You need something that has more power than you and your addiction to get you through recovery.
My addiction tore my family apart. They couldn’t watch me kill myself slowly anymore and needed to stay away from me. The last time I got out of jail, I had made the commitment to myself I was never going to use again. Within a couple of hours, I was high and it really drove home to me just how powerless over my disease I was and I needed help. That’s when I finally decided to seek treatment for methamphetamine and heroin addiction. I have been in recovery for over four and a half years now.
I chose Rimrock for my treatment and it gave me some time away from the chaos I had created. It gave me the tools to get out and start dealing with that chaos and bringing order into my life.
Recovery has improved every area of my life. I’m physically more fit. I’m emotionally stable. Mentally, I’m sound and spiritually, I’m full. I have reconciled my family with my recovery. My kids are back in my life. My mom, my brother, my sister — we’ve worked through all the issues I created.
I find continuing support through my recovery by surrounding myself with people that are like-minded and are also trying to find recovery. I go to twelve-step groups and I am part of an addiction outreach ministry called PAR. That’s where I find encouragement, empowerment, and everything I need.
Spirituality for me means many things. I wake every day in prayer and I ask for power from the Lord to get through my day without using and I thank him for that every night. Spirituality also means cleaning up the mess I created in my life. It means finding something to laugh about every day. I got a bloodhound, Aspen, and when I go home at night, I’ll try to sneak in. When I finally call her name she’ll just attack me with love and by the end of it I’m laughing, and that just makes me spiritually sound.
When I walk into my job, the first thing I think about is, “How can I help the people I work with? How can I help the residents at our facility?” Instead of what can I get from that, it’s what can I give? I’m a Residential Technician and a Peer Support Specialist, so I get to share my recovery with the residents and hopefully help them find a more fulfilling life. I want to have integrity. I want to have honesty. And, I want to be transparent of exactly where I am in life. So I share my struggles and the solutions that I’m finding to those struggles.
I feel I was called by God to be at Rimrock. There have been a few times where I really thought, ”Man, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Because it can be really hard to work here. But something is always put in my path to tell me, “No. You are exactly where you need to be.”
I get to be a part of people getting better. It used to be I could not look at myself in the mirror because I just couldn’t stand that person anymore. But now I get to be a part of people getting well and that allows me to like the person that I see in the mirror.
I teach the Forgiveness Workshop at Rimrock which teaches self-forgiveness. It’s okay to forgive yourself for being the person that you’re not meant to be. Healthy Relationships is another class I teach. It’s not just the close relationships that I focus on. I also try to teach that there are so many relationships around you that you can build to reinforce your recovery. I also teach a Step Group that focuses on hope and spirituality. I try to let people know that you don’t have to rely on yourself. You can rely on something other than yourself. We need empowerment because we are powerless over our addiction. And you need something that has more power than you and your addiction to get you through recovery.
We’ll get people in that are just dead-set against being in treatment and a week or two in you see that lightbulb come on. When our clients finally start getting it, their faces light up and you start to see that hole in their soul starting to get filled up. That’s what we do at Rimrock — we just pour love on people. Some people haven’t felt that in so long, you can see their whole being light up.
It’s really uncomfortable to get clean. It’s really hard to keep that focus going because it hurts and it’s not what you’re used to. You don’t know where the path is going to lead, but take that step anyway and be open to what comes. You’re going to hear things that may make you mad, but they’re things you need to hear. And, if you just stick with it, the life you can find is beyond anything you could imagine.
For me, Rimrock is Recovery.
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