I do volunteer work occasionally...

...ever since I had to do that community service a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it so every so often I call a non-profit place on the list of organizations that our church helps. This time I called a drug and alcohol rehab facility and offered to do a few hours of volunteer work.

I expected them to have me clean a closet or something like that but they didn't. I had to fill out a form that asks you what skills you have and what your hobbies are. I listed writing as a hobby so the director asked me if I would write a few things for their annual report. These are the things that I wrote:

You can search far and wide for an investment that will pay off as handsomely as one made in a fellow human being. Chances are you won’t be able to find one.

When a person finds themselves in the powerful grip of addiction, facing life on a daily basis is a daunting task. In the addict’s mind, failure is a given. Asking for help is not an easy thing for any man to do. When a man is suffering from substance abuse, that request is even tougher to make.

His pride, his self esteem and his ego all tell him that he should be able to help himself. But try as he might, he just can’t do it. Repeated failures only serve to convince him that he isn’t worthy of a decent life. Those who love him try in vain to help him but they don’t know how. The helpless feeling that a mother experiences when her son is drinking every day is more painful than any broken bone could ever be. The wife who waits for her drug addicted husband to come home cries alone in the dark night after night. The son whose father is serving time in prison for drug related crimes goes without a game of catch or a man to look up to when life gets rough.

The addict looks around his life and sees the damage that he has caused. The guilt he feels is so intense and causes so much pain that another fix appears to be the easiest route.

But every so often, an addict makes a decision to face the pain that he feels and to stop the pain that he has caused. For some reason, he senses a glimmer of hope and that’s all it takes for him to seek the help that he needs to become a productive member of society, a loving son, a devoted husband and a respected father.

When a man who is at the lowest point of his life does finally ask for help, and is lucky enough to find it, the benefits to him, to his family and to our community are immeasurable. When an addict in our community finds the strength of spirit to ask for help, will we recognize the potential benefits that we will reap for offering that help?

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Is addiction a disease? Let’s look at the word itself…dis-ease. Any condition that causes a person unease is a disease. As any recovering addict can most assuredly tell you, addiction causes serious dis-ease to every aspect of life.

This is a disease that affects not only the addict, but the addict’s family, friends and community. It’s also a disease that must be battled by the addict, his family, his friends and his community.

The toughest part of the recovery process is the work that the addict himself must do. But, as hard as he may try to become a productive member of society, oftentimes the addict must have support from all those affected by his disease. When an addicted man finally reaches his own personal bottom and is ready to accept the help that he needs to overcome his addiction, it is the wise community that has a suitable place for him to do the work that he needs to do.

Our community has such a place, The Extension. Led by certified and licensed counselors, holding some of the highest credentials in their field, addicts find their way back to the healthy life that they once enjoyed before substance abuse stole so much time and happiness from them. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, men walk into The Extension broken and frightened.

Sometimes it’s their wife who has sent them, sometimes it’s their boss, and all too often it’s the judge. Sometimes they walk in on their own, realizing that if they don’t get help, they may very well lose their wife, job or freedom. Whatever sends them to The Extension, they all walk in with the same fears and hopes.

When the addict gets to The Extension, they find others who have been battling the same demons that they themselves have been battling. After listening to other people telling their own addiction stories, the addict begins to feel a little less like a bad person. They find a place that accepts them as the flawed people that they are and eventually they feel comfortable enough to tell their own addiction stories.

Such a place is imperative to the addict. They have spent years numbing their minds from the pain that comes with addiction. A numb mind hurts much less than a mind that is fully aware of the mistakes that the addict has made and the pain that he has caused those for whom he cares. Meeting others who share the same pain tells the addict that he is not alone and that others have made the same mistakes. Every day that passes in The Extension finds the addict a little more at ease with his own past.

The Extension employs a 12 Step Program in which the addict admits that he is powerless over his drug of choice and then he turns his will and his life over to the care of a Higher Power. He leans on that Higher Power as he takes inventory of himself, makes a list of all the damage he has caused during his addiction and then he makes amends, wherever possible, to those whom he has injured.

Once the addict is on his way to completing the 12 Steps, his self esteem begins to come back and there’s less guilt, pain and anger to face on a daily basis. Life without drugs begins to be a real possibility again.

What a change from the person who, just a few months ago, couldn’t imagine a life without drugs!

What seems so simple to those who have never suffered from substance abuse…life without drugs…is truly a miracle to the recovering addict.

Miracles happen everyday at The Extension.

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There is nothing more full of hopes and dreams than a new human being. Every baby comes into the world innocent and full of potential. Sometimes that potential takes a few beatings or a wrong turn that leads the child in the wrong direction. Not one child ever grows up hoping to be a drug addict, an alcoholic or a homeless person. But life can be cruel and dreams can be dashed. It doesn’t take much to ruin a life after a person makes a few bad decisions.

A baby boy is born to loving parents. He grows up to be the oldest of 3 children. The apple of his mother’s eye, he is a handsome young man who eventually became a father himself.

That would be a lovely story except for the fact that at the age of 25, the young man began to enjoy drinking beer. He had never lied as a youngster so his mother had no reason to doubt him when he would tell her where he had been during his nights out. His mother knew that he drank a beer now and then, but she didn’t know that he had also been drinking liquor, snorting cocaine and smoking marijuana. As does any decent addict, the young man had learned to lie quite well and manipulate his mother even better.

There is no way to continue that type of behavior for any length of time without getting caught doing something illegal. DUI’s began piling up and the young man wasn’t allowed to see his own child anymore.

One day the phone rang and his mother learned that her beautiful son was in jail. She actually felt a twinge of relief because the call could just have easily been much, much worse.

While he was in jail, the mother was able to sleep for the first time in a very long time without worrying that her son would be killed.

Unfortunately, the community had to pay 3 times more to keep the young man in jail than it would have cost to enter a residential drug treatment facility around the corner from his home.

When she gave birth to him, she dreamt that he would be President of The United States of America. Today her dream for her son is that he go to The Extension.

The Extension is a non-profit, community supported organization providing addiction treatment services to low income people within our community. In addition to the residential program, The Extension offers out-patient counseling services and various community outreach initiatives.

Supported mostly by the community, The Extension began as a winter shelter for the homeless and is now a multi-faceted program that looks at homelessness as a symptom, not as a problem in itself.

The professional counselors at The Extension believe that, as President George W. Bush once said, “We must reduce drug use for one great moral reason: over time, drugs rob men and women and children of their dignity and character.”

At The Extension men and women find the help necessary to live life as they began it, clean from drugs and full of hope. When they leave, they have the dignity and character that had been stolen from them when drugs entered their life.

God forbid you should ever need the services of The Extension. But if you do, wouldn’t you hope that it was there for you or your loved one?

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The Extension is a non-profit, community supported organization reaching people in need of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It’s a place that no one wants to go but if you, or someone that you care for, should have to go there, you would be extremely grateful for its existence.

The Extension is the leading program of its kind in the state. Homeless, addicted men find help from the expert, dedicated staff who are there every day of the year. They offer help that serves not only the clients but the community as well. It is a cost effective alternative to jail, to mothers on welfare, to men on the streets robbing citizens to pay for drugs.

Can you afford to help your community? Can you afford not to? Group and individual addiction counseling for the residents, anger management classes, family counseling, life skills programs, sex addiction counseling, spiritual counseling for those who want it and an on-site GED program are provided for residents who work everyday in the community.

These programs make for much better citizens as these men learn to take financial responsibility for themselves and their families.

It really is all about the family, isn’t it? The family is the basic unit of our society. It’s where we learn to behave civilly, to treat others with respect and to be a productive member of society. If any one member of a family is affected by substance abuse, the entire family is affected. When the family is sick, how do the children learn to live like responsible citizens?

Responsible men at the heads of families are a bit lacking in this country. When a man asks for help to become a responsible, healthy person, it behooves us all to offer him that help.

One healthy man can lead his own children to become contributing members of society. The aide that a community gives to a man in need of help can come back to that same community many times over. If we take a man who is troubled, help him to get back on his feet and send him home to his family, the benefit to our community is immeasurable.

A healthy father and husband who has overcome his problems has the strength to pass on to his children who will pass that same strength along to another generation. There’s simply no way to know the benefits of helping those who need a lift up.

The Extension helps facilitate the independence of those seeking help. And in this country, we help those who want to help themselves.


OK, now I need to know what you guys think of these. I have to go in shortly to see if they liked what I wrote or if I have to do it again. But in the meantime, I wanted to get your opinions.

:)