On Friday, clients from the Guiding Light Recovery program had a chance to visit Iron House, our sober living apartment complex in Kentwood. Iron House consists of six buildings, capable of housing up to 42 people. The privilege to move to Iron House is reserved solely for men that have gone through the Guiding Light programming. It is important, we believe, that we treat men’s issues with addiction on a long-term basis, much longer than the four months that they are in the Recovery program. Recovery takes time and patience, and that is the philosophy we follow here at Guiding Light.
Many men that have come through our program will tell you that being able to move to Iron House is one of the biggest reasons they are sober today. Being able to be surrounded with like-minded peers and friends in sobriety makes it so much easier to stay sober. We encourage all of our clients to stay at Guiding Light as long as they can, find work, and save enough money to move to Iron House. Unlike most other sober-living housing projects, Iron House is a clean, safe, and secure place for men to live and to start the next step in their journey in recovery. Being able to show men, new in sobriety, that Iron House is an option for them that honors their dignity, independence, and work-ethic is a big step. We want our clients to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and being able to live a life in sobriety is possible.
Of course, being able to provide Iron House as an option for men would not be possible without our generous and kind-hearted donors, supporters, and advocates. Our philosophy of teaching long-term sobriety and care truly does work. 78% of our clients that follow our suggestions, stay at Guiding Light, find employment, and move to Iron House, will stay sober for over a year. These are, believe it or not, amazingly positive statistics, and we could not do it without you. Thank you so much for giving us the means to show men that life can be so much better if they decide to finally put down the drink and the drugs and learn to live differently.
