As CEO of WellBrook Recovery (an alcohol and drug rehab in Ohio), I’ve seen firsthand how much having supportive people nearby can make a meaningful difference for someone working toward sobriety. But supporting a loved one doesn’t mean having all the answers or taking responsibility for their recovery. Often, it means listening, respecting boundaries, offering encouragement, and being there through both milestones and difficult moments.

Here are some ways you can support someone you love on their sobriety journey.

Learn About Recovery

One of the best ways to support someone is to understand what recovery actually involves. Sobriety is more than simply stopping substance use. Recovery can involve addressing underlying challenges, developing healthier coping strategies, rebuilding relationships, managing triggers, and creating a fulfilling daily life.

Everyone’s recovery journey is different. Some people participate in counseling or peer-support programs, while others may incorporate medication, structured treatment, or a combination of approaches. There is no single path that works for everyone. So take the time to learn without making assumptions. Ask your loved one what recovery means to them and what kind of support they find helpful.

Listen Without Judgment

Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can offer is a listening ear. Let your loved one talk about their experiences, fears, cravings, accomplishments, or frustrations without immediately trying to fix the situation. Avoid criticism, lectures, or comments that could make them feel ashamed. You might simply ask, “How are you doing?” or “Is there anything I can do to support you right now?”

Listening doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they say. It means creating a safe space where they can be honest without expecting condemnation.

Support Without Enabling

There is an important difference between supporting recovery and enabling harmful behavior.

Support might mean providing transportation to an appointment, helping with a healthy routine, spending time together, or encouraging your loved one to connect with their recovery community. Enabling, on the other hand, can involve covering up consequences, making excuses for harmful behavior, or providing money or resources in ways that could contribute to substance use.

Setting boundaries is not a lack of compassion. In many cases, healthy boundaries allow you to remain supportive without compromising your own well-being or unintentionally making unhealthy behavior easier.

Be Mindful of Triggers and Social Situations

Recovery can require significant changes to a person’s routine and social environment. Certain people, places, celebrations, or situations may create cravings or make sobriety more difficult. Consider offering substance-free alternatives when making plans. Instead of automatically choosing a bar or an event centered around drinking, suggest activities such as going for a walk, seeing a movie, cooking together, attending a sporting event, or enjoying a meal.

You can also ask what situations feel comfortable for your loved one rather than assuming. A simple conversation can help you understand their boundaries and avoid putting them in an uncomfortable position.

Choose Supportive Language

Words matter, particularly when discussing substance use and recovery. Stigmatizing language can reinforce shame and make it harder for people to seek help. Whenever possible, focus on the person rather than defining them by their substance use. Terms such as “person in recovery” can be more respectful than labels that reduce someone to a diagnosis or past behavior.

It’s also helpful to avoid language that implies recovery is a matter of willpower or that a setback means someone has failed. Recovery is a process, and compassion can go a long way.

Know How to Respond to a Setback

A relapse or return to substance use can be frightening for everyone involved. If it happens, try to respond with calmness rather than anger or shame. Encourage your loved one to reconnect with their treatment team, counselor, peer-support network, or other trusted resources. You can express concern while still making it clear that you believe recovery remains possible.

At the same time, don’t ignore serious safety concerns. If your loved one is experiencing an overdose, a medical emergency, or an immediate risk of harming themselves or someone else, seek emergency assistance.

Respect Their Independence

It’s natural to worry about someone you love, but constant monitoring can sometimes create tension or undermine trust. Avoid interrogating them about every meeting, craving, or decision. Instead, allow them to take ownership of their recovery while making it clear that you’re available when they need support. Recovery belongs to the person experiencing it. Your role is to encourage and support them, not to control every aspect of their journey.

Don’t Forget Your Own Well-Being

Supporting someone through recovery can be emotionally demanding. It’s important to take care of yourself, too. Maintain your own relationships, interests, routines, and sources of support. Consider talking with a counselor or joining a support group for families and loved ones affected by substance use.

You can love someone deeply while recognizing that you cannot control their choices or single-handedly prevent relapse. Protecting your own mental and emotional well-being helps you remain a healthier source of support.

Celebrate Progress

Recovery deserves recognition, not only when someone reaches a major sobriety milestone, but also when they make everyday choices that support their well-being. Celebrate progress in ways your loved one appreciates. That might mean acknowledging an important milestone, spending quality time together, or simply recognizing the effort they’re putting into their recovery.

Before sharing someone’s recovery milestone publicly, however, ask for permission. Their story belongs to them, and privacy can be an important part of feeling safe in recovery.

Recovery Is a Journey, Not a Single Moment

National Recovery Month is a reminder that recovery deserves compassion, respect, and community support. If someone you love is working toward sobriety, you don’t need perfect words or all the answers. Listen, ask what they need, respect their boundaries, encourage healthy support, and set your own boundaries when needed. You are not responsible for someone else’s recovery. Sometimes, simply showing up consistently and without judgment is one of the most powerful ways to remind someone they aren’t alone.

Meir Kasnett is the CEO of WellBrook Recovery, a leading behavioral health organization providing personalized drug and alcohol rehabilitation services in Ohio and Wisconsin. Under his leadership, WellBrook Recovery is focused on delivering high-quality, compassionate care through a comprehensive continuum of treatment, including medical detox, residential treatment, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs. The organization takes a patient-centered approach that addresses substance use disorders alongside underlying mental and emotional health challenges, with individualized treatment plans and a multidisciplinary team of medical and clinical professionals. https://wellbrookrecovery.com/

Paulding, Ohio- Paulding County Hospital gives back to all three area schools. Antwerp, Paulding and Wayne Trace schools all received a donation to their athletic departments from Paulding County Hospital this past week. 

Paulding County Hospital offered sports physicals to local athletes during the school day at the end of the previous school year. Sports physicals were performed at all three county schools by Paulding County Hospital providers and staff. With the approval of administration and the Board, Paulding County Hospital was able to donate every dollar collected for the sports physicals performed back to each school’s athletic department. 

Participating in school-related sports is a great way for youth to stay fit, have fun, all while developing school and community spirit. Paulding County Hospital was happy to be able to play a role in this process and give back to these worthy programs. 

Somewhere in your home may be a pair of eyeglasses you have not worn in years.

Perhaps they are sitting in a drawer, a desk or a bathroom cabinet. You may have forgotten about them. But those glasses are not necessarily useless. The Heritage Lions collect over 10,000 pairs of eyeglasses each year from over 45 locations in Allen County. Optometrists, Allen County Public Libraries, YMCAs, Indiana Physical Therapy, nursing homes and funeral homes throughout the area sponsor these collection boxes.

After sorting out all of the cases and the broken glasses, the Heritage Lions bring the good glasses to Arcola for their twice a year sorting session in Lion John Gellar’s barn. The Arcola Lions Club take sorted eyeglasses to the The Wanatah Lions Club’s collection center in District 25A.

There Lions members from all over Northern Indiana sort over 15,000 pairs of used eye-glasses. Sort categories include: men’s and women’s, children’s, reading glasses and sunglasses. After the Arcola sort, The Wanatah Lions Club works with the Westville Correctional Facility where prisoners clean, repair, and most importantly read the prescriptions to catalog them for dispensing on missions trips. 

The glasses will eventually be shipped with missions to Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and other countries that lack the resources to manufacture these necessary items. At the mission site, eye care professionals and trained Lion volunteers perform vision screenings and dispense the appropriate recycled glasses, free of charge, to children and adults in need.

Worldwide, millions of people live with vision impairment that could be improved with appropriate eye care and corrective lenses. For people in communities where eye examinations and eyeglasses are difficult to obtain or afford, a simple pair of donated glasses can make an enormous difference. When they receive these glasses from the Lions, their lives are changed forever.

Imagine, for a moment, a six-year-old girl we will call María. She places the glasses onto her face, looks across the room and for the first time sees the faces of the people around her clearly. She can now see the writing on the blackboard. She can read a book.

She can remain in school rather than falling behind because she cannot see. Multiply this times many millions and you can appreciate the power of this Heritage and International Lions project. All from gathering used eyeglasses that would have otherwise gone into a landfill.

Please consider placing your unneeded eyeglasses, sunglasses, reading glasses and hearing aids/batteries in any of the collection boxes located throughout northern Indiana.

Help the Lions help the less fortunate to see clearly, perhaps for the first time in their lives. This project is a perfect example of the Heritage Lions motto: “We Serve”.

An Antwerp native and northwest Ohio physician was recently featured in national news coverage of the nation’s largest recorded outbreak of cyclosporiasis.

Dr. Joel Kammeyer, the son of Bob and Patti Kammeyer formerly of Antwerp, was interviewed by the Associated Press following the announcement that two Michigan residents had died after contracting cyclosporiasis. The illness, caused by the Cyclospora parasite, has sickened more than 20,000 people nationwide, making it the largest outbreak of its kind ever recorded in the United States. The Associated Press story was carried by media outlets across the country, including CBS News.  

Kammeyer recently joined Wayne State University School of Medicine as Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Division Chief of Infectious Diseases, where he also serves patients through the Detroit Medical Center. Although based in Michigan, much of his clinical practice continues to include northwest Ohio through ProMedica hospitals, including Toledo, Defiance, Fostoria, Adrian and other communities.  

In the Associated Press interview, Kammeyer described the deaths as “a tragedy,” while noting that the illness is generally treatable in otherwise healthy individuals. He explained that patients with significant underlying medical conditions are more vulnerable to complications, particularly severe dehydration caused by prolonged diarrhea.  

Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that causes an intestinal illness known as cyclosporiasis. Symptoms include prolonged watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, fatigue and weight loss. Most people recover with proper treatment, but older adults and those with weakened immune systems face a greater risk of severe illness. Health officials continue to investigate the outbreak, with contaminated lettuce identified as a likely source for many of the cases.  

For area residents, the story also serves as a reminder that one of Antwerp’s own is playing a prominent role in addressing public health concerns affecting Michigan, Ohio and beyond.

Paulding County Hospital is pleased to share with the community that our current Therapy/ Fitness Center Expansion project is well underway. 

Once complete, the facility renovations will feature newly expanded state-of-the-art Cardiopulmonary, Physical, Occupational and Speech Rehabilitation facilities, along with an expanded fitness center. This expansion will enable PCH to better meet the needs of our patients and patrons. 

We wanted to take this opportunity to let the community know of some changes that will be coming to the fitness center, once re-opened. These changes will affect the Paulding County Hospital Fitness Center, Antwerp Regional Fitness Center and Payne Fitness Center, once it is complete. The structure for fitness center memberships will be as follows: 6-months will be $150 for a single, and $300 for a family. A year membership will be $300 for a single, and $600 for a family. There will no longer be 1-month or 3-month memberships offered. 

A family membership will remain a family living in the same household with children under the age of 18. Once a child is 18 years of age they must get their own membership, the same process as followed previously. 

You will find that our membership pricing only has a nominal increase per month. Amazingly for the past 15-years we have not had an increase in cost affect the public but the hospital has absorbed the increases. Now in 2026, it was time to increase it $5 more dollars per month to help cover the growing expenses that are incurred from having multiple facilities throughout the county. 

Memberships still cannot be purchased at this time, once the project is completed and ready to re-open, we will happily welcome members back. Until then stay tuned for more updates. 

Paulding County Hospital would like to thank in advance the communities we proudly serve for your support. “TOGETHER WE ARE ADVANCING HEALTH CARE, CLOSE TO HOME!”

Construction continues to make steady progress on the Paulding County Hospital Fitness Center and Rehabilitation Expansion Project, with hospital officials sharing an update on the work that has taken place since groundbreaking ceremonies were held in November 2025.

The expansion was launched to address growing patient demand and provide additional space for rehabilitation services. Over the past several years, Paulding County Hospital has experienced a substantial increase in patient volume as healthcare services across the region have evolved, creating a need for larger and more specialized treatment areas.

Recent construction photos show the new addition taking shape on the east side of the hospital. Exterior work includes the installation of brickwork, framing and weatherproofing, while inside, crews have completed much of the structural framing and utility work for the new rehabilitation and fitness spaces.

When complete, the project will provide a dedicated therapy gym designed to support Physical, Occupational, Speech and Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation services. The expansion will also allow the hospital to better utilize existing space within the facility and reduce congestion that previously required some therapy-related activities to be conducted in temporary areas.

A key feature of the project is a separate entrance for fitness center members. The design will allow individuals using the fitness center to access the facility more conveniently, particularly during evening hours, without entering through the main hospital. Therapy patients will continue to enter through the hospital’s main entrance. The new addition will also include updated exercise equipment areas, patient amenities and a walking track.

Hospital leadership has noted that the project represents an investment in the future of local healthcare and is intended to ensure residents continue to have access to high-quality rehabilitation and wellness services close to home.

Construction remains ongoing as crews continue work on both the exterior and interior portions of the expansion. Hospital officials say the project will provide additional capacity and modernized space to help meet the healthcare and wellness needs of Paulding County residents for years to come.

Northwestern Ohio Community Action Commission (NOCAC) recently released their 2025 annual report. The report highlights both the people who work for NOCAC and the programs provided in Defiance, Fulton, Henry, Paulding, Van Wert, and Williams counties.  From long term employee retention to recognition of programming for going above and beyond, 2025 was full of efforts that supported and strengthened communities.

“NOCAC’s 2025 Annual Report highlights the valuable resources, collaborations, and support systems that allow us to create meaningful solutions that address the barriers associated with poverty and help individuals and families move toward greater self-sufficiency and stability.

This work would not be possible without our dynamic employees, whose compassion and dedication ensure that life-changing services and opportunities remain accessible to those we serve. In fact, 21% of NOCAC’s workforce has been with the agency for more than 15 years  demonstrating the deep commitment and experience our team brings to strengthening communities across our region,” Angie Franklin, Executive Director.

Program wise two of the great 2025 wins were both rooted in the Summer Food Program. Specifically, the Turnip the Beet! Award by the USDA for going above and beyond; and the Golden Gourd Award which is sponsored by the Farm to Summer Challenge. The Golden Gourd Award is part of the Ohio Proud efforts which involve several State of Ohio departments including the Department of Agriculture. 

Equally valuable were all the other programming efforts throughout the year including those provided by NOCAC’s Financial Opportunity Center, Head Start, Weatherization and Home Repair, the PATH Center, Housing Services, Publicly Funded Child Care, Health and Nutrition, and Emergency Assistance. 

For 15 years, Vasavi Reddy, MD, Parkview Physicians Group (PPG) – Family Medicine, has provided compassionate, personalized care for individuals and families in northwest Ohio. That care continues, but soon, from a new location.

In June, Dr. Reddy will relocate from 9742 U.S. 127 in Sherwood to a new PPG – Family Medicine office 20 minutes away at 422 West River Street in Antwerp. Patient appointments at this location will begin on Tuesday, June 2.

For the past several months, Reddy and her team have seen patients in the Sherwood office on an interim basis, having relocated from their previous office in Hicksville on the campus of the former Community Memorial Hospital. PPG had leased the space to ensure continuity of care for family medicine patients even after the hospital closed in 2024. However, once the hospital was in receivership, PPG was notified in late fall of 2025 that the property would be put up for auction, so Dr. Reddy’s team was moved to the Sherwood office temporarily last December. The West River Street office in Antwerp will be their new home.

Before joining Parkview in 2024, Reddy served as Community Memorial Hospital’s chief of staff and provided primary care to area residents at both the hospital and her family medicine office. She also served as an emergency medicine physician and created the hospital’s first occupational health program. 

Prior to arriving in Hicksville in 2012, Reddy completed her family medicine residency at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., after having received her medical degree. She completed her undergraduate studies at Villanova University in Villanova, Penn., earning bachelor’s degrees in biology and psychology and graduating with honors.

She is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine. She is also fluent in Spanish.

Dr. Reddy takes pride in gaining a thorough understanding of each person’s situation and background so she can provide truly patient-centered care.

“I love meeting new people and hearing their stories,” she said. “Being a family doctor in a rural area is so humbling because I get to know the whole person, their family and often the other community members that impact each person’s mental and physical health. I always do what I can to get to the bottom of a problem, not just offer temporary solutions. It’s what I would want if I asked a doctor for help.”

In addition to primary care, Reddy offers occupational health services, including Department of Transportation (DOT) physicals, pre-employment physicals, workers’ compensation injury care, and drug screens.

Outside of work, family life keeps her busy. She and her husband, Dr. Ashish Sud, a section chief of anesthesia for Parkview, have three young daughters who are involved in activities and sports.

“If I get leisure time, I enjoy running outside and having a cup of coffee while listening to medical podcasts to stay up to date in healthcare,” said Reddy, a former NYC Marathon runner and rock-climbing instructor. 

Dr. Reddy welcomes patients of all ages, from newborns to older adults. To schedule an appointment at the Antwerp office, call 419-567-6350. Office hours are: 7:15 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and 7:15 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. on Thursday.

On Tuesday, April 7th, members of Paulding County Hospital, the PCH Payne office, along with members of the village of Payne gathered at the site of the future PCH Payne Regional Medical Center, 100 S Hyman St., Payne, OH, for a groundbreaking. 

The new facility will be very similar to the Regional Medical Center that is currently in operation in Antwerp. The Paulding County Hospital board overseeing this new project took feedback from the Payne community and learned that people do really want a full service medical facility that will also include a fitness center like the one in Paulding and Antwerp.

Dr. Nigel Hogan and his family were there to take part in the ceremony, along with recently retired Dr. Joseph Kuhn, welcoming the addition to downtown Payne. Other local participants included Payne Mayor Lora Lyons, council members, County Commissioners, Township representatives, along with the Paulding County Hospital CEO Ron Goedde, and the Hospital Board of Trustees (pictured above).

The completion of the new facility is anticipated for Fall of 2026.

My Calvary Lutheran Church members from Antwerp recently collected items for the Hands of Hope Pregnancy Center in Paulding. Items donated were diapers, baby wipes, rash cream, office supplies, and a monetary sponsorship for the Hands of Hope upcoming banquet.  

We hope to see many of you at the banquet on March 27th.

Contact Hands of Hope for more information.