Friends in recovery open Norwell center to give addicts 'every tool to fight this thing'

NORWELL − Josh Williams, Jeff Chasen and Matt Kellicker once had little in common besides their addiction.

Their battles with substance abuse looked different, and they all took different paths to sobriety. But they ultimately found themselves working to help others like them at the Brook Recovery Center in Abington. Williams and Kellicker attended the program themselves before becoming staff, and Chasen joined as a co-worker alongside them in recovery.

Since then, the trio has launched their own wellness center aimed at combining a variety of treatment options, rather than using a cookie-cutter approach to fighting addiction.

Refresh Recovery and Wellness Center opened in Norwell last month as an outpatient treatment space for those who need addiction treatment and mental health services. The center is licensed through the state Department of Public Health as a substance use disorder treatment program and accepts many insurance plans.

"There is such a strong desire for us to create a collective of services and make sure that we’re representing any pathway we can find," Chasen, 38, said. "Sometimes our clients come to the table and say, ‘Have you looked into this?’ and I’ve seen clients get dismissed. We want to hear and be able to have every tool to fight this thing."

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For the founders of Refresh Recovery, their individual stories show the importance of flexibility in treatment and combining traditional methods, like the 12-step program, with other approaches like medication-assisted treatment and trauma-informed therapy.

Williams, 30, who grew up in Newburyport, said his mother moved their family to the coastal town north of Boston in hopes of giving them a better life than she had. Williams said he played sports and liked to be with the "in" crowd, which led him to the wrong group of people and experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

"I got out of school and didn't have the grades for college, so I hung around, and started experimenting with pills, and that spiraled out of control," he said. "I found myself in a hopeless place, getting in trouble with the law, and I couldn't stop heroin."

Williams said he wanted to stop using heroin and knew he was on a downward trajectory.

"I was helpless and hopeless," he said. "I was in and out of treatment and never able to find a solution. At one point, I was in a few detoxes in one week."

A friend offered to help him get treatment on the South Shore, and he ended up at Brook Recovery Center, where he found sobriety through the 12-step recovery program. That time, recovery clicked.

"I started to see people wanting to be around me. I started holding a job. I realized that if my life is this good now and it's only been a short time, how great can it be down the road," said Williams, who has been in recovery for six years.

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He then started working at Brook Recovery Center, where he met Kellicker, 27, and Chasen, a Pembroke native who found sobriety from alcohol addiction through the 12-step program when he was just a teenager.

After attending five different high schools in four years, Chasen managed to graduate on time and gave college a try before going to work for his father.

"The majority of my adult life I've been clean and sober, but in my early 20s and early 30s, I experienced relapse and it brought a world of problems, from being homeless to arrests," Chasen said. "To truly transform, I had to do things differently, which led me into sober living."

Chasen was asked to serve as a house manager at a sober home and worked at Brook Recovery Center for four years before co-founding Northstar Recovery Center in Southboro. Now he hopes to help people on the South Shore.

Williams and Chasen said a lot of programs use a "cookie cutter" approach when they don't have to.

"People get well through all kinds of ways, and we just want to help," Williams said. "We have amazing staff. Everyone has their niche and how they approach things."

From traditional approaches used in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to reiki and yoga, Refresh Recovery hopes to create a broad arsenal of tools to help others.

"There are all these other avenues, and we don't think the most effective way is to say there is this one way," Chasen said. "We believe people in treatment need to be presented with multiple pathways to recovery and wellness."

Refresh Recovery is at 183 Washington St., Norwell. For more information, visit refreshrecoverycenters.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Refresh Recovery and Wellness Center helps addicts through experience