Successful Teen Drug Treatment

I am simply overcome with gratitude this week. This week I have five years clean. When I was new, getting five years clean seemed like the most impossible thing, but somehow, it just kind of happened anyway. One night, Visions Adolescent Drug Treatment Center took me to a 12-step meeting, and suddenly staying clean seemed possible. I had been to many meetings before, but this one had something special: my first sponsor. She was speaking that night and said something that I will never forget. She said that she sticks around for the too-skinny, awkward young girls that come to meetings. I thought, “Well, I’m an awkward, too-skinny girl.” For whatever reason, the idea that someone might actually be waiting around to help a girl like me made me feel like I had a chance. It even made me think that if I were to by chance stay clean as an adolescent, I might even get to stick around for the too-skinny awkward girls that come through the door.
Tonight I got to celebrate my five years clean and sober at that meeting. Suddenly, standing in front of everyone there, I was overcome with gratitude and I was hit with the idea that, “Holy crap, I actually stayed clean.” I hated it, but I burst into tears in front of everyone there. I used to cry because I wanted help and felt so incredibly desperate. I cried because I wanted to die. Tonight, I cried because my life is so good and I sometimes can’t believe that I am free from active adolescent addiction. It seemed like such an impossible thing to do when I first walked into teen drug treatment, but by following the suggestions given to me there, I am now able to stick around for all the awkward, too-skinny, drug-addicted adolescent girls from Palo Alto that come into recovery today. If you would like help please click here struggling Teen.

Bear Grylls vs. Teen Rehab

I love watching Bear Grylls in Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. He is amazing. He makes snow caves and wrestles wild pigs to death and bites through the spines of live fish to survive. He is constantly informing the viewer about the basic survival tools one would need to get by in any situation. While this may be a stretch, it got me thinking about my own survival tools that I learned in teen rehab.
The first thing I need is a good support group. This can include my Visions treatment team, my peers in recovery, my family, and my sponsor. My sponsor is another survival tool I definitely need. Visions helped me find a sponsor when I entered treatment, who is someone that helps me work the 12 steps and was initially my personal introduction to the 12 step fellowships. I call my sponsor daily to check in, a habit I began in teen rehab which I continue to this day. Another tool I can’t live without is my journal. I use writing as a great way to process feelings or to just check in with myself. When I can’t get a hold of anyone, my journal is always there to listen. Along with meetings and activities with my clean and sober peer group, these survival tools are there to help me make it through every day clean. Each one of them was given to me in teen rehab, and I use them on a daily basis years later. It may be weird to say that knowing how to call my sponsor when I need help is the equivalent of knowing how to trap and kill a bird in the middle of the Swiss Alps, but to an addict just out of teen rehab in Palo Alto, it’s the little things that can end up saving your life. For More information about treatment services please click here teen drug rehab.

Teen Drug Help

Yesterday was the memorial for my friend who overdosed. I am sick of going to memorials. I am sick of watching people I love get caught up in using again and die. I don’t want to go to any more funerals. I’m not big on quoting recovery literature, but there is a line from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that always comes to mind when I think about my friends who are caught up in active addiction: People like you are too heartbreaking.
It is easy to get discouraged. Getting clean and sober in Palo Alto is hard work. When I entered teen drug treatment, I was never promised an easy road, but I was promised a better life. It is hard to work through difficult feelings. It is hard watching people go in and out of recovery. It is hard watching people die. The thing that sticks with me though, is that no one ever gave up on me. When I was in drug treatment and threw tantrums or resisted change as much as possible, no one gave up on me. No one told me I wouldn’t stay clean. The odds were stacked against me, but no one ever told me I couldn’t do it. Instead, the staff at Visions let me know on a daily basis that I could stay clean and have a better life. It took a while to believe them, but I am so glad they never gave up on me. They always believed in me. So even though I feel really discouraged this week, and really sad about my friend dying, I’m not going to give up on recovery. I’m not going to give up on my friends who are struggling right now. No one gave up on me, so I can’t give up on them. This is a difficult journey sometimes, but with the foundation I got in adolescent drug treatment, I can do anything.