Women In Transition provides early intervention and post-treatment aftercare/recovery support. Our service model recognizes that change and recovery are a process, and integrates the concepts of harm reduction into trauma-informed empowerment so that we can better address both relationship violence and substance abuse. Our safe and supportive services help women increase self-esteem and personal awareness about practical issues which are key to a woman’s recovery: personal safety, child care and parenting, employment and job training, health care and nutrition, and reproductive health and safe sex practices.

WIT’s referral service is a link to agencies providing extensive treatment services for women, and WIT’s recovery service assists women discharged from treatment programs to follow through with relapse prevention plans. Telephone counseling is available and Intake Appointments can be scheduled by calling the LifeLine at 215.751.111 weekdays between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

Substance Abuse & Domestic Violence: A Deadly Connection

Violent partners often sabotage a woman’s treatment by: stalking her at her program; threatening physical harm unless she leaves the program; bullying or manipulating her to “use” as a sign of her “love” for her abuser. A woman who manages to continue in treatment but experiences another round of intimate partner violence may be pressured to use alcohol or other drugs as part of the “making up” phase with her abuser.

Threats of physical harm, withholding of financial support, or abuse directed toward children, pets or other loved ones can lead women to resort to using substances to buffer their distress. Some abusers are more violent when sober or abstinent, so substance abusing battered women may be seen as “enabling” when they are actually trying to be safe by encouraging drinking or drug use.

For substance-abusing battered women, recovery involves getting to a point where they can recognize and take advantage of their options and alternatives before they can replace their substance use with positive coping strategies.