Written by: Ethan D

For three weeks out of our year stay in Gatehouse we have family workshops.  All separated by about a 2 month period.  For some it is a very difficult experience but for most all it creates a lot of growth in their lives.  I’m in the middle of my second.  I have a variety of different emotion but am very optimistic because of how well my first went.  The first workshop deals with getting everything out to our family, and letting them know where we have come from and what we are dealing with.

The growth my family experience through this workshop was mind blowing.  I’ve never been able to connect to my family in the way I did this week.  It has created a family atmosphere for us that we can now build on our recovery together, and not have any more questions of the past but only look towards the future.  List work is a large part of the workshops.  The first workshop only the residents have it but as the second and third approach the entire families enjoy this process.  The question differs from what the certain workshop is dealing with but always proves a challenge for all.  The list work is done in front of the rest of the workshop families and residents and is always followed up with feedback as well as advice and affirmations.  These workshops clue into the idea that this is a family disease and that it affect us all.  It is the key to a healthy life with our families and a milestone in our recovery.  Without these workshops some of us may never be able to talk to our families again, but for some of us it is the first time we will every really truly talk to our families.  I cannot thank Gatehouse enough for what they have done for me and my family.

Ethan is currently enrolled as a resident in Gatehouse Academy’s drug rehab program.  He offers his review and testimonial by telling us about a lesson he has learned from our 12-Step curriculum.

Written by Scott E.

There are many positives to Gatehouse.  One of them is having a big support group around you at all times.  There are many good things about this; having a big support group around you at all times means whenever you are struggling, there is always someone around for you to talk to and relate with.  You also have people that can hold you accountable and people who can tell when you are struggling and can reach out and help you.  School is another positive.  Taking school at Gatehouse means I can slowly get back into my education, one class at a time.  The entire accommodations and living aspect is another positive.  We learn how to live a responsible and sober life and how to manage food and keep the house clean.  The life skills block is another great part of Gatehouse Academy.  In life skills we get to learn how to handle all aspects of life that will be helpful to us after we commence.  I have a lot of fun at group sports.  It’s a great opportunity to exercise.  It also brings us closer as a community and allows us to build trust with one another.  The houses are really nice here.  We get to live in several houses and bond as a family.  Work ethic is an important part of the program; we have several different jobs done in the morning to teach us how to handle having a job and going even if we don’t want to.  I’m on car crew right now.  There are many positive aspects of Gatehouse, and I am grateful for all of them.

Scott is currently enrolled as a resident in Gatehouse Academy’s drug rehab program.  He offers his review and testimonial by telling us about a lesson he has learned from our 12-Step curriculum.

Written by Becca G.

When I became a senior resident I was really surprised.  I think it’s really cool that Gatehouse gives people leadership positions like senior resident or RA.  It really helped me see that the progress I’ve made here was being recognized and that helped motivate me to step up more.  It’s also given me an opportunity to help newcomers more, especially being able to talk to people on newcomer ban.  It’s also nice to be trusted a little more with things such as holding onto the RA phone.  It sounds really small, but to me it felt like a pretty big deal.  Because of how much trust I’ve lost with everyone in my life because of my using, being trusted even the smallest amount is really exciting.

Becca 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: Coleen F.

As a resident at Gatehouse I struggled with not being able to see my parents and sister very much.  I didn’t think that a family workshop could help my relationship with my parents.  I just completed my third and final workshop and I cannot believe the changes that have occurred within my family.  My father and I didn’t have a relationship before I came to Gatehouse, but through the family workshops we have gotten to know each other and have found that we are very much alike.  Today I am able to appreciate my family and respect and love them.  I am also happy to realize that even though I am sober my family as a whole is not perfect.  We are still going to have arguments and disagreements but today we can work through them in a healthy way, when in the past I would have drank over it.  I am so grateful for my families’ work and for the help of Gatehouse during the family workshops.

Coleen 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.

Families of residents attend 4 Family Workshops during their stay at Gatehouse Academy.

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.

This week, let’s tackle a very controversial subject in the field of addiction treatment – does recovery from addiction or alcoholism involve finding a cure?

Some medical professionals, as well as treatment models, believe a cure lies in the form of a pill.  Antabuse and Methadone are probably the most familiar replacement drugs used to treat alcohol or opiate addiction. The idea of replacement therapy is that by creating a medication that safely fulfill the needs of the addiction, the addicted person will be able to live a productive life.

Looking at this solution from a rational perspective, it would appear that the medication acts as a crutch for the addict to rely on.  In other words, it simply creates a new addiction to the medication meant to cure the ailment.  An example can be seen at local methadone clinics, where hundreds line up to get their daily allotment of the medication.  It is apparent that this is the lesser of two evils, but the reality is that it doesn’t support the theory of the cure to addiction coming in the form of a pill.

The polar opposite school of thought comes from the 12 Step perspective.  The core thought being, “We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” This idea can be compared to a person suffering from cancer.

Once someone is diagnosed with cancer and receives successful treatment – it is never considered ‘cured.’  It may go into remission, but the chance always remains that it can return without reason or notice.  According to the 12 Steps, addiction works just the same way – the disease is never cured, rather it is arrested for a period of time and can return if the work is not done to keep it at bay.

In the final analysis, it is up to each individual to decide for themselves how they view addiction. What do you think?

Intrigued by the latest news from Yahoo! News story, Agassi admits using crystal meth in autobiography, I thought to myself – how do drugs and alcohol play into one’s drive to be successful in sports?

The article describes, world renowned tennis player, Andre Agassi’s introduction to Crystal Meth from a friend and the feelings associated with taking the drug.  Interestingly enough, the thoughts and experience accurately describe the obsession of the mind when an addict experiments with a drug for the first time.  The guilt and remorse are overcome by the intense feelings of pleasure and power.

From the sounds it, Agassi is lucky to have not developed a full on addiction to Methamphetamines, which would have more than likely required addiction treatment.  It appears that Agassi learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of using a drug like Meth, but made it out the otherside without losing everything.

Sports can be a great alternative to drinking and druging, but they can also lead young adults to use drugs to perform above and beyond their limits.  We find at Gatehouse Academy, some young people develop their addictions at a young age using performance enhancing drugs like steroids, methamphetamine and cocaine. Feeling pressure from peers and parents to preform well can put a young adult in a position to develop an addiction.

We also understand that Sports are a social activity that can introduce young people to others that use drugs and alcohol regularly. Many young people describe drinking as a way to fit in with older teammates, and feel a part of the team.

The danger of this behavior is that young people do not know if they have a predisposition to become an addict or an alcoholic.  If they are, then it will be a long and arduous battle for years to come, and they will most likely end up in one of three places: prison, mental institution or, God forbid, death.

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.

Due to the cycle of hormone levels, women’s bodies actually intervene in how alcohol affects them, making them mush less affected to any affects.

From studies on both human and animal test subjects, When they drink less alcohol and even for much less time periods, the female test subjects still showed the same intoxication levels as males with more alcohol and longer drinking times.   The study showed conclusively that there is something specific about what makes up the female body and its chemistry to affect women in such a way.

This study is especially alarming in view of the fact that drinking in the United Kingdom has increased within young women.  The drinking industry is responding in turn to make drinking opportunities even more accessible through its marketing campaigns, much to the chagrin of those centers in charge of alcohol treatment and residential drug treatment.

A recent study found about drinking and women in Britain discovered that those women in the age bracket of eighteen to twenty four years of age are the biggest group of people to consume alcohol in Europe.  Per capita, they drank in comparison to the 59 liters Italian women drank 203 liters.   It will probably rise and not decrease as another year rolls around, which means a rise should be expected in alcohol abuse intervention as drinking becomes more and more a part of the female social world.

Women not only have to worry about being pressured to drink more through intense marketing campaigns from alcohol trades and businesses but also about the possible affects that they could occur from becoming dependent upon alcohol.  Addiction treatment studies show that many of the same symptoms those women with alcoholism suffer from are similar to those affecting victims of PTSD.

The kind of treatment  involved in helping these women include two kinds of cognitive behavioral treatments called Relapse Prevention Treatment and Seeking Safety.  So far these two treatments have been very successful.  They are used in a three month time frame with a group of 32 women participating the study.  Many women were victims of both PTSD and alcoholism.

The Relapse Prevention Treatment has started to gain in popularity, known for its excellent care and checkups that help women to continue in their sobriety and road to recovery.  Like many other centers, it focuses on figuring out what triggers relapses and cravings in order to help women to take control of them.