Women try to break cycle of drugs, crime

Nellie Gash stepped off the bus in Greenville and looked out on a landscape littered with reminders of past mistakes and old temptations.

At 43, Gash had been addicted to crack cocaine for most of her adult life. The drug robbed her of a career and a stable family life. It landed her behind bars and drove her to sell her body to support her habit.

Now, freshly released from state prison, she was back where she started, free to pick up where she left off.

No, she said, this time was going to be different. So she stepped back on the bus and continued on to North Charleston, where a bed awaited her at Magdalene House, a nonprofit that helps women try to break the cycle of addiction and incarceration.

Five months later, Gash remains clean and has enrolled at Trident Technical College to resume her education. She is grateful for the chance to start over, to live again.

“They saved my life,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so whole in my 43 years. I am clean, I am safe and I like it.”

That is just what organizers intended when they opened Magdalene House in June 2007. Modeled after a successful program in Nashville, the home is a ministry of St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Charleston.