We can, we will, we must!!!
Today was a sad day for those of us at God's Chosen Ones. I write this with tears in my eyes as we had to ask a brother to leave due to his behavior in the transition home. We always look at a brother's departure as a missed opportunity since we understand that we could have always done more.
What makes us unique as an organization fighting against addiction is our willingness to look at ourselves and take personal responsibility for those that do not make it. Unfortunately, a lot of programs will just blame the addict and keep everything the same within there program. This has been a costly approach since what may work for one individual may not work for another. A popular phrase said within the recovery community is "It works if you work it" and this implies that the program itself is perfect and it is the addict who has failed. In some cases this is true, but to say that this is the case for all people who don't make it is called a fundamental attribution error. This is an over estimation of placing blame on the addict rather than looking to see what could be added or subtracted to make sobriety and recovery more appealing to the addict.
If we consider the stats on those who do not make it to sobriety, we find that the overall majority of people struggling with addiction do not find success. But what is success in sobriety exactly? We define success in sobriety as reaching a year in sobriety and being able to show signs of advancement in all areas of life. Most programs believe that success is found in the completion of their program. However, it is not so black and white as that. There have been many people that have completed programs only to find themselves back in active addiction. On the other hand, there have been people who have found success in sobriety even though they did not complete the program.
Although we may have failed one brother, we push forward, willing to continue the fight. We will not give up, we will not give in. The fight goes on as we continue to look for ways to innovate and advance in our quest to be of service to the community and to the whole world!
I want to send a special thank you to Dave and Jess Cole for coming along beside of us as we were forced to part ways with one of the brothers from the transitional home. Their love and support helped to strengthen us to be able to continue on our mission to inspire change and help others to see that they are special and chosen by God.