Muskingum Behavioral Health aids struggling women with Naomi House

MUSKINGUM CO. – There’s no place like home for the holidays. For nine women who have encountered hardships with substance abuse, the Naomi House is home and they are very happy to be here. Naomi House has been underneath Muskingum Behavioral Health for two years.

“This gives them a place where they’re starting their life over to have a safe (and) comfortable place to live and start their life over from addiction. It gives them a safe place where they can adjust their lifestyle to what needs to be to overcome the lifestyle they lived,” Muskingum Behavioral Health’s Yolanda Taylor said.

Muskingum Behavioral Health has welcomed women from different backgrounds and who need different levels of guidance. There are currently nine women being housed.

“A lot of women that come here have absolutely nothing and so they start with nothing and then they build themselves back up confidence-wise, life skills-wise, (and) learning to be a part of society again,” Taylor said.

MBH is recently proud of having a mother, Heaven Smitley, live under the Naomi House roof with her two children. She is now very close to moving out with her kids and into an apartment of her own.

“So, I’ve been here for ten months. This place has helped save my life. It’s helped me become the mother that my kids deserve. I struggled with addiction over half of my life and I’ve changed my whole life around being here,” Smitley said.

For Smitley, Naomi House has literally created a family environment. However, a family is what the women who live with each other feel like they’ve found.

“I feel because the girls here are actually more of a family than just individuals by themselves (and) doing their own thing. We’ve come to really get to know one another and become just like best friends and sisters,” client Heather Rickeart said.

The house is home to women of diverse backgrounds, age, and who are on different levels of needing help.

“Naomi House has saved my life. I came here back in August after spending three and a half years in active addiction with methamphetamine. I’m 58-years-old and so I was the grandma on meth. When I got here, very soon after I got here, I got physically ill and this house has not only saved my life as far as my sobriety is concerned by saved my life period,” client Linda McCabe said.

Heaven Smitley said to any women who feel like they are struggling with problems like substance abuse, get help and reach out to an organization like Muskingum Behavioral Health. This is not a fight that can be won alone.