Clean for 10 years, this central Pennsylvania woman offers others hope and a cup of coffee

• Keira McGuire
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  Keira McGuire is a health reporter and multimedia producer for WITF. She hosts and produces Transforming Health television programs as well as other shows and documentaries for WITF’s Original Productions. McGuire produced the Emmy Award winning series HealthSmart for the last ten years. Keira previously worked at WBFF in Baltimore and WMDT in Salisbury as a reporter and anchor. She’s a graduate of Towson University.

(Harrisburg) — Jan Arkon remembers what it feels like to be in active addiction.

“It’s, you know, trying to fill that hole in us. … We feel like we’re empty. Whatever made the hole for whatever reason. But we’re always trying to fill it with something,” says Arkon.

Arkon has been clean for over 10 years.

“Nobody starts out wanting to be an addict….Your troubles seem to drift away,” Arkon remembers. “And the more you need, the more you become addicted. The more it rules you. And you don’t rule it. So, then it becomes, you know, a need and not a want and a chore and a job really to continue to use.”

Today Arkon devotes her life to helping others reach and stay in recovery. She is a certified peer specialist and a mentor to women in recovery. A few years ago, Arkon inherited a house and knew right away she would use it to further her mission of helping others in recovery. She turned the home in Harrisburg into a recovery house for women. She says, these days, the majority of women that come to her are in recovery from opioid addiction.

“So a lot of these women were in long-term use of heroin and you know it affected them physically and emotionally, mentally. You know, you see the ravages and the scars that it leaves, because when you’re under that influence, you will do anything,” says Arkon.

Arkon also organizes the JFT, or Just For Today, Coffee Shop in Lemoyne. The coffee shop, which is in its 4th year, is staffed by volunteers and is open seven days a week from noon to 11pm.

“So our motto here is you never have to be alone. A lot of times in active addiction, we feel very isolated because you know what the addiction has done to our friendships, to our personal relationships with family and just using period, you tend to isolate. So you don’t have to do that here,” says Arkon.

Arkon says the coffee shop is a safe place where all are welcome.

“Once you get in here, you start to meet people. You kind of realize like there is life, you know, after addiction and it’s right here,” says Arkon.