Every recovering addict has a story.
As you start listening to them, or reading them, you generally find that there are common themes. This is why one of the 12 step programs says in one of its primary readings, “The therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel”, and also, “one addict can best understand and help another addict”.
To help give you insight into why we do what we do, why we care so much, and why we have much higher success metrics than most other long term recovery solutions, the first short snippet here is from the life of our Program Director.
This piece was originally developed for a fund raising letter, but I will leave it here until we can write her story a little more comprehensively.
Later I will add my own (CEO’s) short story.
Julie’s life started out with stability and hope for a future, but before her third birthday everything changed. On the way to the store with her mother a drunk driver slammed into their car. A piece of metal ripped into her face taking half of the left side of it barely sparing her eye. Once the bandages were removed she was horrified at what she saw. Other kids teased her and called her monster. Even after the next eight surgeries kids were still cruel.
Julie’s dad was a pilot with his own airplane and she loved flying to weekend plane shows with him. She also collected Barbie dolls and had dreams other little girls had but they were always tempered by her reality that she was badly scarred.
By the time she was 8 years old she was being sexually molested by her Father and a neighbor. Her mother was in the hospital battling cancer and was not around to protect her.
By age 9 her father had left and she and her mom had to move to a new town where they frequently had to scrounge in dumpsters for aluminum to buy meals. At 12 she started smoking pot, drinking, and running around with older men seeking approval. By 16 she had her first child, dropped out of school, and moved into harder drugs becoming an IV drug user.
After a few stints in jail and looking at a 3 year prison term, she went to a 12 step meeting. The people there laughed and seemed happy. They talked about hope and a new way to live. When people would share they would say things like, “I was damaged, lost, and full of despair. I didn’t think I was any good or worth anything. I was disgusting and a horrible person. That’s what I thought”. These were things she could identify with.
They would also go on to say, “Then I found these meetings and people that cared, genuinely cared, and over a couple of months they showed me hope, and that life can be different and I could change it… if I wanted to.” That part didn’t fit, but she wanted it too so she kept going back until it did fit.
This story isn’t about a client of ours, but it could apply to 95 % of them with some of them having stories not as bad, and some far worse. The story above is a real story, it is the story of one of our founders. She is a survivor that, while helping others has earned her credentials with a Master’s degree in Social Work, and a Mental Health Professional. The scar is still there, but few see it because of the beauty of what she does for others.
We are “people that care, genuinely care”, and we do it over and over again. For eight years we have helped women find a new way to live, find hope, be reunited with their children and other loved ones. We incorporate trauma informed care with a full life reintegration strategy.
Our Mission Statement says “Pirate Springs provides treatment, housing, life reintegration, and employment services to individuals recovering from addiction, alcoholism, or abuse; from a place of compassion because those who are part of Pirate Springs have been where our clients are. We believe that the life of another, any other, is of supreme value and worth saving. Through this work, local communities will benefit.”
We need your help for us to continue being there for them. Your gift of $20 will provide course work, counselling sessions, and more. $125 can provide a bed for week. Can you help another woman escape a life they couldn’t avoid and didn’t ask for? Will you help us help someone find a future as a happy, healthy, productive member of society?
Click on “Donate” below to donate.