ELSANOR, Ala. — For Hunter Lee, an unassuming home down a long lane in Elsanor is her birthplace.

Make that her rebirth place.

“I’ve been battling addiction for 10 years,” said Lee in a telephone interview. She was busy with her niece at the Gulf Coast Zoo, enjoying the animals and enjoying the little girl’s reaction to seeing the wild animals up close.

That she was able to do something so simple, so normal is in her words, “a miracle.”

“I went into treatment in 2005,” said Lee, “and I was in and out of several treatment programs.”

Lee added that she wound up in Baltimore, addicted to alcohol and heroin.

“I could not get clean,” said Lee.

She even tore up her femoral artery (that’s the big artery in the leg) shooting drugs.

“I went pretty far down,” Lee said. “I thought I was hopeless.”

But Lee’s mother, an attorney, knew of another lawyer who was giving up his practice to become the Executive Director of “The Home of Grace for Women of Baldwin County” a residential rehabilitation facility. The facility opened in early 2007.

Coming to the Home of Grace was a big change for the home’s director as well.

“I got a call to go into the ministry,” said Patrick Collins, the facility’s Executive Director. He’s taken classes at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is now taking classes through the college’s extension program in Florida. He estimates it will take four years before he finishes his degree in theology.

“They needed someone to come out here,” said Collins. Because of a family member, Collins had personal experience, around 18 years worth, with the “recovery community.”

“(Addiction) affects (the addict’s) children, husband and parents. Recovery has a ripple effect,” said Collins.

Making matters worse, an addict truly has to “hit bottom” Collins says.

“We can’t help them until they’ve hit bottom,” said Collins. “Some have to be in jail.”

The home receives a number of referrals from the court system, Collins added.

While at the Home of Grace, a graduate will have completed 94 12-step groups, 24 anger management groups, 84 days of personal journaling, 84 days of personal devotions, and 84 days of Bible studies along with a full range of addiction recovery classes and groups.

While the focus of the home is Christian, Collins says, “You don’t have to be a Christian to come here.”

“Cure” is a word Collins does not like to use.

“We tell the women leaving that they are not cured,” said Collins. “We tell them when they leave, they have the tools, responsibility and Christ, but they still have to go out there and work it.”

Lee says she entered the program “right when the center first opened” in August of 2007” She says she stayed for six months.

According to Collins, the facility had four beds when it opened, and now has 12.

“We depend on volunteers,” said Collins. Volunteers, he explained, come and teach the classes and help with maintaining the property. There’s also a need for people to help the women get to medical appointments. While a resident can’t be actively using drugs of almost any type, the home understands that some appointments are hard to make and harder to reschedule.

“The Snook Foundation purchased the property for this use,” said Collins. While it’s not a working farm, the home’s clients are responsible for maintaining the ground and house, with some volunteer help. A number of area congregations have stepped forward to provide furniture and other supplies for the home.

Family support is important to the program’s success, Collins says.

“We require the family to come to family group meetings,” said Collins, explaining that a family’s dynamics may have centered on “blaming” the addict for much that has gone wrong in the family. As of a few months ago, about 85 percent of the program’s then 34 graduates had remained sober. Collins counted the few graduates the home has lost contact with as “not sober.”

It’s not an easy program, either.

“A lot of women come here and don’t make it through,” said Collins. He estimates that so far, about 20 women have quit the program.

Collins is realistic about his graduates’ chances.

“We look for a lifetime of sobriety,” said Collins. “Many will relapse, but if they get right back into a program, they can come back.”

One of the biggest problems graduates face is the “mess” to use Collins’ term they have to clean up after they stop using drugs or alcohol.

“It can be daunting,” said Collins.

But for Lee, the program has been a lifeline.

“”You learn to appreciate the simple things, like showing up for life,” she said.