Kevin Taylor recently celebrated his 39th birthday and 4 years of sobriety, it’s a birthday that he says was only possible thanks to Guiding Light.
“I had seizures from drinking and the first thing I would do when I got out of the hospital is go to the liquor store. Without the help I’ve received from Guiding Light, I’d be on the streets. I mean I’d definitely be dead.”
Kevin’s relationship with alcohol started like many other people’s, as a teenager drinking beer with his buddies. He says it was at his place of employment where he started down the path of addiction and eventual homelessness.
“When they say working in a restaurant can be a party scene, it is. Weekends spent drinking can easily turn into weekdays,” says Kevin. “It just snowballed and got to the point where I’d be working harder at the end of the night so I could get out in time to get to the liquor store. Then it became, ‘Oh, well I have to go to work in the morning and I’m kind of hungover, let me take two shots before I go to work.’”
Shots in the morning, a pint before his afternoon shift, a trip to the liquor store before his night shift, and another stop at the liquor store before going home: alcohol consumed Kevin’s life. DUIs, seizures and hospital visits weren’t enough to get him out of this cycle.
In September of 2019, Kevin was homeless and had a run-in with the law, resulting in a public intoxication charge that landed him in front of a judge. To avoid going to jail, he needed a plan. A counselor at a local detox center pushed him in the direction of Guiding Light, something that he initially saw as a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card.’
Guiding Light wasn’t Kevin’s choice. He liked being homeless and says he was doing just fine sleeping at and getting meals from local homeless shelters, which allowed him to save enough money to buy his alcohol. Kevin admits that his call to Guiding Light wasn’t a ‘grand awakening’ but rather a search for a warm place to stay with winter approaching.
Kevin contacted Guiding Light to inquire about becoming enrolled in the Recovery program but had misgivings about how intensive it seemed. ‘I thought, man, forget this place. They don’t want me there,’ so I decided I was going to go to the liquor store. But first, I went to the Catholic church across the street to use the bathroom. And when I came out of there, they called me back and asked me to come in that day.”
Kevin doesn’t think it was a coincidence that his phone rang while he was on the steps of that church.
“It was kind of like an intervention. I think I knew I had a problem. I just didn’t want to admit it. I always just joked about it,” says Kevin. “For me not to know is kind of silly, because I’ve had two DUIs, I’ve had multiple seizures at work – but I didn’t want to be like, ‘Yeah, I got a problem. This is bad.’”
Kevin walked into Guiding Light and was met with structure – and some tough love – that he hadn’t had since he was a teen living at home. “Everyone I talked to was either an alcoholic, or a staff member who was being honest with me about my drinking. They’d say, ‘What have you been doing? What are you doing? Do you think this is cool? You’re 35 years old and what do you have now? You have no license, no job, no place to live!’ That gets to you after a while. Everyone who is there, all of these Life Coaches, they’ve all been where I’ve been. They aren’t just counselors with degrees.”
“Something just kind of clicked at Guiding Light. I can’t really explain it. I went in there thinking four months I’m out, but after four months, I was going to Iron House.”
Kevin moved out to Iron House, Guiding Light’s five sober-living apartment buildings in Kentwood and Grand Rapids. Iron House is dedicated transitional housing for men who have gone through Guiding Light’s Recovery program and are now starting to re-engage with the community.
All residents, including Kevin, have jobs, buy their own food, and pay their own bills. And most importantly, they are a support network for each other.
“I lost all connections with all my old friends,” says Kevin. “These are my people now. That’s a big part of it – having some brotherhood. Instead of on a Saturday night going to a bar and watching UFC, I can go to my neighbor’s house and watch it.”
Kevin now aspires for the new life he knows is in front of him. He’s currently working on getting a degree in Business Accounting from Grand Rapids Community College and planning to join the business world. Earning his driver’s license is also on his to-do list, and maybe a move out west to Washington. But maintaining his sobriety is at the very top. “If I don’t stay sober, I obviously did something wrong or lost touch. It’s my own doing. No one is forcing you to go out to drink.”
When it comes to donors that made his stay at Guiding Light possible, Kevin says that ‘Thank You’ doesn’t cut it. Without that support system, he doesn’t believe he would have lived to see his 38th birthday.
“I knew I needed a different life and they provided me with the tools for that. I needed a change and Guiding Light was the place that did it.”
