Getting another chance — faith-based organization helps people overcome addiction

CHILLICOTHE — Janessa Rodrigues tried to die by overdose multiple times.

Chris Buchanan was eating garbage and living out of an abandoned house.

Timothy Stacy felt like he wasn't even alive

And Melissa Stacy was in prison by age 21.

All of them have one thing in common — they all turned their lives around and found a new purpose in Another Chance Ministries.

The organization, started by Pastor Troy Gray of Zion Baptist Church, is a faith-based ministry dedicated to helping people overcome their addiction through a faith-based approach.

The ministry has saved nearly 400 people since its inception 10 years ago as the faith house, and nearly 40 of them still work for the ministry in some way.

Pastor Troy Gray began the initiative with five men and an all-volunteer staff when he was serving on the Chillicothe Heroin Task Force and was unsatisfied with the progress the task force was making.

"My thought process was if we can do something to help one person, we can be part of the solution, not part of the problem," said Gray.

The program has grown much since, owning eight houses, a clinic in Greenfield, and several high school outreaches. In the last two years, 35 of their graduates are now working at other traditional rehab facilities.

They have recently expanded into owning several apartments in Chillicothe to help with sober housing.

Janessa Rodrigues

Janessa Rodrigues grew up in an abusive household in Columbus, starting to smoke weed when she was 14 and quickly moving on to MDMA.

At around the age of 21, she began dancing in a club to make money to support herself and her daughter, and eventually being introduced to crack and heroin. She became involved in prostitution as a way to make more money.

"I thought I'd hit rock bottom when I started prostituting in the clubs. No. Rape became a normal thing to me, I was ok with it, I thought it was just what happened, as long as I could get out of your car and into another, or go get high, I didn't care what you did to me. I've been beaten, kidnapped, been tied up in basements for days, seen girls in dog cages."

At one point, she said, she was living out of a porta-potty. At this point, she tried multiple times to overdose, being found and saved every time.

"I'd be mad, I've fought people for giving me Narcan," she said.

At one point, she heard of some men in town from Detroit, selling a particularly potent strand of heroin that was causing overdoses. She bought half an ounce of heroin with the plan to do all of it, and went somewhere she thought no one would find her when she overdosed.

"There are these women from churches who come around and give the working girls hygiene, food, stuff like that-street ministry," she said. "I go back behind these bushes — no one ever goes back there, there's no reason to — and did the drugs."

The women had found her.

When she woke up in the hospital, one of the women was by her bedside, and when asked why she was there, she told Rodriguez that God loved her, and had a purpose for her life.

"I felt like something clicked, after I left, got off of suicide watch, I did go back out but within a few hours she was calling to try to get into detox.

Looking back, Rodrigues said she believed God has always had a hand in her life, as she believes he saved her many times.

"Had I not went through all that stuff, I wouldn't have the tendency to be relatable to other people, to be transparent and show them you can go through all that stuff and still come out on the other side," she said.

After going through a treatment facility in Waverly, Rodriguez heard about ACM and went to an event. Hearing people speak at ACM, she felt a "hunger for God." When ACM opened a women's side in 2019, she signed up as soon as she could.

Through ACM, Rodrigues obtained her GED, her driver's license, her license to be a counselor, and rebuilt her relationship with her now-14-year-old daughter, who previously wanted nothing to do with her. She is now taking college classes.

"I could have never done that if I hadn't been called to ACM, gone through the program, built that relationship with God- it just absolutely changed my life. This place just has an anointing on it."

She now works at the Greenfield branch of ACM, where she wears many hats from counselor to group leader to caseworker and everything in between.

"I feel like it's my assignment — sometimes God gives us assignments to walk in and that's my path. Not only that, but I have a passion for it, I've been where these people have been ... when I walk into a room, I want people to see God and hope."

Chris Buchanan

Chris Buchanan started drinking at age 13. At first, he said, it was just fun, the excitement of going to parties and being a "cool person," he said. But the drinking led to pills, and eventually, the pills led to harder drugs.

Buchanan eventually lost everything, and after about two decades of addiction, he was sleeping in a freezing abandoned house with his mother and all his siblings, eating food out of dumpsters. He had lost custody of his four kids and was told he had no chance of having any relationship with any of them.

One day, he was sitting in the house, drugs in his hand, and it was so cold he said he could not find access to get the drugs into his system. "I said, God, either help me or kill me, and threw the drugs across the room. I'd like to say the story ended there, but it didn't — it took me down further and further."

Buchanan put himself into recovery at the now-defunct Breaking Point Recovery.

"They tried to kick me out three or four times. I was always angry, just consumed with anger, bitterness, frustration," he said.

In the last five minutes before he was supposed to be released to go back to the abandoned house, he was given a phone interview with ACM.

"As of today, I own my own home, we have three cars, I remarried, all four of those kids I had no shot with — I got full custody of my younger two kids, and my oldest kids are back in my life."

Buchanan attributes his turnaround to the vision of Pastor Gray.

"If it wasn't for Pastor Gray, and God giving him the vision, and him attempting to help someone that the world would say doesn't matter, I know I didn't think I had another chance at life, that's what this place is — it's truly another chance."

Buchanan now works as a group facilitator for ACM. He also has an individual caseload and meets up to 15 people a week for the agency.

Timothy Stacy

Timothy Stacy grew up a Christian, but his father got hooked on pain pills after an injury, following a divorce from Tim's mother.

"His addiction led to me getting on them. I took pain pills, and drank, and smoked weed from 13-17 years old. At 17, he said, he was "saved" in his grandfather's church, but fell back to addiction at 20.

"From 20 to 30 it was nothing but hell on earth for me. I got back into the routine of drinking and partying, got into a bad relationship, got hooked on heroin, overdosed 10 times, I was homeless in eight different states," he said.

Stacy also lost his first wife in a head-on collision in 2017, he said. At that point, he was living in Greenfield.

After his wife's death, he was homeless, sleeping in an abandoned building, and feeling a complete sense of despair.

"You get to a point where you don't know how you're alive, you feel like you're just a body — there's no life in you."

In December 2017, he was withdrawing from methamphetamine and fentanyl

"I had heard of Another Chance through a friend I went to high school with, I had the core belief in God inside of me, so I knew, that's where I needed to apply," he said.

He was accepted into the program and began at ACM on Dec. 26, 2017. He graduated from ACM in July 2018.

Timothy said he had previously tried to get sober at a place called Refuge when he was around 21, but it hadn't stuck.

He believes that Another Chance Ministries worked where others failed because Pastor Gray is "relatable."

"My role model is my grandfather. He's up at this level," said Stacy, holding a hand over his head. "And I'm down here, struggling with what some teenagers struggle with .. what I learned here was to be able to apply God's word to my life and walk it out."

Through Zion Baptist Church and ACM, he found a vision for his life he's never had before. He found a job working for ACM, gained a home, and married his wife, Melissa. The two are expecting a child.

Melissa Stacy

While ACM Women's Housing Director Melissa Stacy did not have the opportunity to attend ACM as a client, since the woman's side was not opened until 2019, the ministry still helped her turn her life around.

With her stepfather working in construction, Melissa bounced all over the country as a young kid, going to more than 20 schools by the time she was in third grade. She also grew up in a violent home, she said.

Her mother had medical issues, and as a result, was prescribed a lot of pain medication. In May 2002, Melissa found her dead from suicide during withdrawals.

She grew up angry at the world and at the idea of God, bouncing in and out of juvenile detention.

"I don't think I ever got a chance to be a child," she said. "I just grew up very quickly, and it became survival mode. (Using drugs) became a way to cope, and escape reality."

Melissa said she started using marijuana after her mother's death and moved to MDMA, then pills. By the time she was 18, she was introduced to heroin, and in prison by 21.

"I bounced in and out of mental institutions, I bowed down to whatever man gave me attention. Abusive relationships was what love was for me, and my husband now is the only man who never put his hands on me."

Like Rodriguez, she became involved in prostitution and human trafficking. Like her husband, she said it was like "being alive and being dead at the same time."

The last time she was in jail, she said, she was exhausted and willing to try to get treatment, as the "worst that could happen is I go back to the streets."

Her first attempt wasn't permanent, as within 15 months of sober living, she got into a relationship and started to use again.

Her second time, she had a "hunger for God." At this time, she met Pastor Gray, who was working at the Recovery Council at the time.

"He used to do this thing with a chair, where you sit down and you don't look to sit down, just trust the chair is going to be there. and he said, that's how it is with God."

While five years ago, there was no women's program, she started to go to Zion Baptist Church. Mentored by Rochelle Gray-Buchanan, Director of ACM, she learned to accept herself and know she was worthy.

"I always discredited myself because I didn't look like everyone else in church or have the background they did. I thought, "why would God ever love me?" said Melissa.

She had attempted to go to other churches but said she'd felt "stupid" and didn't know what the pastor was talking about. Gray, she says, is more relatable, and preaches in a way that is easy to understand and relate to.

while she did not have the opportunity to go to ACM for treatment, without them, she would have had the opportunity to have a career, she said. ACM helped her earn a GED, and through ACM, met her husband.

Melissa was instrumental in creating programming for women through ACM, which started in 2019.

"Rochelle always says at graduation, when God pulls you out, you should always have one hand down to help others. Most of the women who were in the streets with me are now dead, so I'm a voice and an advocate for people like me."

Questions, comments, or story tips? Contact Justin at Jreutterma@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @jayreutter1.

This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Getting another chance — faith-based organization helps people overcome addiction