Compass House opens its door to women with an addiction

ALTON — "While the opioid crisis has taken the lives of hundreds of young people in New Hampshire in a very sudden and dramatic manner, we cannot lose sight of the fact that alcohol remains the number one killer and methamphetamine is a growing threat to our population. Substance Use Disorder is the problem that needs to be addressed and not just the use of the drugs, itself.” Those somber words were spoken by Jacqui Abikoff, director of Horizons Counseling Center, to members of the Alton Centennial Rotary Club at its weekly Thursday morning meeting. The drugs Abikoff was referring to are the opioids like fentanyl and heroin as well as a stimulant that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in NH, methamphetamine.

Two years ago the Compass House, located in Laconia, was established to help deal with the growing issue of drug use among women. It’s operated by the Horizons Counseling Center in partnership with Navigating Recovery of the Lakes Region and Lakes Region Community Developers. Their mission is to provide safe, sober and affordable transitional housing, counseling, treatment and recovery support for women struggling with a substance use disorder with a focus on those involved in the criminal justice system.

To date, the Compass House has served 25 women. All have completed residential treatment recovering from their substance use disorder, many of them after their release from jail or prison. The Compass House recovery program provided them with a constructive alternative against their return to the environment from where they fell victim to their addiction. 

“Compass House provides all women with an opportunity to learn individual responsibility, self-determination, and can contribute to the governance of the household and its operations. The women learn, through experience, how to support each other plus hold each other accountable for their responsibilities both to themselves and to Compass House, and to decreasingly depend on the services provided to them. In addition,” she explained, “reuniting mothers with their children, in instances where their children have been separated from them as a result of their addiction, mothers are allowed to have their children visit them at the House with the availability of extended time away from the campus, in support of family reunification.”

Ms. Abikoff’s talk included an expression of appreciation from Compass House for the grant it’s receiving from the Alton Centennial Rotary Club and supplemented by several other contributions from individual Rotarians throughout Rotary District 7870’s sixty-four clubs. The grant provides support for several Compass House maintenance projects, transportation for employment interviews, clothing allowance for proper dress for job interviews as well as access to cell phones and data cards in support of their treatment and recovery.