In her addiction, Jodi Hoffman sold herself for drugs.

She stopped short of selling her daughter.

"I always say if someone had offered, I would have," she said. "I don't think I had any 'nevers' by the time I got clean. Jails, institutions, I was homeless, walked the streets.

"Total dereliction."

But seven years ago, Hoffman, 33, embraced addiction recovery, and is now offering a hand up to others spiraling down into the bottomless pit of drug and alcohol abuse.

Hoffman helps guide the Lancaster and Lebanon branches of The RASE (Recovery Advocacy Service Empowerment) Project, a 9-year-old nonprofit advocacy organization serving Central Pennsylvania, and comprised primarily of staff and volunteers in recovery and their supporters.

Based in Harrisburg, the project began serving Lancaster about three years ago.

In addition to advocating for better treatment funding and options and battling stigma associated with addiction, the project offers training, workshops, a speaker's bureau, family programs, certified intervention, vocational assistance and support groups and has transitional housing for women in Cumberland and Dauphin counties.

Social events and fundraisers are held throughout the year.

Hoffman also leads the Buprenorphine Coordinator Program — one of the newest in The RASE Project — in Lebanon and Lancaster counties.

Geared toward opioid addicts, the program, which serves five counties, is operated in collaboration with the medical community and includes medication (Suboxone) to ease withdrawal and encourage stabilization. Lancaster General Hospital recently provided funding to offer the program on site for existing Lancaster patients.

A 26-year-old recovering addict, who asked to remain anonymous, believes the program saved her life.

"When I went to The RASE Project, I had been told I only had six months to live," she said. "The Suboxone, the support turned everything around."

She has been clean a year.

Although Hoffman has heard her fair share of heartbreaking stories and watched people she has tried to help fall back into a destructive lifestyle, it is the successes she likes to celebrate.

"The big thing is we want to put a voice to recovery," Hoffman said. "People read in the paper about DUIs and (addicts) getting caught for burglaries, but once we get clean, nobody hears about us anymore."

"Policy makers are making laws that affect us and our families and we don't have a voice."

Based on statistics, many addicts fall through the cracks.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 22 million Americans have a substance abuse or dependency problem.

Only 2.5 million of them enter a hospital or clinic for treatment.

Some experts say survey statistics may not totally reflect the whole picture, since they are based on self-reporting.

But the fact remains that addiction is a societal dilemma, and in recent years, Hoffman said, public funding for treatment has become sparser and there are often limitations to private insurance coverage.

That dilemma was one of the sparks for the formation of The RASE Project.

"I had been a clinician working in the drug and alcohol field for 17 years, and at the end of that time, it was becoming more and more difficult to get people into treatment or, once they got there, to be able to keep them there," said Denise Holden, founder and director of The RASE Project, who recalls spending hours on the phone advocating for people needing help.

Holden's discovery of the statewide recovery movement, Pennsylvania Recovery Organizations Alliance (PRO-A), helped spur her founding of The RASE Project, originally called Substance Abuse Services.

The project, supported primarily by grant money and county funding, now has 15 employees and funding has grown from $40,000 to $850,000.

"It's blossomed.

"Now we offer bigger and better services," Holden said.

THE RASE PROJECT

CONTACT: 232-8535

ONLINE: www.raseproject.org

E-mail: sjurgelski@lnpnews.com