Written by Asia F

During my addiction, my life revolved around using drugs.

Now, while in sobriety at Gatehouse Academy, I am constantly busy. There are a multitude of activities. The physical activities at Gatehouse Academy include: yoga, karate and full body workout. Other activities include: group therapy, art, auto, life skills, school and Literature study.

The community is divided into groups, in which you would have group therapy with twice a week. Each group has school once a day, Monday through Friday.  Literature study is a one hour activity where portions of the Big Book are read and questions are answered. Life skills classes are run by a staff member, and the block covers a large amount of subjects that relate to aspects of healthy and responsible living. There are three, one hour blocks everyday.

The weekend activities include: yoga, peer on peer and literature study. Peer on peer is a block where residents bring up struggles and residents find solutions in the Big Book. The activities help residents grow and learn in recovery.

Needless to say I rarely get bored.

Asia is currently enrolled as a resident in Gatehouse Academy’s addiction treatment program.  She offers her review and testimonial by telling us about activities she has experienced in our 12-Step curriculum.

Written by Angela A.

In everyday life, I struggle with letting myself let go of how others live their lives, and letting go of control in mine.  It is definitely easier for me to realize that I am powerless over what people do, how they do it, why they do it, and where they do it.  By reviewing my 1^st step, I realize that my powerlessness over others needs to be given away to my Higher Power in my 3^rd step.

There are many times when I want to shake those I love and tell them that what they want is not what they need.  I have to realize that I cannot change anyone.  An individual can only change him or herself.  I have also been in situations where I do not want to live in the moment; however, I have to realize that my Higher Power puts me in specific moments to learn a particular life lesson that He has set before me.

When I live my life according to God’s will, which is doing the next right thing, I am much more content.  When I let others live their own life, I am more focused and less frustrated.  Thank God I don’t have to play God anymore.

Angela is currently enrolled as a resident in Gatehouse Academy’s addiction treatment program.  She offers her review and testimonial by telling us about a lesson she has learned from our 12-Step curriculum.

Written by Kelly E.

Adventures in Recovery (AIR) has just returned from its 11^th major adventure trip and it’s 1st major adventure from our new location at San Cristobal, NM.

Destination – Chaco Culture National Historical Park located in a vast isolated area in Northwestern NM. Several days of hiking in the back-country through massive Aztec ruins and remnants of an ancient advanced civilization, coupled with intensive recovery work produced an outstanding and undeniable result of spiritual and emotional development and change – precisely the purpose of AIR.

Nights in the bivvys dipped to 20 degrees but spirits remained high as the opportunity for such an adventure outweighed the obvious discomfort.  Work ethic and nightly AA meetings in the group remained constant, demonstrating that consistency with recovery disciplines is not limited to a specific treatment setting, but goes with them in their everyday lives no matter where they are.

The fact that they are not the center of the universe was brought home in a big way as they surveyed the vastness around them and contemplated the generations of people who have walked the same path before them, both in a historical cultural sense as well as in a recovery sense. The sense of humility was evident as several residents verbalized a new understanding of being a small part of a great whole and that sobriety in and of itself without any material gain is the reward of this way of life.

Kelly Egan is the Program Manager at Gatehouse Academy’s outdoor adventure wilderness program.  Residents receive a once in a lifetime experience to work with horses surrounded by the majestic mountains of Taos, NM.  On average, 10 to 12 young men and women get to experience a very different form of Drug Rehab – using Nature as a motivator towards Recovey

Written by Wes W

In my eight months as a resident at Gatehouse Academy, I have had to face many issues about myself and encounter problems with others. There are many small rules in place to help us work through our issues and build successful relationships with people.

During the week the community as a whole has a meeting each day where we’re given the opportunity to call our peers out on patterns or behaviors we feel are concerning or incidents of rule breaching. As a part of helping us learn from out mistakes and grow emotionally and spiritually Gatehouse Academy enforces a system of bans.

These bans include boy/girl ban, talking ban, newcomer ban, weight room ban, make-up ban, and specific residents can be banned from each other. The main purpose for these bans is to get us to look inside ourselves and be free from outside distractions and validations. It is about stepping out of our comfort zones and really facing ourselves. Obviously these bans are not fun, but the lessons they teach are invaluable.

Not long ago I myself was on talking ban for about two months. It was miserable and uncomfortable for a while but I had to make peace with myself and surrender to the things around me. I had to stop fighting everything and everyone. I can’t think of any other situation where it would be possible to learn so much about myself and I am grateful to be growing at Gatehouse Academy.

Wes is currently enrolled as a resident in Gatehouse Academy’s drug rehab program.  He will have 1 year clean and sober in December, and prepare for the next step in his Recovery.

Written by Kelli S.

“Perhaps the best thing of all for me to remember is that my serenity is inversely proportional to all my expectations.”

-Alcoholics Anonymous, pg 420

I have to remind myself this every single day. One of my biggest character defects is holding too high of expectations for myself and others. For me it’s simple, when I hold high expectations for myself and others and I or they don’t meet them I get resentful and fall into self-pity mode. Yes it is simple but not easy. I think the hardest part for me is that I tend to be a perfectionist. I want to be the best at everything I do and I have a hard time dealing with mistakes that I make. Over the past ten months I have learned that I’m not and never will be “perfect”.

After coming to this realization I’ve become so much more serene and content. I have learned to set goals rather than expectations. A goal is something that I can always work towards without set standards and time frames. My sponsor always tells me that expectations are pre-conceived resentments and for us alcoholics, resentments are our number one offender. If we hold onto them we will surely drink again. If I drink I’ll die and today I want to live!

Kelly is a current resident in Gatehouse Academy’s drug rehab program, and offers her review of the experience she has had in addiction treatment thus far.

Written by Justin T.

Art class is one of the many activities that we do in a typical week. There are all sorts of different types of art to do such as acrylic painting, watercolor, pastels, or just plain pencil.

Our teacher is a successful artist mainly focused on abstract acrylic paint. In the past few months we have painted ceramic pots using paint and water to create a dripping look, painted on plexi glass, used water color and oil/chalk pastels.

One of our larger projects is painting a mural in one of the main areas of our campus. It is all drawn by residents with some help from the art teacher. It is on all four walls in the PECO room, where we have circle and meetings daily. In art class many residents come in with the “I can’t do it” attitude. This is part of the reason we do it in the first place. Confidence building, creativity, overcoming problems, and solution finding are just a few skills I have learned in art class.

Every November the Gatehouse residents put together an art show with art donated by residents who gain half of the profit for all of their work while the other half goes towards art room funds. Soon we will be collecting metal scraps from a near by junk yard, assembling it and painting it for a sculpture to go somewhere around campus.

Written by Jennah G.

We have the privilege of riding horses here at Gatehouse. I am so grateful to be working with the horses while I am here. I have been riding, breeding, training and showing horses since I was a little girl. They are my love and passion.

I love teaching people new things and how to ride. We also go on trail rides two to three times a week. I have ridden western style my whole life and here we switch off riding English western and just for fun bareback sometimes. I get to learn new things about English riding from our horse instructor Vel.

I gain a lot of spirituality from being down with the horses and riding through the beautiful canyons and riverbeds. I am very grateful to have this opportunity here and wouldn’t change it for the world!

Written by Jed H.

My name is Jed, I am 18 years old originally from San Diego, California and I have been at Gatehouse Acaemdy for about 11 and a half months now. I would say I am happier than I have ever been in my life at this point; I went from a hopeless miserable drug addict to a responsible and most of the time happy person.

My drug treatment started in a 2 month facility in Montana the date was February 1^st 2008 I was there for 58 days, on the 57^th day I relapsed. Immediately afterward I was sent to another treatment facility in Michigan, this was a 9 month program but my stay there was only 6 and a half months. After this I came to Gatehouse Academy on October 8^th 2009.

Despite the fact that I was already 6 and a half months into my sobriety I was still very miserable. To be honest I wasn’t genuinely happy until I was over my 1^st year of sobriety (about 6 months into my gatehouse stay).  For me sobriety is a life long process, and if any drug addict expects there 1^st year of sobriety easy and stress free there definitely out of there mind.

At Gatehouse Academy, I started to find new hobbies and things that make me stay busy, happy, and motivated. Some of these things are working out, talking with my friends, talking with my sponsor, going to group sports on Sundays, mostly things that keep me very busy and keep me away from my mindset when I am not doing well. I tend to fall back into a negative mindset when I am sitting around and being lazy, and that’s why the type of structure that Gatehouse Academy provides makes it a very good environment to get back up on my feet and start a new life like I have never experienced before. Like I said before its not easy here and everyday is a challenge, there are many things that I have to do daily that I don’t always want to do, but I have become a better person for doing them.

In my stay at Gatehouse Academy, I have made a lot of mistakes. Gatehouse Academy staff has shown me a lot of patience and tolerance, and helped me see the lessons to be learned from my mistakes.

As of now I have less than two weeks here and I will be transitioning to Gatehouse College Campus (GCC). I think that a whole year of being at main property and a six month transition to GCC will help me to build a life of happiness and fun in sobriety. To this day I still have many struggles and pains that I go through, but I can be ok with that. I have recently grasped the ability to accept my issues as they are and work on them rather than taking a negative approach like I used to.  I am so grateful to be given this second chance at a new life.

Thank for reading this.

by Elizabeth R

A hot wind started to blow across my face as I sat in front of the Fresno Airport waiting for my friend’s sister to come and pick us up. My cell phone rang and it flashed DAD. I picked up. The conversation was short and curt. When the call ended I kicked my suitcase in an act of rage and started to scream. By the following Wednesday I would have to be in a treatment facility or I would be sentenced to jail for up to 6 months. Back in January 08 I got my first DUI and as my disease grew I was arrested in May 08 for my second. My punishment was clear-cut: GET HELP or BE LOCKED AWAY. My father frantically scurried around trying to find a solution to my problem. On Sunday my parents and I drove three hours to the Bay area to visit an Ed Consultant. And three days later I was on a flight to Las Vegas. My last three days were spent in a complete blur. I drained bank accounts trying to stay high for those last 72 hours of freedom. I repaid old debts and tried to show up well to friends to regain their approval and love before I left.

My story is summed up in multiple bottoms which include: trauma, abuse, suicide attempts and legal troubles.

My road to Gatehouse was less than anything glamorous. I attended Second Nature Wilderness program in Utah for 15 weeks before being driven to Wickenburg, Arizona. Within my first day all my expectations of Gatehouse were quickly whisked away. The rules, the limitations and the “big brother” aspect of living in a treatment facility for a year started to grow into a large chip on my right shoulder. Within my first week I ran twice, used the phone (which isn’t allowed) and cut myself. I was sent to the ranch where I stayed for 7 weeks until one day I couldn’t take it and needed to come back to main property. I started off doing well. I whizzed through my steps, attained leadership commitments and became actively involved in the program. During May my emotional breakdown rained down and I slipped head first into a puddle. Since that time I have found spirituality- a vital aspect of AA. I have developed better coping skills and learned more about myself and my thinking patterns. I work with an individual therapist twice a week on my past trauma and on how to handle everyday life. My relationships with my peers have developed into strong, supportive links that help me everyday in my sobriety. My step work and involvement in Gatehouse community had helped to bring life back to me.

I’ve been in Gatehouse for almost nine months and continue to grow and evolve on a daily basis. Almost a year ago today I was broken and scared. I hated life and wished nothing more than to transform into dust and be blown away with the wind, nothing of my memory would linger. But today I don’t wish to be forgotten in the wind. I have faith in my life and my capabilities- something I never would have imagined for myself before my stay at Gatehouse.

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by Adam G
It’s your first day at Gatehouse and before you can get up to Main Property you get to experience the Hassayampa River Ranch. The ranch is where I found my Higher Power. Religion was never a part of my life, but because in AA we are able to find a power greater than ourselves, not having come to Gatehouse with a religion didn’t matter. I can pray to this power and ask him for advice.

At the ranch each resident does two hours of work ethic in the morning. During work ethic, a few residents are given the opportunity to meet Jim Stocker. While working along side him one can experience a hard days work taking care of horses, grooming horses, feeding horses and of course learning to ride horses. Jim Stocker will take you on a first hand experience of how to take care of a ranch. The Head horse honcho, Scott Ames, of the ranch will teach one everything you need to know about horse care. My favorite part of the ranch was riding on a tractor with Jim Stocker to feed cows. You leave work ethic everyday with a sense of accomplishment; I always looked forward to the next day of work with Stocker.
The food at the ranch is an awesome medley of delicious entrees cooked primarily by the residents themselves. It’s an awesome experience to learn how to cook your own food. Each resident is put on a cooking crew, with several other members of the community, for a week at a time to prepare food for the entire ranch.

Overall the Ranch was one of the best experiences of my life. I learned so much about myself and how my life was unmanageable. You, too, can embrace this program one day at a time!

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