New program gives single dad hope

“If it feels good, how good is it going to feel if I do more?” said Alex, who asked that his last name not be used.

Alex is one of two men in the program, which started in July. It has room for one more resident.

“The opportunity I was given is worth way more than any drug I could take,” Alex said of the program. He hopes the program will not only aid in his recovery but allow him to teach his daughter, who is living with her grandparents, how to live addiction-free.

Alex was already in therapy when he joined the program in August. He was struggling.

“I was in a rough state. I’d lost my kid. Homeless. I was at the point of being suicidal. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have any hope, and this program changed all that for me. I still need to do my part. I’m an addict, and that ‘voice’ will always be there.”

The program, run by Mid-Columbia Center for Living (CFL) and Bridges to Change (see related story), allows men in recovery to stay for up to a year, rent-free, as long as they are actively participating in counseling, pass frequent drug tests, observe curfew and keep their house maintained.

“Right now, I go to therapy or doctor appointments six to seven times a week and I go to CFL once a week,” said Alex. “I meet my mentor once a week at CFL. I go to at least two NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meets a week.”

Without the stress of homelessness or rent demands, Alex is able to “invest a lot of time in learning better coping skills than I had before, which was drugs and drinking.”

Now, in therapy, he is learning emotional regulation and how to deal with overwhelming feelings.

“Addiction is a coping mechanism and a way of dealing with situations we haven’t learned to have emotional control or stability over,” Alex said.

Alex grew up in the rural countryside, in a religious church-going family, and feels that his childhood was mostly good. However, he admits that his family “didn’t do great with recognizing emotions and how to process them in healthy ways.” This lead to a pattern of emotional instability, underdeveloped boundaries, abuse, and addiction throughout his life, as well as having a personality that does “everything in life to excess and extreme.”

Low self-esteem and poor body image led to his first addiction: Over exercising and anorexia in high school. During his senior year, he worked out six hours a day and lost 100 pounds in under a year.

Then, in what became a turning point, a few months before the end of his senior year, he was invited to a party.

“I got drunk, very, very drunk, and I was ‘fun.’ Then everybody wanted to hang out with me, and popularity was not something I had before.” So he continued the behavior of extreme drinking because it “filled that hole inside me.”

He gradually started smoking pot and then began using cocaine, getting up to an 18-grams-a day habit. “I overdosed twice. It felt like my heart was going to rip in half one of the times. It was painful,” he said.

During this time, Alex was working three jobs, going to college full-time, and “partying full-time.” The drugs allowed him to push himself to extremes.

At jobs, Alex said he had no boundaries when it came to how hard he would work, doing whatever the company asked because that is where he found his self-worth. From working extremely long hours to working in toxic unhealthy environments, Alex would do what had come to be expected of him.

“I’m a great employee,” he said. “Employers loved me because they can abuse me, and I permitted it. But that’s not healthy, that’s not a good example for my daughter and it’s not healthy for me.” He initially used cocaine to fuel his crazy work schedule, then switched to meth because it was cheaper.

He had gone to rehab in his early 20s for drugs and drinking and maintained sobriety for several years. But due to work demands, stress of life, and an abusive marriage, Alex fell back into his old unhealthy drug habits to cope.

With stress beating down on him, a physically and emotionally abusive wife, and watching the impact it was having on his young daughter’s emotional state to witness such abuse, Alex realized he had to leave this situation for the betterment and health of his daughter and himself.

He and his daughter moved to The Dalles, but even once out of the abusive relationship Alex still struggled with his addictions and maintaining normalcy for his daughter. He knew he needed help, and he found it at La Casa Vida.

Alex has been clean, this time, since just before entering the program in early August.

The program has given him a safe place to heal, grow and learn. Alex is excited for the future and anticipates amazing growth in his life. In a year, when finished at La Casa Vida, Alex said, “I hope to be at a place beyond what I can fathom.”