A transforming treatment: Fishers resident launches 12-month healing center for addiction

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By Anna Skinner

Laci Giboney said without hope, there’s no chance for recovery.

The Fishers resident said she lost count of how many times she sought treatment for her heroin addiction. The average is seven attempts for an addict. Most treatment center programs last seven to 30 days, and Giboney said that’s not enough time to truly heal from an addiction.

According to Giboney, repeatedly searching for treatment options to beat an addiction can be detrimental to the chance a person has for recovery and can even cost them their life.

“Every time they fall back to addiction, they lose hope,” she said. “Hope is going to drive them to even make that step toward recovery.”

Giboney’s only source of treatment during her four-year addiction was Fairbanks, a short-term recovery center in Indianapolis. There were no addiction centers, long- or short-term, in Hamilton County until the vision of Transformations Center for Healing opened.

Giboney’s dream, a 10-year process, is finally a reality. Transformations Center for Healing opened May 1. The center can house up to 10 women and puts them through a year-long healing program for all types of substance abuse and addiction. The program is faith-based, as Giboney found much of her healing through God.

“I think I had so much to work through (during my addiction), and God would kind of just give me little pieces to heal from at a time,” she said.

She was listening to music on her bunk in prison when the idea of developing a long-term healing center for women came to her.

“It was just this epiphany, this is what I was supposed to do,” she said. “At that time, my faith was so strong, I believed it was going to happen but (did not know) when or how.”

Her epiphany occurred at the end of 2007. Ten years later, Transformations Center for Healing is a brick-and-mortar building, with one woman already signed up and more than 35 inquiries waiting to be evaluated.

The center, 2200 Sheridan Rd., Noblesville, features a workout room, a sauna, a family style dining room, a garden, psychological healing programs and more. Women will go through classes to learn to get back on their feet. They will volunteer through various partnerships throughout the county, including Grace Care Center, itown Church in Fishers, White River Christian Church in Noblesville or through citizens asking for volunteer work and assistance. Women will attend Sunday service at Life Church in Noblesville, which is at the same property as the center.

After the 12-month stay, Program Director Daryl Mendoza said the house always will be a safe place for the women to return to.

“If they make it through this house, it is always theirs,” she said. “It is always going to be a part of them, always a place they can stop by. It’s their home away from whatever home they’ve established in the community.”

Eventually, Giboney hopes the program can become part of a plea bargain option for women going through the court system.

“There’s this idea that Hamilton County hasn’t been affected (by drugs), but we are ranked ninth out of 92 counties for heroin and opiate overdoses and ranked fourth for prescription overdoses,” she said.  “Every piece of this program is strategically designed to address issues in terms of brain disease and the release of dopamine and neurotransmitters and regulate those to a natural state again and to build confidence and empower them.”

For more, visit transformationscfh.org.

More on Laci Giboney

Laci Giboney graduated from Noblesville High School in 2000 and spent four years addicted to heroin. She said the addiction grew from an emotional pain she never addressed.

“Heroin just happened to be the substance that was present when I needed to numb my pain,” she said.

Giboney realized her mission was to create a center for other women battling addiction in Hamilton County. She realized this through her relationship with God while spending time in prison. Giboney is 11 years into recovery and has been out of prison since 2008.

After prison, Giboney received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from Indiana University. She and her family moved to Fishers in 2010.

She began the process of filing for nonprofit status in January 2016. Transformations for Healing Center opened May 1.


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