BUTTE — Butte’s second home for recovering addicts is one step closer to opening its doors, and this time the owners of the Butte SPIRIT Home will be serving female clients who want to break free from addiction.
"Addiction takes people’s agency, it takes people's sovereignty and a lot of stigma around addiction is because of the people that we become when we are in an active addiction but that’s not who we are," says Demetrius Fassas.
Fassas is the executive director for the Butte SPIRIT Homes and he is also a recovering addict who has seen his life change through a similar residential program. He says helping others to recover is not only his goal but the goal of the home.
"I’m a person in long-term recovery. I’ve had my screwups. I have seen a lot of changes in the last eight years of my own life and that’s something that I want to see happen for other people," says Fassas.
Three years ago, Fassas and Sean Wisner, the co-founder of the Butte SPIRIT Homes, saw a need for a professionally managed, state-licensed residential program in Butte.
"There was no professionally managed, no state-licensed recovery housing in Butte at the time even though there’s at least one state-licensed facility for men and women in every other major city," says Wisner, board.
So far, the male residence located in an Uptown Butte neighborhood has served 33 individuals and nine have graduated. Wisner says residents of the program are screened for admission and violent or sexual offenders are not admitted into the program.
"And we do interviews to make sure that the people who get admitted are internally motivated for recovery so we don’t take people who are just forced to be here. People are here of their own volition," says Wisner.
While in the program, residents receive support and supervision from staff like Lisa Pesanti, the clinical director of the program. She says the program has a ripple effect on the community at large, specifically when it comes to alleviating the foster care burden.
"The ripple effect of children in foster care and lost relationship with immediate family is something that we work real hard clinically to address," says Pesanti. "We’ve had a few graduates from the men’s house move out into their own place and regain custody of their children which is the goal; that’s what we are really striving for."
Fassas says another ripple effect comes in an act of service for others struggling with addiction.
"If I make my life about this, this disease of addiction doesn’t have to be the dominating factor. Recovery can be my chief motivator. Recovery can be my way of life. And so that’s the way of life we present to the people who live with us," he says.
The second Butte SPIRIT Home has a tentative opening date of November 2023 as volunteers work to fix up the space for residents.
