonprofit group, which operates separate homes for men and women trying to kick addictions to drugs or alcohol, there are no telephone calls and no visitors. Supervision is 24 hours a day.

After nine months in the program, Baldwin says she has regained her family — and their trust.

“My mother says I’m just like a new person,” said Baldwin, who graduated from the program four months ago and moved into her own apartment. “We never really had a mother-daughter relationship, but now we do. We go shopping together. We travel together. I have a family again.

“It wasn’t like that before because nobody trusted me, and they didn’t want me around because of the stuff I was doing.”

These are the stories that make Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page a supporter of REMMSCO, which takes its name from the first letters of surrounding communities. For 27 years, the group has provided a home and a means of re-entry into society for up to 14 substance abusers at a time.

“I just wish it had a little more support and a little more bed space because if you’ve ever had a friend or family member that’s gotten messed up with drugs or alcohol and they’re trying to get off the substance, they need all the help they can get,” Page said.

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Potting soil and plants sit at the edge of the yard. A woman takes a cigarette break in one of the rocking chairs on the wide, Southern-style porch.

Others inside are just getting home from work and signing back in.

“We like for it to have a home-like environment rather than an institutional feel. For us, that’s part of the dignity we feel the client deserves,” said Kim Southard, the nonprofit’s new chairman of the board , who has a background in mental health. “If you are going to live somewhere for six months to a year, it should feel like home.”

The grass-roots effort was begun by recovering substance abusers who saw the need for housing and a safe environment for people trying to stay sober.

The men’s home was established in a residential neighborhood in 1982; a women’s home came a decade later.

REMMSCO is now one of the larger programs in the state for halfway houses and one of the few that accept “dual-diagnosis clients,” or people who have primary substance abuse and mental health diagnoses.

Monica O’Dell, the executive director , worked as a house staffer during the early years before coming back to lead the nonprofit three years ago. In the interim, she worked as a substance abuse counselor with the county’s mental health department.

O’Dell’s return helped the near-bankrupt REMMSCO evolve from a small program with unlicensed professionals to one that could adapt to county mental health reform objectives. She is responsible for making sure there are no obstacles to the men and women getting another chance. It’s hard enough for them to take the first step, she said.

“I think people are beginning to understand that substance abuse is a disorder, and it’s not about ‘just say no’ — that it’s indeed a sickness and with treatment, like with any other illness, it can be overcome,” O’Dell said.

Clients are required to attend on-site Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. They initially sign a three-month contract to live at the house, but most stay six months to a year. After the first week, clients have more freedom to sign out — but they must be where they say they will be and back when they say they will be back. Otherwise, they could be discharged.

“Everybody at some point in their lives has made mistakes,” said Jule McMichael III , the immediate past president of the organization. “The reason I respect them so much is instead of staying down and out, they are doing something about it. Everybody there is there voluntarily. I think the big key to this whole thing is that all these folks want to be here. We don’t accept court-ordered placements.” 

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Baldwin was in the middle of a job interview during her second week in the REMMSCO house when the manager at the fast-food restaurant asked how she would get to work. That would be taken care of, the staff person along for the interview piped in: The program operates a van, which takes residents to medical appointments, work and social events. Reidsville does not provide public transportation.

“I was going to have to go from Reidsville to Madison for a week to be trained, and they made sure I got there on time every day,” said Baldwin, who makes biscuits at a local restaurant. “I had to be there at 4:30 in the morning, and I wasn’t late a single day.”

Clients are given a month to get a job. Once employed, they are charged $100 a week for lodging and meals.

The nonprofit also contracts with local government agencies that pay REMMSCO for taking in one of their clients. The nonprofit has been approached about starting programs in other counties. But the recession keeps officials’ thoughts local.

“We need to maintain what we have,” O’Dell said.

So O’Dell travels to churches and nonprofits to talk about the work at REMMSCO. Some of the groups give “love offerings” after she speaks or organize paper product drives. The Reidsville Area Foundation, formerly known as the Annie Penn Community Trust , recently gave the group a grant to pay for another position.

“It’s not always people’s favorite charity,” McMichael said. “It’s helping alcoholics and drug addicts, and that doesn’t necessarily pull at people’s heart strings.”

Not until they consider the true returns, he said. Once recovering addicts leave treatment, families can be reunited and taxpayers saved the cost of repeated jail visits.

Some clients may lapse; it’s a constant struggle with any addiction, Southard said.

“We feel that a client is successful if they are not using because they are in our structured environment — that is an initial success,” Southard said. “We feel that as they go through our program, if they are learning improved daily living skills … that those are also successes. And of course, if they can graduate and stay clean, that’s the ultimate success.”

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com