Officer in Recovery Reflects on Transformative Life
Part Two
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
Danielle Alachoyan navigates parallel journeys of recovery and grief while working full-time as a Correctional Program Officer for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. She gives back to her community through her work with Doreen’s Place and Warriors of Opportunity, aka Woo Inc.
In Part One, Alachoyan discussed how she was affected by the losses of her brothers, George and Tom, her mother, Doreen, and numerous other loved ones. Here, she delves deeper into her journey, discussing the sober house she opened (named after her mother), trauma therapy, coping with grief, and more.
Time to Act
“After my first brother, George, passed away,” Alachoyan continues, “And after my hospitalization from the psychosis, I prayed hard, and I asked God, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ After everything I’ve been through, I didn’t want the end of my story to be that I’ve come all this way and then I lost my mind... I can’t let that be the way my story ends. There has to be more. God didn't bring me this far to drop me.”
“I thought, ‘This is it, it's time to open Doreen’s Place.’ I had been putting plans together for this, and I already had an income property I was living in at the time. I was able to purchase a second home and move out of the first one, and the transition began."
“Doreen’s Place is now fully open. We now have 10 beds and 10 women in recovery living there, including a house manager. They have to attend three meetings a week, get a sponsor, begin step work, complete chores, and observe a curfew. I am really proud of myself. I believe my mom is proud of me, too. I am able to give back to women in recovery every day and provide them with a safe living environment as they work on their recovery. I know what it feels like to be homeless, or coming out of treatment, feeling broken and alone, and I get to provide these ladies with a safe place to lay their heads.
Addressing Trauma
“After my brother, Tom, passed away on 1/4/24, I was in complete shock and completely broken. I couldn't believe this was happening, almost exactly one year after George passed on 1/20/23. I went to a program called Struggle Well, offered by Boulder Crest Foundation. This is a prevention-focused program for first responders based on the science of Posttraumatic Growth. One of the instructors at Struggle Well told me about another Boulder Crest program called Warrior PATHH (Progressive and Alternative Training for Helping Heroes), which is a program of intensive treatment for a week, focused on addressing trauma.
I went to an all-women’s retreat in Arkansas, and holy shit, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I worked through more trauma in that week than I had in my whole life. We did so many different forms of trauma therapy, including archery and equine therapy (working with horses). All the horses we worked with had PTSD because of the abuse that happened to them. Our role was to work with them gently, show them compassion, and respect their boundaries.”
Each practice or activity we participated in was intense; these experiences were life-changing, and I go down to Arkansas to visit some of my shield maidens yearly and reset.
Trouble and Stigma
“While I was at the retreat, one of my best friends, Jared, overdosed and had to be intubated.
“That was April 2024. On July 1st, six months to the day after Tom passed, we got the call that Jared was in the hospital again. He had overdosed and was found unresponsive in his car, and he was gone 72 hours later, just like Tom. He passed away on July 4th due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Like Tom, he had no brain activity. I couldn't even believe it, I felt I was in a twilight zone, and life wasn't real.”
“While at the hospital, I experienced some stigma with my brother, but when I was at the hospital with Jared, I really saw it. People treat you differently when you are there for someone affected by substance use. He had overdosed multiple times. I had heard them say things like, ‘Oh, he’s a frequent flyer.’ It was brutal.”
“They disregarded him, they didn't feed him, he lost 30 lbs while under care in the ICU, there was nobody around when we arrived, and nobody would answer our questions.
Inspiration to Help
“I prayed, asking God for guidance. That's when I decided that I wanted to open a nonprofit because I wanted to create a trauma retreat. I had learned all those therapeutic practices at Warrior PATHH, and I thought, why not do that for people in recovery?”
“I feel my purpose is to help others. I can’t explain it, and I don’t understand it sometimes, but there it is, God's plan. I was so lost, I went to priests, I got baptized again, I did Reiki, and after my first brother died, I went to a grief therapist, and she couldn‘t even believe all that was going on with me and all the deaths back to back.”
“While I was working on developing the trauma retreat, which I realized would take much longer than I thought, I figured in the meantime we could do scholarships for sober living – for people in recovery coming out of treatment, attempting to bridge the gap and avoid homelessness after treatment. I named the Scholarship the T&G for Tom and George”
I hope to reach our ultimate goal of providing a place for individuals to process trauma and find new, healthy ways to live. My friend, Justin, is my Vice President. He has been helping me along the way the whole time. He also helped me with Doreen’s Place because he had opened his own sober living house before I did, so he guided me.”
Family Matters
“My father had been estranged since I was seven. He came around for my brothers’ funerals, but I kinda kept my distance. He became ill and needed 24-hour care. So, I decided to try to have a relationship with him because he was the only person left from my immediate family who was still alive. I went to see him with my daughter for his birthday and brought him a cake, and I visited him for Father’s Day as well. Even though my close friends told me I didn't owe him anything, I watched this man abuse my mother, my brothers, and he abused me. Once again, I felt compelled to be there for this man during his final months before he passed. I was able to take him places he wanted to go while he was at the nursing home, visit with him, and I was able to tell him I forgave him three days before he passed. He passed away in July of 2025, just before my brother Tom's birthday.”
Alachoyan regards July as a rough time due to the proximity of so many significant dates. “July 1st, my mom passed, July 2nd is Jared’s birthday, July 3rd is the day I found my mom, and July 4th is the day Jared passed. For that week, this year, I took time off,” she explains. “Also, my father passed on the 22nd, and my brother Tom's Birthday is on the 24th. I have to start doing things for myself and prioritizing myself and my grief. I have to go through that, but nobody else does. So instead of putting myself in situations I know will be even more difficult while dealing with the grief and the emotions, like in a prison, I have been trying to give myself some grace.”
“When holidays, death anniversaries, and birthdays come up, they are important times for me because it brings me back to the four of us: me, my mom, and my brothers. I have learned that I don’t need people to make me feel bad about my grief. So during these times, I isolate a little; it is very personal. Trying to pretend that I am OK all the time is exhausting, and it is heartbreaking when people tell you that what you are feeling isn’t valid or when people say they understand when clearly they do not.”
An Ongoing Journey
“I live with grief every day,” Alachoyan continues, ‘And it isn’t something I can make go away. I do have my core support group, but most people don't understand it because they haven’t experienced loss at such a scale. Originally, I spent a lot of time at the cemetery. I was becoming obsessed with it. My mom and my middle brother, George, are both buried there together. I still have my oldest brother’s ashes, but he will be buried with them as well.”
“My grief therapist told me that I should find other ways of remembering them. Such as going to places that remind me of them and places they like to visit – places where we had good memories and had experiences. It is hard dealing with it all the time, but life goes on, and I still have to show up.”
“I’ve been told I talk about my grief and loss too much, and to that I say, ‘I’m going to talk about my family they were a huge part of my life and I get that grief can be difficult for other people to hear about, but it is part of my life and I need to be able to process it out loud sometimes."
"My losses have forever changed me, and life will never be the same. I don’t take time for granted anymore. I am moving forward in the healthiest way I can. I don't do anything perfectly, but I am doing my best."
Forthright Resolve
“My daughter is 21 now, and she is doing well. It has become clear to me that I sometimes forget that my daughter has lost all of these loved ones as well: her nana, her uncles, and Jared, who was like an uncle she had known since she was seven years old. I sometimes don’t connect the grief with her circumstances. She has to remind me that we are grieving the same people. She is such a strong woman; she has been there for me through everything, picking up the pieces, and I am so grateful for her. Sometimes my grief is so big that I forget other people are grieving as well. She is what holds me together; she is my reason for living when my thoughts become so dark that I don't think I'll ever see her again. I know I have to go on for her as well as my family; they did not die in vain. I have a purpose, and I will continue to thrive and help as many people as I can.
“With God's help, I have maintained my sobriety for 18 years, maintained my career for 14 years, I graduated from Boston University with a Master's degree in Criminal Justice, I opened and am currently operating a women's sober living house, I opened a non-profit organization, and I still go to meetings. I keep telling myself that I have to continue moving forward, because if I don’t I’m afraid I’ll fall so far behind that I won’t be able to get out of it. One of the biggest things that has helped me is that I have remained grateful, even for the tiny things. Small wins keep me going, baby steps, and they eventually turn into big ones. If you're alive today, you can do it. Give yourself a chance.
“I found this poem in my brother, George’s journal,” Alachoyan concludes:
I want the light inside my heart to melt the hearts of others.