This is a reprint of a message I wrote to one of my brothers who worked at the treatment center I attended, from my personal page.
“I remember coming to NARA and one of the guys gave me a bunch of nylon dress socks because he had been given white socks. I was so grateful (and they were very odd colors). He said, “Don’t worry about it, I didn’t have any socks when I got here either.”
I think I gave them to another guy who didn’t have any after I got some socks from my parents at Christmas. I had the clothes on my back when I got to NARA (Inpatient drug treatment program in Portland, Oregon). In fact, I never want to forget where I came from. My first sponsor still jokes about me showing up to meetings with no crotch in my jeans and my biker boots. I was a mess. He and another mentor of mine (who we lost to cancer a while back, but was clean and sober when he left us) would ask, “did you stay clean?” I would say, “no, I slipped up.” They would tell me, “You didn’t slip, you made a choice to use! Why didn’t you call us?” I was too scared to reach out.
Inpatient Drug Treatment Program Through Compassionate Interventions
The reason I share this is because so often families are scared to reach out too. Compassionate Interventions understands this. There isn’t anything shameful about saying you have an addict in your family and you don’t know what to do. It amazes me how much stigma is still attached to addiction, yet addiction is so prevalent in our society. I have conducted interventions where some of the participants were participants in another intervention for somebody else. One of the parents said, “I guess all the kids who went to that school are sick (they had all gone to the same high school).” I said, “I think it’s probably the school where the kids in their 20’s are brave enough to get into the solution.”
Join us in the solution. If you need help, reach out for it. We are here. 503-901-1836. Learn more about Compassionate Interventions today. Visit our addiction intervention programs page.