Peter Ivanitch, Robert Saville and Nicole Miller graduated from the Carbon County Veteran and Drug Treatment Court program Wednesday evening in an outdoor ceremony that marked the 10th graduation in the program’s history. The event, held at the Lehighton Amphitheater, also brought with it news that the program had earned formal certification from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Family members, community supporters and program staff gathered at a local park for the event, which also included sobriety milestone chip presentations for nine current participants and phase advancement certificates for several others.

Graduates

Ivanitch, who described himself as a lifelong Grateful Dead fan, borrowed from the band to open his speech.

“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” he said, before describing his own journey from handcuffs, to a jail cell, to a rehabilitation facility, to the program. Nearly two and a half years sober, Ivanitch credited the court team with changing his outlook.

“This program has been an integral part in turning my thinking and life around,” he said, “and reinforcing my sentiment that I still have good and love in me to share with the world.”

Miller, who received the Matthew Reabold Making Recovery a Reality Memorial Award at the ceremony, shared a story shaped by her mother’s illness. A month after she entered the program, her mother was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer that spread to her brain.

“I watched her hold on for me, so she could see me graduate,” Miller said. “Tonight’s graduation is extra special, because school wasn’t my thing.”

She also spoke of the young daughter of her best friend, who died Oct. 25, 2023, and now lives with Miller. “That little big brat has always been by my side. She talks me out of cravings and tells me that she’ll kick my butt if I ever drink again,” Miller said.

The award is funded through a golf tournament established by the family of Matthew Reabold, a young man who became addicted to medication following a sports injury and later died. Carbon Common Pleas Judge Joseph Matika, who presides over the court, said the family approached the program years ago to donate the proceeds.

“We decided that at graduation we would provide an award to participants throughout the years who are most deserving for what they’ve done in our program,” he said.

Certification

Matika said Treatment Court Coordinator Tammy Recker called him with the certification news just days before Wednesday’s ceremony.

“Tammy was ecstatic,” Matika said. “In fact, I haven’t heard her that ecstatic since she told me about the time she met her favorite country artist, Travis Tritt, and got a picture with him.”

Recker had been contacted by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which informed her that after a thorough evaluation of the program’s structure, operations and outcomes, the Carbon County Drug Treatment Court team had been recognized and designated as a certified drug treatment court in the commonwealth.

The program, which considered its first applicants in January 2017, has faced persistent challenges over its decade of operation.

“I’d be lying if I said it was easy. It has not been,” Matika said, citing financial difficulties, staff turnover and limited local treatment resources. “Yet we, as a team, have persevered. As a program, we believed in what we did for those less fortunate, like our participants.”

Matika framed his remarks to the graduates around the themes of adversity and perseverance, noting that the three participants had faced significant obstacles — some of their own making, some beyond their control.

“At no time was the word quit an option for them, nor a part of the vocabulary,” he said. “They never gave up on themselves, and we never gave up on them.”

Desperation

Guest speaker Amanda Grimm, a graduate of the program’s inaugural drug treatment court class in 2021, offered the ceremony’s most personal account of what those words mean in practice. Seven months pregnant and at the same park where Tuesday’s ceremony was held, Grimm said she and her husband had just confessed to their sponsor that they had relapsed. Two days later, her husband was dead.

“He overdosed on May 7, 2020, right here on First Street in the apartment we just moved into,” Grimm said. “Suddenly, what everyone thought of me was no longer important. Honestly, nothing was important.”

Rather than sanctions, Grimm said, the court team met her with compassion. She described her entry into the program as a decision driven by desperation rather than conviction.

“Drug court became an option that I jumped at after spending almost six months in jail. It was my get out of jail free card, never realizing it was the foundation I needed to survive,” she said.

The road through the program included 13 rehabilitation stints, the loss of custody of her three children and being revived with Narcan more than 10 times. There were moments, she said, when she could not understand why the court team was pushing her so hard.

“I know that these people weren’t trying to control me,” Grimm said. “They saved me.”

Now 2,239 days sober, Grimm said her life bears no resemblance to the one she described. “Today, I am a successful business owner. I built a platform where I share my story with hundreds of thousands of people online every single day,” she said. “I get messages from strangers around the world saying that because of my story, they got help.”

Her message to the three graduates was equal parts celebration and caution. “Congratulations, not because you are finished, but because today proves you didn’t quit,” Grimm said. “Nothing out there is worth giving up everything you’ve fought so hard to build. Protect your recovery, protect your life, and don’t take the second chance for granted.”

Overcoming obstacles

Recker, in her opening remarks, reflected on the journeys of all three graduates and what their arrival at the same destination represented.

“Recovery, growth and change are rarely straight lines,” she said. “Each of these graduates arrived here in their own time, after learning the lessons they needed to learn, overcoming the obstacles they needed to overcome, and becoming the people they were meant to become.”

Marguerite Green, a representative from state Rep. Doyle Heffley’s office who attended in his absence, told the graduates the event carried personal weight for her.

“I’ve lost my daughter to addiction,” she said. “Each and every one of you, with your struggles, are my heroes. You give hope to the next ones coming up, that you can do it, so I can do it, too.”

District Attorney Michael Greek made the motion to dispose of the three graduates’ cases with no further penalty, which Matika granted.