Community

Recovery is a journey and not a destination. The path each of us chooses to experience that journey can involve a lot of pieces from a bunch of different sources. Until a few years ago, Farnum Center, the local treatment center, incorporated Three Principles Recovery, drawn from the work and thoughts of Sydney Banks.

My problem was not alcohol.  My problem was that my only solution to life was alcohol.  It may have been a solution that carried lots of future complications, but alcohol was the one surefire way I knew to feel significantly better about life.  

After two hours, the faculty hosts asked us if there was anything we wanted the students to take with them. Since I’m not aware of any taping being done, I hereby state the following is an accurate recollection of what I said. If a recording does exist, I will either claim it’s been edited or that this is what I wish I’d said.

In early recovery, I spent a lot of time in church basements and parking lots. Like the Roman catacombs during the early church, these basements were filled with a lot of joy, a lot of laughter and a lot of tears. Unlike the catacombs, the laughter came primarily from a speaker telling a story of his drinking or using days, usually one about the foolish or heartbreakingly inappropriate ways he’d acted while messed up.

Today, Bret was given two ten-dollar bills, one to pay for bus tickets from Hope on Wilson Street to the Starbucks on South Willow and back, and the other for a cold coffee drink.  For any auditors, Hope paid for the tickets and I paid for his drink—I want him to be able to afford a house in a dozen years.

Andria owns, operates and is the spiritual center of WorkStuff, a staffing solutions company in Manchester. WorkStuff is the Hope Recovery Festival’s platinum sponsor, with a generous $5,000 donation. You’ll have a chance to hear her at the festival, and would be wise to listen closely.