SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio — On Friday, the Cincinnati area’s newest recovery housing complex opened its doors, hoping to foster a new kind of home for those in a substance-use recovery program.
Sunstone is the work of Ray Compagna—the founder of the Foundation of Recovery—and three former BrightView employees: Amy Parker, Vicky Sickinger and Kelli Achberger. In their combined decades of experience with recovery services, they all found housing was a key piece missing for many going through treatment, especially those in medication-assisted treatment.
MAT is a now common form of behavioral therapy for those with substance-use disorder, in which patients use FDA-approved medications such as methadone or suboxone to aid their recovery process, as prescribed.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the treatment has proven successful when it comes to decreasing dependency on illicit substances, improving patient survival and making it easier for patients to live a self-directed life. Some patients use MAT for months, years, or even continue its use for the remainder of their lives.
Though, as these medications are still opioids, their distribution is heavily regulated and, according to Sunstone Executive Director Vivian Sickinger, often misunderstood.
“I think the stigma is that you’re trading one drug for another and that is not what we’re doing,” she said.
Though MAT is growing in acceptance, across Ohio, a 2021 report from the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services shows only 62 of the state’s 582 known recovery homes reported they accepted clients using MAT.
Achberger shows off the kitchen in one of the units.
When Sunstone is fully up and running, all of its clients will be on MAT.
“We may open it up to people that aren’t on any medication-assisted treatment, but for right now, we feel that having everybody on the level playing field there won’t be this stigma,” Sickinger said.
To Achberger, it’s an important part of the home’s mission.
“A lot of the recovery homes that are in Cincinnati are for abstinence only,” she said. “So I’ve seen the need for recovery housing when people are in outpatient treatment and not having a stable, healthy place to live.”
With 12 units and space for 60 clients, Sunstone hopes to offer that stability, though none of the medication will be on site.
The recovery housing facility will instead partner with treatment centers like BrightView and work with them to follow up and ensure their clients are attending and keeping up with their treatment, while offering them the freedom to live semi-independently.
The facility is in the process of furnishing the remaining units.
“We want to give these residents the opportunity to get out of whatever environment they may have been using in and feel like an adult again,” Sickinger said.
Now as the facility opens its doors to newly renovated and furnished units, Achberger hopes their apartments can help break another stigma about what recovery looks like.
“A lot of times during addiction, we haven’t lived the best lives, or been around the nicest things or might even feel undeserving,” she said.
Celebrating seven years sober this summer, Achberger said she knows how important finding a safe, inviting space can be, and now as patients move into Sunstone’s new facility, she hopes she can provide that for dozens more on the cusp of recovery.
“It helped me to rebuild my own life,” she said.
