Sheila Reed Timmons is Practice Manager at Recovery Place in Savannah, Georgia. She is also Queenie, sometime host of an event called Healthy Love Party. This quarter Queenie invited women in the agency’s residential program to a party – four days of learning to express their sexuality and their love without judgment. Participants were also screened for HIV and HCV.

On the first day, participants are a little timid. “We start out with the fantasy names,” says Sheila. The message: What's said in this room stays in this room. “I don't even know their real names.”

On the last day, they work in groups to put a condom on in the dark. “We have vegetables, fruit, dildos - we turn down the lights, we have soft music playing, and they time themselves. It's a lot of fun. And there's always a pizza party before they come up and get their certificates. It's a real big deal,” says Sheila.

While participants’ ages, backgrounds, and sexual orientation varied, all the women were working to find their way back from a substance use disorder. “Whether it’s alcohol or meth doesn’t matter – in dealing with substance use, everyone gets lost – they lose themselves,” says Sheila. “The point of going into a residential facility is to regain control of your life, to regain your confidence, to be whole again.”

"They don't always get the chance to shine within their own circle because people are constantly looking down on them. But when they come together to help each other they blossom."

When Sheila does a Healthy Love Party she is hoping that by graduation participants will feel better about themselves. “This time, I think they not only felt better about themselves, they felt better about their future – about the next six months of their lives” – that inside the program they would not be judged. “Being judged by people on the outside – that’s going to happen,” says Sheila. “That will happen the rest of their lives; but maybe for the first time, they were not afraid of being judged by the people around them.”

There is a sense of liberation when judgments are lifted and people really try to understand one another said Sheila. “These women are just amazing – they endure so much pain and suffering. They go through their days, their lives holding deep feelings inside. Sometimes you have to open Pandora’s box. But that opportunity doesn't always come up, particularly for these women. They don't always get the chance to shine within their own circle because people are constantly looking down on them. But when they come together to help each other they blossom.”