Every Tuesday, men staying at Guiding Light attend a cognitive behavioral therapy class facilitated by staff-members Brian Elve or Seth Velderman.
These classes center around the seven focus points of the Guiding Light Recovery program; willingness, honesty, vulnerability, self-awareness, self-compassion, responsibility, and spiritual formation. The core philosophy of our program revolves around these focus points and ways of living that are taught to the men here. All of these points are essential for a man to integrate into his life if he is seeking to live up to his God-given potential and to free himself from the bondage of drugs and alcohol. Each of these points is thoroughly, comprehensively, and holistically explored in the Guiding Light Recovery curriculum. Each class’s lesson plan is designed to open up a constructive dialogue and to articulate to clients how each focus point is needed and has been lacking in their lives.
In today’s class, Brian taught about the topic of responsibility and relapse awareness. “When thinking of responsibility, we all have different ideas of what it means and what comes up for us,” he said. “We’re going to focus on two different ways to distinguish responsibility. One is the simple action of being responsible, the other is taking responsibility for your own life.” Obviously, a client typically has an idea of what it means to be responsible or what the responsible thing to do in life is. However, the act of taking responsibility for his own life, rather just his own actions, can actually be a surprisingly difficult concept to grasp. A man living in active addiction has a way of life that is defined by an inherent unpredictability and chaos. The programming of Guiding Light Recovery provides a constructive routine, basic sense of structure, and a new way of dealing with life that many of the men that come through here have not had in their lives for years, if not decades.
It costs roughly $300 a day to feed, house, and treat one of our clients. Thanks to you, our donors, the only cost for men enrolled in our programs is their honesty, open-mindedness, and sincere willingness to change. From all of us at Guiding Light, clients and staff alike, God bless and thank you so much for all that you do for us.
