You Don’t Need a Court Order to Access Addiction Recovery Services in Lewis County, Provider Says

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With more than 200 graduations since the program began in 2004, Lewis County Drug Court has seen tremendous success in its mission to help those arrested for drug-related crimes in their journey to recovery, but Mindy Greenwood wants to remind the community that these addiction recovery services are available to anyone. 

“Most people won’t seek services unless something has happened; there’s always some sort of precipitating event, and what that precipitating event that’s going to send you to seek help is different for everybody,” Greenwood said. 

While roughly 85% of her substance use disorder (SUD) clients at Cascade Community Healthcare sought treatment due to a legal mandate through the courts, there’s still a sizable percentage who sought out treatment on their own. 

“We don’t care how they got there, we just want them to come in and get help,” Greenwood said.

Greenwood has been providing SUD services in Lewis County for 21 years, starting her career at Providence’s former Addictions Recovery Center and opening Community Allied Behavioral Health with since-retired business partner David King in 2011, which merged with Cascade Community Healthcare in February 2015. Since then, Greenwood has run Cascade’s extensive SUD program, which provides treatment for alcoholism and other drug addictions. 

“Being connected to Cascade, us all as one, we really get to intervene in a lot of ways that we didn’t before,” said Greenwood.

Cascade currently has 87 active SUD clients all receiving different levels of treatment, Greenwood said. Standard outpatients receive contact anywhere between one and three times per week, depending on the client, while intensive outpatients are in a fully-structured program and receive contact with Cascade at least four times per week. 

“It’s all varied, there’s all different levels,” Greenwood said. 

While abstinence is the program’s ultimate goal, there’s a clear understanding that recovery is a long journey, and there will likely be bumps along the way as they learn and practice new coping skills. 



“We’re always honored when somebody comes through our door and wants us to walk with them on that journey.  Even if they have to walk through it four or five times,” Greenwood said. 

The first five years in recovery are typically considered to be “early recovery,” Greenwood said, as people build up their foundations. “So just because somebody stops using today doesn’t mean that they have a great foundation under them for their recovery because there’s a lot of things they can go through in the next five years.” 

Cascade purposefully encompasses a wide variety of services — including anger management programs and supported employment to help clients find work — in order to ensure that clients have what they need to build a successful life in recovery.

Anyone interested in services can call 360-748-4339 or visit their Chehalis office at 135 West Main St. to schedule an assessment, which can sometimes be done the same day or within 48 hours, depending on the client. Cascade accepts all Medicaid, Apple Health and some private insurance; but even if you are uninsured or have any concerns about paying for treatment, Greenwood encourages you to come in anyway. 

“We’ve got some community grants we can use to help you get services … Finances, I would hope, would not be a hindrance,” she said.  

And Cascade isn’t the only place providing SUD services in Lewis County: Eugenia Center provides outpatient drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment along with trauma recovery classes and sober coaching, and New Directions Counseling is a state-approved chemical dependency treatment agency with a variety of programs for drug and alcohol addiction treatment. And these agencies keep in touch with each other, so if a client isn’t doing well with one agency, it’s not uncommon for one agency to warmly transfer a client to another agency that may be a better fit. 

“Somebody’s recovery is so personal that you just want them to get it where they can get it and do the best that they can do for themselves,” said Greenwood. 

Above all else, Greenwood encourages anyone considering recovery to just take that first step and walk through the door. 

“Just come in and talk to us, we can get you rolling,” she said. “It’s that simple: just come in and talk to us, we’ll get you rolling.”