How do you get a fresh start?

There are many reasons for starting a Sober Living Home, but I think that the words "A Fresh Start" sums it up well.  We cater to people who having realized that they had hit rock bottom now need someone to take a chance on them and offer them what they need.

Not a "second chance" - they've had that.  And then some.  Not even a 100th chance.  Each alcoholic and/or addict has usually had that 100th chance, too.  No, it would be difficult for us to assign a number, so instead we go with the concept - "A Fresh Start".

Fresh starts are very important.  It can seem kind of hopeless if ever a man starts to feel that such are impossible.

And a lot is arrayed against the alcoholic/addict who wants that fresh start.  That "lot" boils down to "a lot of very healthy skepticism".  Family is not up for helping him - they've helped him too many times in the past.  Friends?  If he's at or near bottom, then he has pushed away any good friends long ago.

Future landlord?  Future employer?  Future car salesman or bank loan officer?  They see his work history, including the gaps due to job loss.  They see the lousy credit, indicative of a life lived inappropriately.  They even see the criminal record, large or small, be it a DUI or three, or the pattern of offenses that come from cataclysmically poor choices made while under continual influence of booze and drugs.

Or as large as domestic abuse or felony assaults.  Maybe only days in jail.  Or maybe years in prison.

As far as most are concerned, those men don't deserve a fresh start.  And they're not in the business of giving out fresh starts anyway!

So how does one get a fresh start?  By getting a chance to look for work while not starving - nor being stuck in a 50 man shelter.  By getting a chance to save some money for first month's rent, last month's rent and deposit for such landlord as will grudgingly take a chance on you later.  By getting a chance to have a stable environment where poor credit and a bad record won't bar you.

And that's what the Liahona Mission offers to each man we can accept.  A place where - while continuing to maintain and build upon their sobriety - they can start with a small part time job and work to build that to an opportunity for a full time one later.  A place where they can save money for an apartment, trailer or house later.  A place where the environment is nice - but they don't have to have lived a life of a choir boy to have it.  A place where they can leave the street or shelter and start on that long road to recovery and societal acceptance.

Is that the whole of a fresh start?  No.  More of a start upon a fresh start.  You see, while we can be a little island, society as a whole will still - justifiably - view the alcoholic/addict with some skepticism.  And as I've told each one of them, the only thing that ultimately buys a man a fresh start is time.  Repentance and effort, yes, but time all the same.

There's not a one of them that does not have "effort".  I've never met an alcoholic or addict yet - including myself - that doesn't have massive "effort" on demand and freely available.  We are the Kings of Effort, and can turn on a meteoric blaze of effort such as will light the night sky and dazzle any watcher!

And typically, if we have not yet truly reformed, that effort burns out just as fast as that falling star, leaving the watcher as much back in darkness as before, and even more disappointed, for they see the glory that the alcoholic could have made with his life, but inexplicably chooses not to.

So effort is never enough.  We've had men with effort here before.  I imagine we always will have men with effort here.  Alcoholics and addicts go through a period where they love collecting the praises of men for how brave they are for giving up that which no one else had a problem with!  They use that for their "fix" until they tire of it, and relapse and start up again.

It's truly repenting of drugs and alcohol that counts, the learning that those things are wrong, as has been their behavior while taking those things.  It's honestly accepting that "higher power" spoken of in AA meetings that many of us know to be Christ.  And in the eyes of both Christ and your fellow man, it's the "time" that matters, or as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refers to it, "enduring to the end".

Do you really have to "endure to the end" for the fullness of the "fresh start"?  Well, perhaps not quite so long, but it is a process all the same.  People typically want to see more than a few days, more than a few weeks, more even than a few months.  People who've been around the block a bit more would even be skeptical till they've seen a few years of effort from the alcoholic/addict.



Yes, repentance exists, and fresh starts can be had, and certainly our Savior may know your heart at once, but let no alcoholic or addict ever assume that the praise of men will come easy, or in some short period of time.  Or medium period of time.  Or perhaps even a long period, as we who have embraced hedonism and dissipation often reckon as "long".

Truth is, if any are shooting for some distant day where they'll find the praise of men, they are going to fail.  It's not about that.  The very act of even trying for those reasons - of praise and admiration - would doom one from the start.  There comes a time in each alcoholic/addicts recovery when after the one month, six month and one year coins, he has to realize that he's being rewarded for what 90% of mankind just calls a "Tuesday". 

One must choose the right, not for a reward - though rewards will come - but for it being the right thing to choose.  One must strive to be as good as they can be, not for the praise of men, though perhaps such will come, but for it being what you need to do just to catch up with the bulk of humanity!  And to follow in the footsteps of Christ!  For without Christ, without that acknowledging of that "higher power", the fresh start is just another dead end.

It's a long path, and one that properly regarded, never ends.  Mainly for after awhile, if one is truly and sincerely repentant, and truly wishes that "fresh start", they re-orient and no longer need it to be about them.  A man knows his "fresh start" may have succeeded not when he hears praise from others, but when he is happy and secure in his relationship with Christ and himself.

What can others do?  To aid those afflicted with alcoholism and/or addiction?  Well, aiding such Sober Living Homes, be it this one or others, is helpful.  Past that, one should advocate strongly for the afflicted having a Church family.  And to continue with AA/NA meetings.  Besides that?

I would recommend that if you've never known an alcoholic/addict as anything but clean and sober, that you leave their past in their past.  There'll be time enough for judging them more harshly if they relapse.  But I've known men still getting beat up - and beating themselves up - for sins of five years ago, ten years ago, even twenty years ago.  And they've been sober and striving to make amends the whole time.

If you know of such, and I assure you that they - that is, "we" - do exist, then take them as they are now, repentant and enduring to the end with everyone else.  You need not go out of your way to aid them in their hard won "fresh start" if you do not care to, but at the least do not do anything to stumble them from it.

Expectations

There's the old story about the prisoner who planned his prison escape for 27 years.  And he finally made it!  Then when he was standing outside the wall, he just stood there, hearing the sirens, hearing the clamor, but making no move! 

For he was struck by one absurd fact - he had planned so many years into how to escape, that he'd not once ever given thought to what he'd do when he was out!

At the Liahona Mission, it was not that bad for us, but we get that prisoner's surprise, just a tiny bit, anyway!  You see, we had spent years on getting the first house up and running, getting all the paperwork done, registering, incorporating, learning and figuring out all the ins and all the outs!  Then getting the second house, and doing the move to there, to start to fix up that house, while finally being able to open up the first house!

Now, with it up and running, and with us having aided and still aiding many people, we are not wholly surprised, we've not run into anything that we cannot work with, but there is a kind of "now what?" feeling all the same!

For it has been at once what we expected, and much more than we expected.  Things we knew we'd deal with and things we did not expect, or perhaps not so soon.

Having to try to fill all the beds and keep things running smoothly and be there for each guest, that we knew would be a part of it.  And a large part.  We do not give rides as a set policy - that would be awful expensive! - but the goal is for each of them to succeed, so if there is an emergency ride to work or such needed, we do that. 

We also respond to each request for a chat, which usually just involves going over plans they have and to see if there's a way that this or that or the other can happen.  Usually pertaining to jobs or classes or something that will further them along on their road to recovery.


There's the AA/NA meetings each week.  Each guest goes to two meetings per week as part of the program, and our Program Supervisor attends with each of them for one of those weekly meetings.  Which is good for our Program Supervisor as he's a recovering alcoholic himself, so he gets in four meetings a week for himself that way!

All those things, and then some, were expected.  But other stuff, not so much.  It wasn't anticipated that there would be such resistance to the weekly "House" meeting, a fairly normal thing for Sober Living homes, but harder to do then we thought when each guest has a different work schedule.  It wasn't anticipated that there would be any difficulty in collecting $150 for an entire month of shelter, electricity, gas, internet, water, trash and washer/dryer on site.  After all, each person who called was in theory calling to pay for some program, and we know we're the lowest in town.

It wasn't anticipated that someone would spectacularly relapse by doing meth, then try to camp out in a wooded area behind our home threatening to kick in our door. 

And it wasn't anticipated that one of our guests who we thought was doing better than we could ever have expected, would take that "just one drink" one day, then walk out the door and never be heard from again - till he was found dead behind a building of alcohol and exposure.


This upcoming June, by the way, will be our first half year in constant operation.  We are learning now to adjust our expectations.

On the brighter side, and there has been that, too, the willingness of several of the guests to volunteer for various church projects or come to church has been higher than we'd have thought.  So there's that.  And the place has generally been kept cleaner than we'd have guessed four men would keep it.  So there's that!  And several of them seem to enjoy doing odd jobs like gardening or general improvements.  So there's that!

And that's where we stand now.  Still outside the "wall", so to speak, hearing the sirens and commotion, but having a bit more of a feel for where we'll be going from here!  We're still improving our second house, but we'll write more on that later!