I will always remember the 10 hour drive to treatment. It was the beginning of December and we were driving north from Chicago. With every hour that went by, the landscape appeared to disappear under deeper and deeper layers of snow.
Continue Reading What I’d like to talk about is not the event itself but an interesting interaction that happened there. Once everyone had arrived, Jordan and I introduced ourselves and gave a quick presentation on Heroes in Recovery.
Continue Reading Many people in the treatment industry don’t do the work they do for the money. They do this work because they love it—getting paid for it is just the icing on the cake. When I went to the Freedom and Recovery Conference in April, I got to talk to a variety of professionals in the rehab industry who had congregated in the name of their common passion: recovery from addiction and mental health issues. In many ways, this was the perfect echo chamber to broadcast the word of the Heroes in Recovery mission. The meeting halls were filled with professional word-spreaders who are passionate about recovery. So the idea of reducing the stigma of addiction, treatment and recovery was received with open ears and a great deal of interest.
Continue Reading Every day I get asked, “Is there anything we can do for our loved one besides sending them to rehab?” Sometimes they almost whisper the word. The negative inflection in their tone suggests that they believe that rehab is a highly undesirable option that it is in the same league with jail, prison, or the psych wards depicted in movies— that “rehab” is a bad word. Why does the word “rehab” have this negative connotation?
Continue Reading I entered treatment at age 21, having been able to drink alcohol legally for just six months. My consequences seemed minor compared to the people with whom I shared my treatment room. I had never gotten divorced, never had a DUI, never been fired for drinking, and I never drank in the morning (that is to say, I never woke up and started drinking). I had done cocaine, but I had never smoked crack. I was never homeless and I had never spent a night in a shelter.
Continue Reading