New drug treatment facility aims to help women in Anchorage

Drug and alcohol abuse, crime, and concern over prevention, are topics of ongoing relevance to Anchorage and all of Alaska.

There aren’t enough treatment beds to provide all those with addictions the support they need. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than 60,000 Alaskan adults need substance use disorder treatment. In fiscal year 2016, state-funded programs only provided substance use disorder treatment to around 7,800 people.

The Salvation Army of Alaska is working to improve those numbers by extending more services to women in Anchorage.

Channel 2 visited its new 15-bed facility for women on Tuesday, and saw examples of how trust, family and a desire to beat addiction can be just as powerful as the facility itself.

Ingrid Whitaker was charged with vehicle theft in 2016. She says the crime stemmed from a perpetual state of insobriety clouding her judgment. She found herself in Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, with a choice.

“They told me, ‘Oh, well there is a treatment program.’ And I was like ‘Oh, anything to get out of jail? Why not,’” Whitaker said.

She’s now serving the last part of her sentence at the Salvation Army’s new facility, which is part of the Clitheroe program that’s been in Alaska since the 1970s.

“In here, we're all addicts of one sort or another,” Whitaker said. “This isn't just a treatment facility, it's a small family.”

She says she didn’t take the program seriously for the first month.

“And then I actually started realizing, ‘Hey, I have problems. I am definitely an addict,’” she said.

Her incentive to beat addiction is to be a mother to her daughter. She finds others at the facility who are fighting the same battle.

“Us girls are just like... It's like family here,” Shirley Rollins said.

Rollins has been in and out of treatment for a significant part of her life.

“I'm 50 years old, and I've been coming in and out of jail all my life,” she said. “I've been addicted to alcohol, at first, and then cocaine.”

Rollins says she wants to get better for her daughters, 13-year-old Olivia and 15-year-old Charissa.

But she says first she has to confront her grief and addiction.

“I feel comfortable and I trust everybody here,” she said. “My kids are everything to me in my life, and I'm a really good mom, and I have a good heart,” she continued. “I just need to stay away from the drugs.”

Inside the Clitheroe treatment center for women, comfort, trust, and making the conscious choice to change are all part of the treatment process.

“When it comes to this facility, you get out of it what you decide to put into it,” Whitaker said.

Rollins and Whitaker will move to a halfway house in the coming months to finish their sentences, and to start transitioning back to everyday life.

Coming up this Friday, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, will host a wellness forum, inviting state and federal officials, and the public, to talk about drug abuse and crime in Alaska.