When Nicole Barcalow walks through the doors of The GateHouse each day, it’s more than just a job to her.
It’s home.
As the Residential Program Supervisor at the men’s house in Lititz, Nicole oversees nearly 30 residents and a team of compassionate staff. Her days are spent ensuring meals are cooked, rules are followed, and residents have everything they need, from laundry pods to a listening ear.
“I tell people I’m basically a mom to 29 guys,” Nicole said with a laugh. “But it’s true. I care about every one of them.”
Her commitment to the men she serves goes beyond managing a schedule. She makes sure they feel seen, supported, and cared for. She knows what it’s like to stand where they are.
This November, Nicole will celebrate nine years in recovery. It’s a milestone she credits to faith, structure, and the community she herself found at The GateHouse years ago.
A Chaotic Childhood
Nicole’s journey to The GateHouse began miles away from Lancaster County, in a small New Jersey town near the shore. She grew up in a trailer park with her mother and stepfather; both of whom struggled with substance use disorder.
“They were young, and they were using,” she said. “There was always drinking, taking pills, and later, using harder drugs. It was chaotic.”
As the oldest of three girls, Nicole often felt more like a parent than a sibling. She remembers waiting up at night, peeking through the crack of her bedroom door to make sure her mom hadn’t left the stove on or fallen asleep with a cigarette lit.
“For my sisters, I tried to make things fun, like building forts and making up games,” she said. “But for me, it was constant worry.”
By her early teens, Nicole had already started using substances herself. First, it was with her parents, then her friends. In high school, she found herself drawn to the wrong crowd but still managed to keep her grades up.
“I was smart,” she said. “I even got myself into college. But I just couldn’t get out of my own way.”
The Slide into Substance Use
Nicole’s experimentation in high school quickly turned into dependency. By her senior year, she was using heroin regularly while working at a restaurant after school.
“I didn’t even realize what withdrawal was until I tried to stop,” she said. “That’s when I knew I was in deep.”
Despite her struggles, Nicole was accepted to Rutgers University, where she planned to study chemistry. But the summer before college, she was arrested on a paraphernalia charge. It would be the first of many encounters she would have with the law.
Still enrolled at Rutgers, Nicole was determined to change. She did her best to stay clean, but loneliness and depression crept in. “Everyone around me had money and families that cared,” she said. “I just didn’t fit in.”
One afternoon, her roommate walked into their dorm room and found Nicole unconscious with a tourniquet around her arm. The university gave her a choice: go to treatment or leave school.
“That’s the thing about this disease,” she said. “It takes everything from you and then convinces you that it’s fine.”
She opted for the drugs and left her future behind.
Jail, Loss, and a Glimpse of Hope
After leaving Rutgers, Nicole’s life spiraled. Her parents had moved to Pennsylvania without telling her, leaving her to live with her grandmother in New Jersey.
“They just packed up and left,” she said. “It felt like punishment.”
Her grandmother, a tiny Italian woman with a fierce heart, became the one person Nicole could always count on. “No matter what I did, she loved me,” Nicole said. “She picked up every jail call, every time.”
Love alone couldn’t stop the cycle. Nicole spent much of her twenties bouncing between arrests, probation violations, and short stints in jail. When she wasn’t incarcerated, she sometimes stayed with her parents in Allentown, but only until they realized she was using again.
“It wasn’t hard for them to tell,” she said. “I didn’t grow up with a lazy eye, but the heroin made the muscle in my eye weaker and weaker. My mom would take one look at me and say, ‘You’re high. Get out.’”
The damage went far beyond what anyone could see. Over the years, Nicole’s body endured the full weight of her substance use. She was hospitalized on multiple occasions for overdoses and placed in a coma four separate times.
“I came close to dying more than once,” she said quietly. “It’s a miracle I’m even here.”
But jail, ironically, became one of the few places where she felt a sense of order. “I didn’t mind jail,” she said. “It was structured. People followed rules. I felt safe.”
That stability, however harsh, hinted at something she didn’t yet have a name for. It was the kind of structure she would later find in recovery.
During one of her releases, Nicole was sent to The GateHouse as part of a court stipulation. She didn’t know it then, but that experience would plant the first seeds of change.
A Place of Structure and Second Chances
Nicole would enter The GateHouse three different times over the next 10 years. The first two didn’t stick.
“I wanted to be cool, to fit in with the girls who were using,” she said. “But I wasn’t ready.”
Her third time was different.
“By then, I had lost everything,” she said. “My mom had died from an overdose. I had burned every bridge. I knew I couldn’t keep living like that.”
This time, she found structure and accountability at The GateHouse, and she embraced it. For the first time in her life, she met people who believed in her. “They taught me how to live again,” she said. “How to be responsible, how to show up.”
She also met her future wife, though she laughs now at the timing. “I don’t recommend dating in treatment,” she said. “But somehow, we made it work.”
Together, they built a life rooted in recovery and mutual respect.
“We’ve been together 13 years now,” she said, before adding proudly, “… and nine of those have been clean.”
Building a Life Worth Protecting
Life didn’t immediately get easier, but it got better. Nicole and her wife worked their way up from fast-food jobs to management positions, eventually earning stable careers. Nicole chose to go into behavioral health; her wife chose the security field.
Her first real opportunity came when Retreat Behavioral Health hired her on the spot.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I sat in my car at the bottom of the hill and just danced. I called my probation officer, my therapist, everyone I could think of to tell them I was going to work in treatment.”
That moment marked a turning point, sparking a deep love for helping others in recovery.
Right before her weight-loss surgery and shortly after she and her wife gained custody of her wife’s stepdaughter, Retreat closed its doors permanently. It was devastating. But that loss pushed her back into the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous (NA), where she reconnected with her support system and strengthened her resolve to keep growing.
Not long after, her former boss from Retreat called about an open position at The GateHouse and told her she’d be a perfect fit. Nicole didn’t hesitate.
“I was like, ‘That’s my home. That’s where I belong.’”
Nicole has grown into her role as a staff member at The GateHouse and has become an inspiration to the men she supervises. She also serves as a General Service Representative for her NA home group, attends meetings regularly, and mentors others in recovery. “The GateHouse gave me my life back,” she said. “Now I get to help others find theirs.”
Lessons in Recovery
Nine years into recovery, Nicole continues to grow. Last year, she underwent weight-loss surgery and lost more than 100 pounds — a physical transformation that mirrored her ongoing emotional and spiritual work.
“I realized recovery doesn’t stop with drugs,” she said. “You can replace one addiction with another. It can be food, relationships, anything. That’s why you’ve got to keep doing the work.”
She’s also a parent now, raising her wife’s 16-year-old autistic daughter. “It’s been the biggest blessing,” she said. “I get to give her the kind of love and stability I didn’t have.”
When asked what advice she would give others in recovery, Nicole doesn’t hesitate.
“Build your support system,” she said. “Call someone every day. Go to meetings. Stay connected. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Coming Full Circle
From a trailer park in New Jersey to leading a recovery house in one of the coolest small town in America, Nicole’s story is one of resilience, redemption, and love.
“I used to think I’d die out there,” she said quietly. “Now I wake up every day grateful that I didn’t.”
The GateHouse is here for you, whether you need outpatient support, transitional living, or residential extended care programs.
If you’re looking for help now, give us a call at 717-393-3215 or reach out to us on our website to get started.
