Over the past month Guiding Light Recovery has seen a large influx of new clients looking to be accepted into our four-month substance-abuse treatment program. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding increases in economic stresses and social isolation has been difficult for everyone. It is important to note that for men in our community struggling with addiction, it has been a stressful storm. Isolation is one of the worst things someone living in active addiction can be faced with. In isolation it becomes easier and easier to become detached from life and to become confined to yourself. It is a bad place to be in; mentally, physically, and spiritually, and can be extremely dangerous. When you are alone with your addiction, it becomes easier to engage in risky behavior and the dangers of overdosing or taking your own life can greatly increase. The best place for men struggling with addiction, if they want to get better, is to be in a supportive community like the one many have found at Guiding Light Recovery.
Much of the increased rate of men coming into the program can be attributed to the hard work of our new intake manager for Recovery, Sam Bogard. Sam went through the program himself less than a year ago, and knows first-hand the difficulties one can face, when deep in the throes of active addiction, to actively seek help. He has been making it a point to make himself available to men that are seeking to be admitted into the Recovery program and is able to talk to and relate to them on a level of understanding and mutual respect that only someone familiar with their struggles can. Sam has also been working with local detox facilities such as Pine Rest and Salvation Army’s Turning Point programs who are looking to place their clients in long-term residential treatment.
In the past four weeks, twelve men have been admitted into the Recovery program, making for a total of 20 men currently enrolled and living downtown in our facility at 255 Division Avenue. Calls from men looking for help and from short-term rehabilitation programs seeking to place their clients in Guiding Light are busier than they have been for a long time. It is heartening to see but is also a sobering reminder that it has been an extremely difficult year for so many out there in our community struggling with these demons. It is a powerful reminder of how important it is that Guiding Light Recovery has remained, and continues to be, open and available for men seeking a way out of the darkness of addiction, and into the light of a life in sobriety, stability, and hope.
None of this, of course, would be possible without the generous support of you, our donors. The men in our program have been given the gift of a second chance at life. A chance to pick up the pieces, to start again, and to live up to the image in which God made them. Without you, none of this would be possible. From all of us at Guiding Light, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for making this possible.
If you know someone who is struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol and needs help, we want you to know that the Guiding Light Recovery program is here for them. Please encourage them to call Sam at 616-451-0236 extension 23 for any questions they have about becoming enrolled in the program. God bless.
