Testimonials.
I am 36 years old and have recovered from alcoholism and drug addiction. I am originally from Raleigh, North Carolina and graduated from college in 1993. During my college years, I drank and drugged alcoholically. Despite graduating a National Honor Society inductee, I also acquired two Driving While Intoxicated (DUI) charges. What seemed to be sufficient reason to stop my behavior only proved the beginning of a long ugly road.
After graduation, my drinking and drugging increased immensely and by 1995 I had become a full-blown drug addict and alcoholic. I entered my first treatment center in 1995 and swore never to do it again. The years that followed brought with it countless vain attempts to prove that I could drink and drug like other people. These attempts always failed and landed me in jail, other treatment centers or overdosing.
By the year 2006, I couldn’t stay sober longer than 15 months. I had been in eight or nine different treatment centers had done almost a year of jail time; received six DUI’s and lived on the streets. I’ve been shot through the back, totaled automobiles, lost expensive homes, all but wrecked my family, found myself on a financial roller-coaster and came close to taking my life on numerous occasions until arriving at the Bay Area Recovery Center on Sept 23, 2006.
What has happened since arriving at the BARC has been nothing less than an absolute miracle. I was told what was wrong with me. It was explained to me what an alcoholic was. I was told the suggested program of recovery that I needed was The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was told that the main object of their book was to find a power greater than myself. I was told that my way was not working and that I needed to find a different way to live. I believed what they told me.
Because of what was suggested to me here at the BARC, I no longer suffer from the symptoms of my alcoholism. I no longer obsess over or have interest in the drink or drug that has been trying to take my life for many years now.
My days now include helping other alcoholics and drug addicts, working at the BARC as a counselor intern, making AA a way of life, attend AA meetings and functions, chairing AA meetings and functions, seeing what I can give rather than what I can take.
Before I got to the BARC, I had met many people that had an answer but didn’t have my problem (church). I also met many people that had my problem but didn’t have an answer (non-solution oriented AA/treatment centers). I finally met many people that had my problem and had my answer… The Bay Area Recovery Center.
Steven C.
I went through a treatment center 2 years ago and left not knowing much about the disease of Alcoholism. I continued using pain pills; destroying everyone and everything I loved. With nothing left and nowhere to go, God put me in Dickinson, TX. at the Bay Area Recovery Center. I thought I was different, and no one could have destroyed their lives like me. I thought I could never quit using. I started working the Twelve Steps of AA willingly and honestly. Hope and sanity started to return and the craving to use was removed. I take one day at a time, and have a second chance at life and happiness like I have never known. God surely blesses those that seek his will.
Ray M.
Life had been golden for me. I had a loving family, great education and talents that took me to the top of everywhere I went. Maybe it was that mistaken sense of being golden that led me to believe that recreational drug use would work for me. For many years, using and drinking was just an occasional retreat from the monotony of the day. But that all changed. I became less effective in every aspect of my existence. As a mental health professional, no one around me would have guessed that my drug use was getting out of control.
As is true for so many of us, when I could stop using, I didn’t want to. When I wanted to stop using, I couldn’t. I had surrendered myself to my drug of choice. Disconnected from anything that meant anything, I existed only for my next hit.
Through the intervention of the criminal justice system, I found myself at Bay Area Recovery Center. Embraced by others whose stories reflected my own, I came to understand my addiction and to recognize that there was a solution. If so many other hopeless addicts could find hope, maybe there was hope for me. The 90 days I spent pursuing that solution set me off on a journey that has brought about a transformation in my life. Not having to use is only a small part recovery. I am becoming an effective human being, someone you might want to know, rather than someone you would pity. I will be forever grateful that BARC came into my life.
Dan F.
Most of my life had been a roller-coaster between success and failure. From corporate wonder boy, to jail or prison in just a few years, over and over again. I always knew that somehow I was different and that there was something wrong with me but I could never figure out what it was. Finally, in 2003, after still another DWI, I had run out of “plan B’s” and just wanted to die. I didn’t think anything would work for me.
When I went to Bay Area Recovery Center EVERYTHING changed for me. I saw people there who were not using and who were still HAPPY. It gave me the hope that what they were doing might work for me. They educated me about my addiction and showed me what to do about it. I did what they guided me to do, and I began to change.
I’m still learning how to live sober, but today I’m happy and I feel useful to others. I’m successful in my career, financially stable, and the fear that used to consume me constantly is gone.
I never have to live in that hell- which was my life- again.
Thank you Bay Area Recovery Center.
Tim C.