Giving Teens a Fighting Chance
Randy Rush has a son who struggled with substance abuse as a teen. He and his wife got a call from a teacher who suspected their son was abusing Xanax. He remembers thinking, “What’s Xanax?”
It wasn’t the usual sign parents look for in an addiction. He wasn’t coming home drunk. “We’d know if he was smoking pot,” Rush said. But it was the kind of over-the-counter prescription that, in his son’s case, could be hidden in the bottom of an old basketball trophy in his room.
That prompted Rush and his wife, Susan, to learn more about substance abuse as they dealt with their son’s recovery, and about The Courage Center. Rush eventually joined the board and became executive director in 2021.
The Courage Center was founded in 2016 after Susan and Scotty Mill looked for further support for their teenage son in recovery following inpatient treatment. “There weren’t a lot of family resources to help if your loved one was struggling,” Rush said.
With the help of Pam Imm, a clinical psychiatrist with LRADAC, the state agency that provides recovery services in South Carolina, and others, they began building an independent recovery community organization aimed at removing the stigma for young people aged 14 to 26 and their families as they seek ways to maintain recovery.
The organization first met at Lexington’s Mount Horeb Church, which offered space and staff support. Eventually, it relocated to Park Road, configuring three construction trailers. Now, The Courage Center has four locations in South Carolina, with hundreds of employees offering no-cost peer-based recovery programs, meetings and other programs, all with the goal of providing #CourageOverStigma.
Programs are designed to offer a safe and supportive setting for individuals and family members. Most of the staff have personal experience with recovery and have later trained to be peer support specialists and taken continuing education courses.
“One of our coaches overdosed 14 times and now he’s our data and grants manager. His mom is one of our family coaches. We have story after story that people do get better, and they do recover,” Rush said.
The Courage Center’s aim is to tailor existing programs and strategies to “build what we call recovery capital,” Rush said. That could mean help in getting housing, transportation, or consistent support — whether that’s a step meeting, inpatient treatment, or passing out Narcan. Courage Center staff distributed more than 3,600 boxes of Narcan in 2025.
The center is funded through grants and money from court opioid settlements, the state office of substance abuse, a thrift store that opened in March on Ellis Avenue, and a yearly luncheon.
The luncheon fundraiser has hosted guest speakers such as singer Edwin McCain, Hootie and the Blowfish band member Jim Sonnefeld, and former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf. All are in recovery and shared their journeys for the annual event. Dr. Jeramaine Jackson, a state representative, will be speaking on May 7 at Segra Park’s Club Lounge.
At the four locations in Orangeburg, Aiken, Richland, and Lexington counties, there is space for what The Courage Center calls Alternative Peer Groups, an evidence-based family-centered recovery model.
Other services include:
- Working with Lexington County EMS workers to visit survivors of an overdose to assess what help is needed to prevent a recurrence.
- Life skills training.
- Counseling with a licensed professional.
- Substance-free events.
- In-person and virtual meetings regularly.
More than 12,000 total participants were served in 2025, along with 580 families, and almost 3,000 one-on-one coaching sessions. While The Courage Center is not a treatment facility, it has partnerships with accredited organizations to help families navigate their options.
After 10 years of building, Rush said the goal this year is to nail down processes and maintain sustainability, and, eventually, to build recovery housing. “We think that if we had our own recovery housing, we could take people and give them a chance to get their feet underneath them,” Rush said.
Years ago, when his son was first dealing with addiction, Rush said he was reluctant to learn more about recovery, but he and his wife began spending more of their spare time helping other families. And they learned that people aren’t willing to talk. There’s shame, stigma, and The Courage Center’s mission is about erasing that.
“The people we have here do amazing things,” Rush said. “I’m lucky to be able to be a part of it.”