The First Step
Los Angeles, California—February, 2009
So you’ve taken the first step in recovery and admitted you were powerless over drugs and alcohol and your life is absolutely unmanageable. Now what? Now that you know, and everyone around you probably knows that you have a problem, what are you going to do about it? You’ve tried to get sober on your own. Maybe you’ve even hit a couple of 12-step meetings. But after a few days or a couple of weeks staying clean you still go back to what you know best, getting loaded. Maybe it’s time for a different approach. Perhaps, checking yourself into a long-term program at a structured sober living might be the answer you’ve been looking for.
“We get a lot of new guys who are really grateful when they first get in the house,” says Moe G. Intake Coordinator at Liberty House, a highly structured sober living home for men located in Los Angeles, California. “A lot of these guys are so grateful to stop running and be off the streets and away from the insanity they’ve been living. After about 72 hours of gratitude it wears off and reality sets in. They have to start taking direction from someone other than himself and they don’t like it. Some guys take a little longer for the “pink cloud” to dissipate but inevitably it happens to all of them.
That’s when the structure of the house begins to work it’s magic. There’s really no magic to it at all…just hard work and a willingness to be open to listening and taking direction from people who have been through it,” continues Ginsburg. Larry Luttrell, who founded Liberty House and who has seen hundreds of guys successfully go through the program says, “the structure of the house is designed so that a resident’s character defects will be brought out through the chores, writing of essays and peer groups. For some of the residents it may take awhile but it’s inevitable that those defects will come out.”
“This is exactly where the change begins to occur, when residents begin to work a program of honesty. Let’s say a guy didn’t do his chore and when he is asked if he did, he says yes. But four other guys in the house know for certain he didn’t do it. So now he’s caught in a lie and he gets an essay to write about his behavior and why what he did was sleazy, old behavior. Sometimes it may take more than one essay but eventually, instead of lying and saying yes, he learns via the essays to say no, I didn’t do my chore. This is at the heart if staying sober. We teach residents how to work a program of honesty and to take contrary action, which is new behavior to the alcoholic.”
That’s why long-term treatment is so important. These guys have been surviving with their dysfunction of lying and manipulation for so long that sometimes they don’t even know why they do what they do. It takes time to get to the core of who they are but once we can identify what a resident’s character defects are then we can begin to deal with it. Research studies, specifically the sobriety study by Depaul University has shown that long-term sober living is far more effective in maintaining sobriety than short-term stays of 30 days or less. Liberty House is filled with guys who couldn’t or wouldn’t get sober anywhere else.
“I must have been in at least five or six other rehabs before I got to Liberty House. This is the only place that really made me look at who I was and how my thinking was totally off.” Says Josh D. a senior member with almost a year clean and sober.
“It took some time for me to see that my perception of who I was was completely off. But because I was so beat up and tired of living the way I had been, I stayed in the house and was willing to listen and take direction from the staff. They pointed out to me that I was not the person I thought I was and that it was not about my intentions but it was about my actions. After around 90 days or so the light started to go on in my head. I have a job now and will be graduating the program very soon."
"My life and the way I look at things are totally different now than they were before I came into the house. It’s because of the structure of Liberty House that I was able to change. They pointed out my character defects as they came up in my daily actions or should I say lack of actions. They held me accountable for my behavior and because of that and my willingness to stay and listen take their direction and not my own is the only reason I am sober today.”
If you are willing to take that first step give us a call. Change is possible but you have to make the choice.
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