Cynthia Stanfill and her children used to live rent-free in foreclosed homes in Modesto before an arrest convinced her to break her addictions and change her life.
For two years, Stanfill, 28, has lived in a graduate home of the nonprofit Valley Recovery Resources. She has liked the security of the graduate home, but it’s time to stretch her wings.
“When you are in a program, it is like being in a bubble,” Stanfill said. “When you hit the real world and have to live on its terms, it’s a different world.”
Modesto-based Valley Recovery runs one of the few residential drug treatment programs for women, and two years ago added graduate homes to help recovered clients transition to living on their own.
Women in the program still have a case manager and attend 12-step meetings, but focus more on honing job skills, managing a budget and becoming self-sufficient.
With more than four years of sobriety, Stanfill has a job as a support counselor, is a responsible parent and has rediscovered her faith.
When she was a child, Stanfill’s parents were in and out of incarceration, and she lived in other family members’ homes, where drugs and alcohol were a constant and people fought out their problems. Stanfill’s behavior was so disruptive, her mother didn’t want her around, she said.
As a young mother, Stanfill was among the homeless and addicted who squatted in foreclosed homes that dotted Modesto after the financial crisis. Living in an abandoned home made her feel safer than her childhood homes, she said.
If the electricity was turned off, she cooked pancakes on a barbecue for her children and brought ice from the store to keep the milk cold.
Stanfill was arrested for trespassing while moving into another home in January 2013, prompting Child Protective Services to remove her two children. She was pregnant when she entered one of Valley Recovery’s Redwood Family Centers to break her addiction to alcohol and methamphetamine, and gave birth to a third child, who was immediately placed in foster care.
Stanfill said she had no idea how to get along with the other women who came off the streets and lived communally in the center. She simply followed the rules, and the 18 months away from her children gave her time to work on herself through counseling.
“I learned that I needed to take some time, that I didn’t need to say the first things that came out of my mouth,” Stanfill said. “I might have an opinion, but it does not mean everyone else needs to follow it or wants to follow it.”
Closing her CPS case took longer than normal. Stanfill and her children were virtual strangers by the time they were reunited.
“I had to learn to be a mom again, to build trust with them and understanding,” Stanfill said.
Jill’s story
Her roommate in the graduate home, Jill Fischer, said her 3-year-old son, Preston, was her motivation for breaking a six-year addiction to hard drugs.
Fischer said she did not remain clean and sober when she was pregnant. She had a family maintenance case with CPS, in which trusted family members are available to care for the child while the parent works on recovery. Fischer entered a Redwood center with 52 days of sobriety.
“I always wanted to be a mother and thought, ‘Are you going to lose out on your dream?’ ” she said.
Fischer, 35, said she first used meth when she was 15. She said she felt aloof as a teenager and possibly used drugs with other teens out of loneliness and a desire to fit in.
She gave up drugs between the ages of 19 and 27 and got married when she was 24. Fischer was a crew trainer for Togo’s on McHenry Avenue and worked for other restaurants in Modesto.
When her marriage ended in divorce, Fischer said, she dealt with the emotional pain by smoking pot and using hard drugs. This time, she has been clean for 2 1/2 years.
Along with the array of services provided through Redwood, Fischer was counseled for her deep sorrow after her boyfriend died six months into her recovery.
Fischer, who once worked three jobs to make ends meet, is now working on recovering her labor skills. She takes Preston to day care and recently started a part-time job at a thrift store.
She assists donors who bring in furniture, clothes or lamps; identifies objects of value; cleans the items and prices them; and puts merchandise on the floor. A supervisor noticed her initiative and offered her a chance to work full time.
“I had not worked for six years,” Fischer said. “I had a career being an addict.”
In the depths of her addiction, Fischer wondered how she could ever live sober, but sobriety is just a way of life now, she said.
“I am happy this way,” she said. “I feel like I am living the way God wanted me to live. The other way is not who Jill is.”
Fischer has fears about leaving the security of the graduate house.
“I get nervous thinking about that,” she said. “I am a single lady and I don’t have a degree. I just have to get on my feet monetarily and make enough money. I just want to have a place for my child and I.”
Career opportunities
Steve Berkowitz, executive director of Valley Recovery, said he believes women have a harder time coming out of recovery programs. Men who are close to finishing a program are pressured to find work and they have better job opportunities, he said.
Recovery programs for women often focus more on deep-rooted emotions and women’s treatment needs, he said, and less on surviving in the real world.
Valley Recovery stresses work experience and education, leading to careers in substance abuse counseling or employment as nursing assistants.
To practice managing a budget, the mothers pay $210 a month to live in a graduate home. The Redwood program holds small deposits from their public assistance in accounts to give them cash for initial utility payments and other basic needs when they move out.
The program’s thrift store also helps by giving them discounts or free items for furnishing their housing.
Stanfill is up at 5:30 a.m., takes the kids to day care and goes to her job as a support counselor for a nonprofit group. A day care worker takes her oldest children to school.
After her CPS case was closed, ending those services, Stanfill said she found a counselor for her 8-year-old daughter, who had learned some of mom’s old behaviors.
“It is a different world parenting your children under the influence and parenting your children with boundaries and consistency and rules,” Stanfill said. “I can’t say we have not had our struggles.”
As a counselor for other people in recovery, Stanfill knows the strategies of staying clean and avoiding the mistakes that lead to relapse.
“I am rebuilding relationships with healthy family members and have strong boundaries with other family members,” she said.
Someday, she hopes to acquire a home for her family – the right away – and especially wants her children to have a promising future.
“I want to make school a priority for them, so they don’t follow in my footsteps,” she said.
Ken Carlson: 209-578-2321, @KenCarlson16
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