S.T.E.P.S. added Ironton location two months ago

The S.T.E.P.S of Recovery Center had a gathering on Wednesday for its clients.

Dr. Nicholas Landry opened up S.T.E.P.S Recovery Center in Ironton two months ago because his Gallia office had so many people driving from Lawrence County to use its services.

But for many of the clients, it was difficult to drive an hour and in some cases, they ran out of funds from Medicaid to make the trip so they couldn’t go. That led to clients relapsing back into drug use.

“What do you do with that? Well, we renovated some rooms and set up to come down here a couple days a week,” Landry said. He has been doing addiction services for about eight years and has been in family medicine for 18 years. “We are doing family medicine here and we also do addiction management.”

He requires his clients to see him as their primary physician.

“We are not a pill mill, we are not handing out drugs,” he said. “We are doing a holistic care of you as an individual or we are not going to see you.”

Wednesday’s event was a chance for clients to eat some hamburgers, let their kids play on inflatables and to learn.

Landry said that the event was a chance for his clients to socialize since many people tend to be around people less as they get into drugs, and even during recovery because they feel that people are judging them. So about two and half years ago, they set up what they call “pro-social activity events.”

“They are four hour events,” he said. “There is an educational program, like to do we have a speaker. We have some food.”

He said that it brings people who are more social and the less social together.

“We approach this from another different levels,” Landry said. “We put them in an environment where they can talk and get inspiration from other people.”

Around 20-30 people attended the event. Besides the food, and games, the Heroin Hearse was there to spread their anti-drug message.