Make the call because life is worth it. You’re worth it, and there is no substitute for recovery.
When I was using, my family was torn apart as I think all families are. My drug use caused a lot of bitterness and division and hurt and pain and eventually I had no one to turn to but myself. I found a letter I had written to someone, trying to help them see they deserved a better life. I scratched the person’s name off the top of the letter and wrote my own. And, then I read a beautiful letter telling me why I should go forward and be in recovery. That was my epiphany.
I came to treatment for a meth addiction in 2016. I crawled through the doors of Rimrock in desperation. I had reached a point where I couldn’t find any other way out. When I first arrived, I didn’t necessarily want to be here, but it just, some of the people and the counselors brought out a desire to live a life in recovery and not go back.
Now, some of those relationships I had damaged have been regained. The trust has come back. I think my whole family is better for having gone through the experience because now we talk. We’re connected better than we were before.
I have the opportunity to live and be present every day in my life to see the world around me for what it is and I can be normal. I can get up in the morning and go to bed at night and enjoy people and places and experiences that I never was able to in my addiction.
I am a peer support specialist which means that I share a lived experience with people who are in the situation that I was in. It’s a non-clinical role. I don’t counsel, but I do support. I’m able to do that again because my story of addiction and recovery mirrors theirs. People can relate to where I’ve been and see what I’ve grown to now. It puts my clients at ease knowing that they’re talking to somebody who’s been there and who understands what they’re going through. And, that just opens them up, allows them to share their own story with me. I have a story that has power and I never knew that before. But when I share my story with other people, it helps them. I am able to help them because they can relate to me as a person in recovery. And I can help them in ways that they might not find elsewhere. And, that is a really strong, powerful thing.
There is hope. And there is a way out of this darkness. Rimrock offered that to me and it offers it to people every day. They helped me myself out of a place where I thought there was no getting out.
Make the call because life is worth it. You’re worth it, and there is no substitute for recovery.
For me, Rimrock is Recovery.
