Everyone who works at the RASE Project is recovering from some kind of drug or alcohol addiction.

That intimate first-hand knowledge of where an addict has been is one of the things that makes the RASE Project different from other treatment providers, say people in recovery who have gone through RASE, which stands for Recovery, Advocacy, Service and Empowerment.

Enrico Bianco, 43, had been using drugs since he was 11. He'd been through multiple treatment programs and served time in jail. "I was never able to maintain any length of sobriety. I'd get six to nine months [clean] and then relapse. It wasn't anyone else's fault," said Bianco.

In 2009 while in Erie County, someone referred Bianco to The RASE Project, which is based in Harrisburg, where Bianco has family.

Bianco said at other places at times he felt a lack of understanding and acceptance. That was never the case at The RASE Project. "Here you really feel and know that the concern is coming from a place that is genuine. I never ran into a circumstance where someone didn't understand. There has always been a solution here for me," Bianco said.

A group of treatment professionals and people in recovery formed RASE in May 2001, to give voice to those in central Pennsylvania who couldn't speak out on their own behalf.

"When people get clean they disappear into anonymous recovery communities to protect themselves from the stigma" of addiction, said Denise Holden, who overcame her own dependence on drugs and alcohol to become executive director of The RASE Project.

RASE provides recovery housing for women in Cumberland and Dauphin counties; Buprenorphine addiction treatment care coordination for adult men and women in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and Perry counties; and recovery support services in Dauphin and Lancaster counties.

Throughout the five-county region RASE also provides family interventions, professional training, a speakers bureau, consciousness raising events, assessment and referral, advocacy, informational dissemination and educational services.

Bianco said another key difference of RASE is that treatment lasts as long as it needs to, not until the funding runs out.

But he and others said what mattered most was the support they found in all aspects of The RASE Project.

Twenty-two-year old Angelica Fiore now works as an administrative assistant in RASE's corporate office. But at 17 the Scranton native was a heroin addict. A county judge furloughed her from prison to The RASE Project.

She lived in a group home with other women in recovery. She had to spend eight hours a day looking for a job. She had to go to at least one Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meeting every day for each of the first 90 days. She had housecleaning chores and consequences for messing up.

"All this I never did before. It showed me what I was really capable of," said Fiore.

Fiore became best friends in the women's' house with Elaine Walker, 47.

Like Bianco, Walker struggled with addiction for years, getting clean for periods just to relapse again in a cycle that seemed never ending.

"This was my ninth attempt at recovery. Nothing worked because I wasn't ready," Walker said.

She said she felt like a dog, beaten so often that it cowered whenever someone reached out to pet it. But instead of beating her up when she did wrong, the RASE Project and the women she lived with accepted her without condition. She made mistakes, but learned how to cope without using.

"If you do something every day for 30 days, it becomes a habit. Staying clean becomes a habit." Today, Walker finds fulfillment in simple things - getting up in her own bed in her own apartment, and preparing her own food she bought with her own money out of her own refrigerator. Walker is assistant manager of the Salvation Army store on Union Deposit Road.

Hedy White of Harrisburg had reached the point where she knew the drugs had won. She called her probation officer, who set in motion a chain of events that led White to The RASE Project.

The 45-year-old said RASE taught her to "live life on life's terms." She's clean seven years now.

Part of her ongoing recovery is to go back to the women's' house from time to time, to pass on the value of her own experience to the next group.

"I'm a grandma now," White said. "I know I can't go back."