Ministries helping keep former inmates addicts off the streets

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(Schwenksville) — Nathan Schwenk grew tired of the cycle.

For half his life, the 30-year-old circled around a revolving door that passed through jails, rehabilitation centers and back to the streets using heroin and committing crimes to get by.

Jail was the only place he could stay clean, and he began to see life outside prison walls as a “hopeless hole.”

“It was easier to go back to the streets and keep using; I was so far in a hole, I felt like I couldn’t crawl out of it,” said Schwenk, who often faced thousands of dollars in fines once released.

“We know for the vast majority of them, if it was not for their addiction, they wouldn’t be in our facility,” said Chris Pirolli, Bucks County’s Director of Corrections.

While in-prison programs aimed at helping people in addiction are growing, support in helping them transition back into the community and housing is limited. Pirolli said more than two dozen groups from the faith-based community and other non-profits are key to filling in ways that the prison alone can’t.

“We have a strong contingent of people who recognize that faith is very important part of the recovery process and welcome ministries,” he said. “Other groups also come in and spend hours and hours helping people find employment, working on resumes, helping out in one way or another. We couldn’t afford to do it without the help of these groups.”

Outside the prison culture and addiction lifestyle, Schwenk struggled to survive. So he kept returning — to Philadelphia prisons, Bucks County prison and most recently Montgomery County prison.

It was there, devoid of all hope or any kind of drug treatment behind bars, that Schwenk turned to God.

Schwenk met a chaplain in the prison who told him about Liberty Ministries, and minister Steve Poloway paid him a visit. Poloway, the prison program director from Liberty, visits three area prisons regularly offering a 12-step program to inmates.

“I’m there to tell them God has a plan for them, to encourage them and give them hope,” said Poloway, who once suffered from addiction to alcohol. Poloway offered Schwenk a path out of prison and back into the community, where he was able to get a free home, a guaranteed job, clothes, meals, regular bible study, relatable friends, a job and something he never thought he’d have again — a loving relationship with his family.

“I hadn’t talked with my mom in three years,” said Schwenk, who now has a relationship with his entire family and attends church regularly with his grandmother.

Schwenk said his toughest challenge wasn’t learning to live with a criminal record. It was learning to live without heroin.

Though therapy and prayer at a Liberty-run home in Schwenksville, he learned to cope with fear and anxiety that previously turned him to using. At first, the structure was overwhelming. Rules require residents to attend daily religious meetings, not use drugs or alcohol and sign in before their curfew, set between 9 and 11 p.m., depending on their level.

But having a roof over his head and positive people to live with also made a big difference, he said.

“We all get angry, but now I learn to channel it,” said Schwenk. “Here you have people to talk to and a God to pray to. Take away that heroin, and put God in our lives, and we are good people.”