entering recovery: lori fallon

Entering Recovery: Lori’s Story

Why can’t you put the bottle down, stop drinking, and take care of your responsibilities?

Growing up, that’s what Lori Fallon remembers thinking about two of her family members who suffered heavily from alcoholism. At the time, she just could never understand how a bottle of alcohol could control someone’s life.

It wasn’t until the Coatesville native was working through her recovery that she realized that she, too, had used alcohol as a coping mechanism growing up. The first time she experienced being intoxicated was in the tenth grade. She remembers the feeling well.

“It gave me empowerment,” she said. “I felt free. I had wings. I could do and talk and be this person I always wanted to be.”

Looking back, she said that while she had the quintessential American childhood, she often felt left out and was never a part of any particular group. This feeling of isolation fueled her drinking and, later, her drug use.

The Transition to Addiction

As Lori grew older, alcohol seemed to follow her through the different stages of her life. She never saw it as an addiction, yet there were signs. For example, as a young adult, she frequently had trouble making it into work after a night out with friends. She just chalked it up to being young and outgoing.

Later on, she married an alcoholic. While the two lived an incredible life together, the alcoholism made him irresponsible and unreliable. She didn’t see it as an addiction. She just couldn’t understand why he didn’t stop drinking.

By all appearances, Lori was a success story. She was married, young, and running a successful answering service company, which she owned. It was a 24-hour-a-day, 7 day-a-week job, but she had the energy. When she needed more, she began recreationally using cocaine.

Eventually, she left her marriage and entered into a new relationship with another successful business owner. Among their bonds: owning their own companies and getting high together.

“We bought a house together,” she said. “We traveled. We had new cars. We had motorcycles and Corvettes. I had fur coats and diamonds. We had a great life—we were kind of the envy of people, but …” She paused for a moment, reflecting.

“He’s the one who introduced me to crack,” she said, “and it just completely took over our lives.”

Once crack took hold of her, Lori’s addictive tendencies began to emerge.

“I was stealing money from his company to feed our crack addiction,” she said. “He threw me out of the house, and I had to sign away half of it.”

Once she was out on her own with no one to answer to, her addiction began to run wild. She entered the drug community where she was given the nickname “white chocolate.” She was notorious for doing just about anything to get drugs.

Although she still owned her business, she was using employee paychecks to fuel her dependency. Inevitably, the bank foreclosed on her property, no one wanted to work for her, and she was out on the streets. Then, she wound up in jail—several times.

The Breaking Point

While in jail, Lori’s house entered foreclosure, and her significant other died of an overdose. She still hadn’t hit the breaking point, but she knew something had to change.

When she got out of jail the final time, she entered an intensive outpatient program in Philadelphia. Even with all the help, she still had trouble staying clean.

“I did all the things we do to get one more,” she said. “I was glad to be there, though, because I was homeless before, sleeping on someone’s front porch under a dirty mattress. I didn’t even know who lived there. I had the clothes on my back. I remember it was snowing, and I had a pair of flip flops to wear.”

In the meantime, people from her home town were trying to get her to start using regularly again. It was then that something clicked inside. Lori realized there was nothing there for her anymore. She had to move on. That’s when she chose The GateHouse.

Choosing Treatment

Even after all her problems, Lori still didn’t see her addiction as a disease. Nevertheless, she was happy to be getting treatment. At The GateHouse, she found meaning and purpose. She began to work at it, and she began to truly recover. Life for Lori began to improve.

The next step for her was becoming a productive, contributing member of society. That meant finding a job. Going back to entrepreneurship was not even a temptation for her.

“Technology had taken over the answering service industry,” she said. “But I really didn’t want to carry the burden of being a business owner anymore. It just didn’t appeal to me.”

She found and took a position on the production floor at Nissin Foods.

“I was empowered,” she said. “It was my first paycheck in years, and I was able to pay rent and pay for my bus ticket. On Fridays, I treated myself to a Turkey Hill hotdog, an iced tea, and a bag of chips!”

Life in Recovery

One day, not long after leaving treatment, she discovered The GateHouse was hiring.

“They had a job opening for a part-time recovery specialist,” she said. “I applied for the job and got it.”

From there, she became a House Manager for The GateHouse for Women in Mountville, Pa. She then moved on to GateHouse Transitional Living, where she eventually landed in her current position of Program Coordinator.

For Lori, The GateHouse is more than a recovery residence.

“The GateHouse truly saved my life,” she said. “On a daily basis I would doubt myself, but The GateHouse is still empowering me to be the best woman I can be to this day. They paid attention to me and made me feel special. They never put anyone on a back burner.”

In her role as Program Coordinator, Lori carries that message to others.

“I have a gift that was given to me, and my job is to embrace that gift and nurture it,” she said. “I have the privilege of sharing my experience, strength, and hope with newly recovering addicts, and if I can help one person it’s a successful day.”

During this year’s Extraordinary Give, please join us in ‘Giving Extra’ to our community members as they embark on their journey to recovery and healthy, meaningful lives.

To learn more about Lori’s story and to hear her tell it in her own words, please watch this compelling video:

Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission

Addiction Through the Eyes of the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission

Over the next few months, The GateHouse will be taking a look at the opioid crisis from the perspective of the public officials who are working to eradicate it through funding, public awareness, and education. We kick the series off with an interview with Rick Kastner, executive director of the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission.

In his 38 years with the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission, Rick Kastner thought he had seen it all.

Kastner, who has served as the organization’s executive director for more than three decades, said he has never witnessed anything like the opioid epidemic currently gripping the nation and the Lancaster County community.

“What makes the opioid epidemic unique compared to all others that I’ve been involved with is the number of overdose deaths, not only in Lancaster, but at the state and national levels,” he said. “That’s caught a lot of people’s attention—the fact that a person could be experimenting with an opioid one time in their entire life and then suddenly they’re dead.”

It’s also significant, Kastner said, that the epidemic has reached into the suburbs, killing scores of younger people who challenge the stereotypes typically associated with drug addiction. In 2017, 168 died by overdose in Lancaster County alone.

“Luckily, we have those numbers down to about 105 overdose deaths in Lancaster in 2018, so we’re making progress,” Kastner said. “We have a lot more financial resources available to combat the problem, and a lot more people are involved in trying to address the epidemic and turn it around.”

For Kastner, the attention is unprecedented.

“It is by far the most attention the drug and alcohol field has received in the 38 years that I’ve been with the office,” he said. “We’ve got a lot more people working on the effort, and we’ve got a lot of additional resources that we just didn’t have before.”

In fact, the Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission is one of those resources. For those unfamiliar with the role the commission plays in battling addiction in Lancaster County—it is significant.

“The Lancaster County Drug and Alcohol Commission is the county department that receives funding from the state and the federal governments to manage, oversee, develop, and pay for drug and alcohol treatments, education, prevention, and intervention services in the county,” Kastner said. “People who are not eligible for Medicaid, but are low-income, that’s typically where the treatment funding from my office is involved. We pay for treatment, pay for drug and alcohol prevention education programs, we help develop programs, we evaluate them, we monitor them, and we oversee the system here in Lancaster.”

Organizations like The GateHouse play a pivotal role in helping the commission fulfill its mission of providing access to low-income and uninsured addicts seeking help.

“They’re part of our provider network,” Kastner said of The GateHouse. “We’ve been contracting with them for probably 40 years. We—and other providers in our network—refer clients to The GateHouse, and if they’re approved, then many times my office pays for them. Of course, we always try to utilize Medicaid funding first, because there are a lot more Medicaid dollars available, but for those Lancaster residents who are not eligible for Medicaid but are low income, then my office pays for the treatment at The GateHouse.”

That treatment is more important than ever. Kastner says what he’s seeing now from the public is a much different response than what he’s seen from previous epidemics, such as the crack cocaine crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“I think the opioid epidemic has a lot more people involved,” he said. “The governor himself declared the opioid crisis an epidemic a while ago, and has a task force at work in Harrisburg, at the emergency management building on a regular basis. He declared it an epidemic or a catastrophe like he would, for example, if there had been a devastating hurricane or tornado. I see a lot more people in the last 3 or 4 years being involved with addressing the opioid epidemic than I’ve seen in the other epidemics like the crack cocaine crisis.”

Kastner does worry, however, that all the focus on opioids may shrink awareness of other drug issues facing the community.

“There’s a lot of people in our field, both in Lancaster and statewide, who are seeing an increase in K2 and methamphetamine addictions,” Kastner said. “We have a lot of resources earmarked specifically for opioid addictions—and some of our funding can only be used for primary opioid abuse disorder—so there is a concern that with strings attached to some of our funding streams and grants that we’ve got a lot of people out there addicted to other substances, including alcohol, that could be left out or hindered by the focus on opioid addictions.”

And these drugs have their own unique problems as their pool of users continues to grow.

“With K2 and methamphetamine, specifically, the biggest problem is that a lot of times they will create behavior in a person that mimic the behaviors of someone with a severe mental illness,” Kastner said. “The treatment facilities are not set up to deal with someone so out of control that they have no place to put them until they detox to a point where they’re no longer exhibiting psychotic behavior. So, typically, the only place that can control a person like that is either the prisons or an involuntary mental health facility. The drug and alcohol field to some degree cannot handle some of the behaviors we’re seeing with K2 and methamphetamine.”

There is, however, a lot of positive momentum that has come from the increased awareness from new segments of society.

“We have a lot more people understanding the disease of addiction,” Kastner said. “We have a lot of people out there who have lost their children and their spouses. People coming from good families and realizing that it’s not just a problem relegated to the homeless population. I think the public and the community are seeing that there is a stigma involved with addiction, that it is an uncontrollable disease that needs to be addressed with treatment, resources, and recovery programs. I’ve never seen that before. I think we’ve taken some great steps.”

As heartbreaking as it is to see people suffering with addiction, Kastner said it’s been eye-opening to see a renewed interest in the work the commission is doing.

“For 30+ years we were quietly just doing our thing and working with clients to get them into recovery programs,” he said. “There were a lot of people out there who individually knew the great work we were doing and what this field was all about, but the general public did not. From that standpoint, it does feel that we’re being validated more and accepted.”

There is still much more work to do, though, Kastner said.

“A lot of folks know some really fantastic people who have lost their lives to an overdose or who have been controlled by an opioid addiction,” he said. “A lot of them were innocent people who were simply taking their pain medication prescribed by a physician. I don’t think anybody realized for about 15-20 years that using long-term strong opioid pain medications was going to create thousands of addicts and that they’d eventually turn to street heroin and then suddenly die. It really is a tragedy.”

If you or someone you know is suffering from addiction and needs help, contact The GateHouse for information on the services we provide or give us a call at 717-393-3215. Our goal is to restore the human spirit through recovery by offering in-patient and outpatient services that treat the whole person, not just the disease.

Robby-and-Rob-1140x570

One Couple’s Battle to Raise Awareness to Recovery Aftercare with Ice Hockey

The pain never goes away.

“It really doesn’t,” said Rob Barclay, father of Robby Barclay, who passed away by overdose on Dec. 17, 2017. “I know guys deal with things differently, we process things differently, but my wife is still really, really struggling with it. I am, too.”

To honor their son, Ann and Rob Barclay are working with the non-profit group, The Leafs Hockey Community Action, of which Rob has been a member for decades. Together, they’re sponsoring the Robby Barclay Memorial Ice Hockey Tournament on April 5 and 6 at Lancaster Ice Rink. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. on the 5^th and again at 8 a.m. on the 6^th. Donations collected at the tournament will go to The GateHouse to help the recovering men and women the non-profit organization serves.

Robby never attended The GateHouse or utilized any of its programs, even though the Barclays wish he had.

“By the time we found out about The GateHouse, it was already too late,” Rob said. “Robby had already passed away. That’s why we chose The GateHouse. For what they do.”

The Barclays were very involved in Robby’s life and fought his addiction as best they could.

“We had him in several different rehabs throughout his life,” Rob said. “But we could never find any aftercare—something to get him ready to go back into society and learn how to make the right choices. It was just a struggle.”

By raising awareness to The GateHouse through the memorial ice hockey tournament, the Barclays hope their son will not have died in vain.

“We really hope this helps somebody else,” Rob said. “Robby would have been 30 on March 19.”

Although he battled addiction for the last 10 or 12 years of his life, Rob said Robby was once a youngster who loved ice hockey.

“He played ice hockey from the time he was 5 years old until he was in high school,” Rob said. “He went to Ephrata High School, but he never graduated. He got his GED when he was about 20.”

Before the addiction took hold, Robby was a good brother to his younger sister, Katie.

“They were real close,” Rob said. “Robby was her guardian when they were growing up.”

The addiction began with marijuana, then graduated to pills—“I’m not even sure what they were,” Rob said—but eventually, Robby turned to heroin and his descent began.

“It was just that he got in with the wrong crowd,” Rob said. “We started seeing signs of him going the wrong way, and it just got out of hand.”

Rob said he and his wife hope the ice hockey tournament raises awareness to The GateHouse and helps others who may be facing similar problems.

“It’s a tribute to Robby, but I know several other kids who actually played on the same hockey teams as he did—they also are gone now,” Rob said. “It’s horrible. It’s sad to look at a picture of these kids when they were young and have to say, “Well, he’s no longer with us, and he’s no longer with us, and he’s gone, too. It’s tough.”

MORE INFO:

WHO: The general public

WHAT: The Robby Barclay Memorial Ice Hockey Tournament

WHEN: April 5 at 6:30 p.m. and April 6 at 8 a.m.

WHERE: Lancaster Ice Rink, 371 Carrera Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601

WHY: To celebrate Robby’s life and raise awareness to the services offered by The GateHouse

COST: FREE (donations benefitting The GateHouse will be accepted)

Drug-and-Alcohol-Assessment-1000x570-2

What Goes into a Drug and Alcohol Assessment at The GateHouse?

Entering treatment can seem like a vast and mysterious process, which is why we’re here to break it down for you. We want you to feel confident and knowledgeable when it comes to your treatment plan and overall health.

Here’s what you can expect when you come to The GateHouse for an initial assessment.

Why do you need an initial assessment?

Everyone who comes to us for their initial assessment comes in under different circumstances. Some may get an assessment before finding an inpatient program, or some may need an initial drug and alcohol assessment for legal reasons. No matter what your reason for needing an assessment, you’ll generally follow the same timeline of events.

What can you expect during an initial assessment?

When you arrive for your initial assessment, you’ll complete three steps during your visit.

Step 1: Paperwork

Once you arrive at the facility, you‘ll start by filling out county funding paperwork for your records. Prior to the session, you may also be asked to bring in your income information to apply for funding.

Step 2: Assessment

After completing the necessary paperwork, we’ll begin the assessment session. During the session, we’ll conduct a biopsychosocial assessment to help determine what level of care meets your needs. Throughout the session, we’ll gather your complete family history, lifestyle information, history of drug and alcohol use, and what brought you into treatment.

Step 3: Determination of care

Following the assessment, we’ll compare what we learned during the session to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) criteria to determine the best level of care for your needs. ASAM criteria looks at the following circumstances:

Your recovery environment
Biomedical conditions
Withdrawal potential
Emotional and behavioral considerations
Your readiness to change

The levels of care are:

1.Outpatient Services

2. Intensive Outpatient Services

2.5. Halfway House

3. Inpatient Rehabilitation

4. Detox

What happens after an initial assessment?

Depending on level of care recommended, we’ll either report that we do not have a treatment recommendation for you, refer you to an inpatient or detox facility, or refer you to one of our services listed below.

Outpatient and Intensive Outpatient Programs

The lowest level of care we provide is our outpatient program. The outpatient program currently offers three types of groups:

Men and women trauma-informed groups
Relapse prevention groups
Living in balance groups

Outpatient clients attend one group a week and meet with a counselor at least every other week, and intensive outpatients attend three, three-hour sessions a week and meet with their counselor once a week.

All of our outpatient programs use evidence-based treatment models, so you can feel confident that we’re providing you with the best possible treatment options.

Halfway Houses

At The GateHouse, we have two halfway houses. Most halfway house residents have come from 30, 60, or 90-day inpatient treatment stays and must be referred by a professional. We also take referrals from State Correctional Institutions many now have their own drug and alcohol programs.

Getting an initial assessment doesn’t have to be a complicated process. We’re here to help you. The GateHouse is a county-contracted outpatient treatment provider, so we can provide you with no-cost assessments if you don’t have insurance. Reach out to us for more information!

Jodi’s Story

To look at Jodi O’Reilly, the first thought that comes to mind is, Here’s someone who’s got it all together.

Attractive, intelligent, and charming, Jodi is the mother of two daughters, the executive director of one of Pennsylvania’s top recovery and behavioral health organizations, and a natural leader–with a sense of humor and an expressive gift for gab.

The Pittsburgh native will be the first to tell you, however, that it wasn’t always this way. Her life is good now, but it wasn’t easy getting there.

“Recovery has softened me around the edges,” she said recently. “When somebody meets me, or I go to my daughter’s PTA meeting or a parent-teacher conference, they can’t see that I was once a homeless person in North Philadelphia. What they can see is a human being just like them who’s showing up to try and help out or volunteer at their kid’s school. I believe if we take the time to understand and know others, we can lessen the ignorance and stigma that occurs about those who struggle with the disease of addiction.”

The Descent

The first time Jodi ever tried a narcotic, she was about 9 years old. Her grandmother and her mother gave her a Xanax when she was feeling sick. The memory is still vivid for her.

“I remember the exact moment I felt the elixir of the Xanax they gave me, and I knew that I wanted to feel that way for the rest of my life,” she said. “It was the first time I ever felt safe, free, and just OK to be me. But what that event reinforced in me was that it was never OK not to feel anything. So, at that age, I had the value instilled in me that you don’t ever want to feel–and that something outside yourself can make you feel better.”

From there, she began to descend into an addictive cycle that claims so many young lives today. She met a boy in high school and got pregnant. She married before she graduated, thinking that marriage would “fix” her. Drugs were always near at hand.

“My descent was over a 15-16 year window,” Jodi said. She said the substance abuse started in high school. “From the the first time I drank alcohol until my clean date, I used drugs and alcohol like it was my full-time job. I used until everything was gone.”

While Jodi’s story is unique, it’s all too common in a world where opioid abuse has become an epidemic.

“I think I started using heroin when I was about 14,” she said. “By the time I had my daughter at 18, I was homeless, living in a van with a newborn baby, and struggling just to get by. From there, I lost custody of my daughter, and rightfully so, and just lived a life on the streets. I just never wanted to not use.”

The Hustle

Before long, she was living on the hard streets of Philadelphia, always looking for more. Every day was the same. Physically addicted to opioids, Jodi said she would use heroin to feel normal and cocaine to get high.

“It was always about the hustle—just to get through the day and use all day long,” she said. “So many crazy things happen when you’re living that kind of lifestyle.

“At that time, I didn’t realize it, but after being clean and doing some work on myself, being able to look back, I mean—having guns pulled on you, getting arrested, being in the newspaper—they were all moments when I said this is not how I want to live my life, but not knowing how to change it. It was a constant hustle always just trying to keep your eyes open.”

One of the worst moments of her life came after her daughter’s father was killed.

“I disappeared for probably a year, and my daughter didn’t know where I was,” Jodi said. “I remember seeing her once after that. It was very brief. I remember trying to leave because I was sick, and I was just annoyed because I wanted to use. I remember her grabbing onto my leg as I was trying to walk down the steps, and in that moment, I literally wanted to punch her in her face. I just wanted to get away, because I hated the way that I was feeling. I remember pulling hard and like peeling her off my leg, and the people that were raising her taking her from me. I remember just getting out the front door and collapsing. It was such an empty moment of my life. I had become such an animal that even the sight of my wounded child made me rageful.”

And yet, she continued to use. There were moments, though, where reason would break through—moments between the horrors.

The Ray of Hope

The final moment came when Jodi was completely out of options. No longer welcome at most treatment facilities, she was facing a 5-year prison sentence after multiple offenses, when a ray of hope came in the form of the Bethesda Mission in Harrisburg, PA. While it would turn out to be the place that changed her life, her time there got off to a rocky start.

“Well, I came there late, so they almost didn’t admit me. I came there high, which I wasn’t supposed to do. But, being the ‘good’ addict that I was, I figured I needed one more hurrah,” she said. “I came there with open charges, so I knew that I was going back to prison, I just didn’t know when. My first three to four months were very difficult, because I didn’t know how to live. I broke every rule. I snuck out… the police brought me back.”

It was mayhem, Jodi said, but it was also progress. Despite the chaos, she wasn’t using drugs.

“What I understand now, is that I was doing all those things because I didn’t know how to do anything else,” she said. “The gift that the opportunity gave me was the freedom to make those mistakes and then have the opportunity to learn something different. There were consequences for my actions, but they allowed me to grow up. The mission workers loved me. They didn’t shame me.”

The turning point came on her birthday.

A Moment of Clarity

“I felt that I deserved to do what I wanted to do on my birthday,” she said, “but I was on restriction, because I had gotten in trouble before, so I wasn’t allowed phone calls, mail, anything. And I snuck out to meet a guy that I had known when I was using. His mom picked me up and we went to his apartment. He had just been released from prison. While we were there, he went into the bathroom, and when he came out, he had a loaded syringe of heroin.”

That’s when she had her first moment of clarity. She realized she was either going to do something different, or she was never going to emerge from the cycle of addiction.

“I somewhat did something different,” she said with a chuckle. “I didn’t use, but I got into a physical altercation with the guy and the police came and took me back to the mission. I remember sitting in the car with the cop and just thinking, ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself?’”

Jodi was convinced she was going back to jail when she got back to the mission.

“But something spiritually divine occurred,” she said. “When I got there, the executive director was waiting for me. She escorted me into a room and she didn’t say anything. I just started to cry. I just said that I was sorry, and I’ll pack my things and I appreciated the opportunity. She got up and she hugged me, and she said, ‘We don’t want you to leave. We just really want you to do something different. This is your one shot.’”

That did it. Things changed for Jodi after that ordeal. The year-long program turned into a three-year stay. By the end of her time at the mission, she was counseling other women and was attending college.

“But there came a time when it was time for me to go,” she said. “Not so much for myself, but it was time for me to go and be a mom.”

The Reclamation

Her reunion with her daughter was not easy. In fact, it was terrifying.

“The hardest part was getting a child that I had damaged and trying to not only take care of myself, but to take care of her,” she said. “After we got over the terror, it was exhilarating and empowering, and I knew then that I could do whatever I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

She firmly believes that it was divine intervention that led her to her current role as executive director at The GateHouse.

“I started working in drug and alcohol, because it was the only field in which someone would hire me because of my criminal record,” Jodi said. “I had tried for a year to get a job in a lot of other different arenas. I had a nursing degree that was null and void because I was a felon and had drug charges and all that stuff. I tried to do a lot of different things and couldn’t, so I ended up in an in-patient facility as a house manager, and I fell in love with serving people, just like people had served me.”

Now with two daughters, one of whom has never seen her use, Jodi says she tries not to live too far into the future.

“I just want to keep being a good person,” she said. “I try to live my life by spiritual principles, and try to raise my children to be kind, spiritually-driven women. To not settle for less than they deserve. To know their worth and their value and to not seek it in others.”

If she had one pearl of wisdom she could provide it would be to “live for today.”

“A lot of us come from places where we think, ‘If I could just do this, and if I could just do that, and if I have this, or do that, then things will be better,'” Jodi said. “What I’ve really come to understand is that today is the best day I have and I need to pay that forward in everything that I do.”

alternatives-to-drugs-and-alcohol-1000x570

Staying Healthy in Recovery: Are there Alternatives to Drugs and Alcohol?

After entering recovery, one of the hardest things to do is fill the leftover space in your mind and in your daily life. Spending so much of your time using drugs or alcohol can leave you feeling bored and unsatisfied throughout recovery, and it can often lead to relapses and addictive behavior. This is why many people search for healthy alternatives, whether that’s adrenaline-inducing activities, exercise, meditation, or any number of other activities.

The alternatives to drugs and alcohol vary widely and ultimately depend on your interests and what you want to pursue. Finding a healthy alternative can be an excellent way to fill that void, but it’s also imperative that you keep a healthy mindset about whatever activity you choose. Here are some healthy activities you can use to fill the new space in your life.

Meditation

Meditation is an excellent way to calm your mind, reflect on your life, and set goals for yourself. Even five to ten minutes in the morning spent focusing on your breathing, setting your daily intentions, and deciding what you want to accomplish can make a huge impact on the whole day.

Recovery is often accompanied by stress and anxiety. Taking time out of your day to focus only on yourself will help you tremendously. Meditation can give you new perspectives on stressful situations, help you cope, increase your patience, and calm your mind and body down. Another benefit of meditation as an alternative to drugs and alcohol is that it’s very difficult to overdo. However, if you find yourself meditating for hours a day or find that it’s interfering with your daily life in a negative way, talk to someone you trust, recognize the issue, and slowly cut back.

Adrenaline-Inducing Activities

Picking up a new, thrilling, and safe sport can be a great way to keep you occupied and excited about what you’re doing and help keep your body active. Here are some sports you could try to occupy your time.

Skiing
Whitewater rafting
Skydiving
Mountain Climbing

Seeking thrills through sports is a great way to stay on your feet and mix up your daily routine. Of course, there are a lot of extreme sports that are incredibly dangerous. Make sure you know your limits, always use the proper equipment, and learn the correct techniques from qualified instructors before trying anything new.

Working Out

Similar to meditation and sports, exercise allows you to fuel your body and calm your mind. It’s a great way to pass the time, increase your endorphins, and focus on your body and how much it does for you. The mental health benefits of regular exercise are incredible, and can include:

A reduction in depression
A reduction in anxiety
A reduction in stress
Increased focus

Of course, like anything, exercise can become problematic if you overdo it. Make sure you’re eating enough to sustain your workouts and talk to someone if you feel like you may be overexerting your body.

These three alternatives are great ways to fill any voids you may be experiencing in recovery, but, as with most things, too much is a bad thing. If you feel as though these activities, or any other activities, are taking up too much of your time or are having a negative impact on your life, talk to someone and get the help you need.

If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction, reach out to us today. We offer a wide variety of residential and outpatient treatment programs to help aid you throughout your recovery journey.

gatehouse-1-1000x570

Tim’s Story

Tim’s Story: Overcoming Addiction and Helping Others in Recovery

“Although I knew the amount I was using was lethal, that thought wasn’t scary enough to stop me.”
Tim G., Counselor at The GateHouse

Many would never assume that Tim has struggled with addiction.

Currently a Counselor at The GateHouse and pursuing a degree in social work, Tim now lives an incredible life with an amazing wife and a career he loves.

But his story didn’t start out that way.

Where it All Began

Tim grew up in the small town of Fairfield, PA, about two hours west of Lancaster. Like many teenager’s stories, his began drinking socially at parties with his friends. It didn’t take him long to realize that drinking made him feel as though he could connect with anyone and overcome his lifelong self-esteem issues.

By his mid-twenties, he started using drugs and alcohol recreationally, but, like many people in recovery, he eventually couldn’t stop.

“For me, it very quickly transitioned to something that I did always and everywhere,” he said. “It wasn’t a matter of where I did it. It was a matter of where I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop.”

Living with someone who shared copious amounts of prescribed narcotics made it even easier for him to slip into addiction. Soon, all of his relationships began to fall apart because he was too ashamed of what he was doing to connect with the people to whom he was once so close.

“You are having an internal battle between your desperate desire to be healthy and this other force within you that is not allowing that to happen, he said.

The pressure was just too much to handle and too much to put his loved ones through.

Searching for Help

After recognizing how much danger he was in, his family helped him get into rehab. For the first time in years, Tim was sober, his thoughts were clear, and things were going well. Before coming to The GateHouse, he had been in a treatment facility that felt stale. It was a very clinical, brick building in the middle of nowhere, so transitioning to The GateHouse was a much-needed change.

“The Gatehouse was a home,” he said. “The people there welcomed me, supported me, offered me help and they didn’t seem to want anything in return.”

Early on in his recovery, Tim reminisced when he heard the phrase, “If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” For Tim, that meant being okay in his own skin and rebuilding his self-worth. In the beginning of his recovery, Tim didn’t feel deserving of anything, and it was difficult for him to accept any help from others. With hard work, he was able to open up to the staff at The GateHouse, and he allowed them to help him develop and stick to a long-term recovery plan.

During Tim’s transition out of The GateHouse, he found out his dad had passed away. A traumatic event like that can dramatically set back recovery.

“This was one of the hardest times in my life, but the people who had become my support system at The GateHouse were able to give me strength and help me through this difficult time,” Tim said. “The last thing my dad said to me was that he was proud of me and knowing that I made him proud helps me through the difficult times in my recovery.”

What Made The GateHouse Different

After a three-month stay at The GateHouse for Men, Tim was able to transition into the GateHouse Transitional Living program, formerly known as REI. When asked what made The GateHouse different from other treatment facilities, he mentioned the incredible level of care and the amount of time he was able to spend in recovery.

Many people come into recovery unemployed and even homeless. Pursuing recovery in a long-term care facility allows a grace period for adding in new responsibilities of everyday living like finding a job and a secure place to live.

“The GateHouse provides resources that people can use to address the stress that comes up when you take on new responsibilities,” Tim said. “I think that has a lot to do with why this level of care is so successful and why I was so successful. Because it gave me the opportunity to balance recovery support with the regular responsibilities of everyday living.”

After treatment, on the advice of many of his counselors, Tim stayed in the Lancaster area to ensure he wouldn’t get involved with anyone back home that could hinder his recovery.

Besides working at The GateHouse, Tim is pursuing a degree in social work to better serve those in recovery.

“The work I do is the change that helped me rebuild my life,” he said. “Without the support of The GateHouse I wouldn’t have the marriage I have, the career that I have, and most importantly, I wouldn’t have the purpose that I have. I couldn’t imagine having this life when I was younger and in the depths of my addiction. Recovery gave me a purpose, and I want to help other people as much as I possibly can.”

As we participate in The Extraordinary Give–Lancaster County’s Largest Day of Giving–we hope you’ll consider supporting The GateHouse and residents like Tim. Please click here to read a little bit more about the ExtraGive and find out how you can help individuals like Tim overcome their addictions.

overcoming-the-stigma-of-drug-addiction-1140x570-1080x570

Overcoming the Stigma of Drug Addiction from Family and Friends with Education

You’re working hard to overcome your addiction, and you need the support of family and friends. There’s a stigma surrounding substance abuse, and people in your life may not understand addiction. Knowing the causes of alienation, how to educate family and friends, and how to break away from the stigma will help you throughout your recovery.

Why the Stigma Surrounding Substance Abuse?

People are more likely to view substance abuse negatively than mental health conditions. The public has been educated about mental health, and awareness campaigns have raised understanding and empathy. Substance abuse, however, is often misunderstood.

Although drug addiction is a medical condition, people view those battling addiction as weak, irresponsible, or having a defect in character. Drug addiction is often associated with illegal drugs, and people equate addicts with criminals, even though addiction may start with prescription painkillers. This criminal image is changing as America finds itself in the grips of an opioid epidemic.

Shame and guilt are associated with drug addiction not only by those who suffer from it, but from friends and family as well. This can lead to people sweeping the subject under the carpet. Just as mental illness was once a taboo topic, substance addiction is still far less talked about and often remains a secret.

Alienation from Family and Friends

Often family members and friends just don’t understand substance addiction. They may be embarrassed, blame themselves, or feel helpless. It’s often easier for them to turn away rather than embrace a loved one going through treatment for addiction. They may be feeling hurt by how they were treated or taken advantage of by someone who suffers from substance use disorder.

Educate Family and Friends on Substance Use Disorder

Education leads to understanding. With the help of a counselor or other members of your treatment team, talk to your loved ones about the realities of addiction. Some talking points may include:

The physical symptoms of drug addiction, including nausea, vomiting, fever, sweats and chills, tremors, weight gain or loss, and sleep disturbances.
How substance addiction often co-exists with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
How addiction changes the brain short- and long-term, leading to poor choices or inexplicable behaviors.
How addiction treatment plans can help.

Coping With and Breaking Away from the Stigma

You are not your addiction! It doesn’t define you. While substance abuse may be a lifelong challenge, once you have the support, resources and tools to recover, you can lead a productive and fulfilling life. Immerse yourself in inspirational stories of those who’ve overcome substance addiction and tune out the negative chatter that comes from the news, social media, and naysayers.

If you have dedicated friends and family willing to stay with you through thick and thin, you can leave behind the others who can’t understand or won’t stop judging. It’s hurtful to be rebuffed or shamed by loved ones, and you don’t need to put up with it. If you’ve tried to make amends in cases where you’ve hurt loved ones and made attempts to educate them on addiction, that’s all you can do. Choose to keep supportive people in your life and let go of the negative ones.

As substance addiction makes its way out of the shadows and into the light, more people will become educated, leading to its de-stigmatization. Hope is here for those who are overcoming addiction!

At The GateHouse, we’d love to help support you in your journey to overcome addiction and deal with its stigma. Reach out to us today!

Set-Boundaries-in-Recovery-1-1000x570

How to Set Boundaries in Recovery

The failure to set boundaries in recovery is one of the biggest threats to those with a history of substance use disorder.

Loose boundaries can allow others to negatively influence your behavior or take advantage of your situation. Setting boundaries early on in your recovery will help you stay on track and let your loved ones know where the limits are throughout the process.

Being around friends and family can hold a different dynamic than the one you might have with co-workers or new acquaintances. Your friends and family members have likely been through a lot with you, and it’s vital to let them know where you’re at with your recovery. The new boundaries you’re setting will factor into your relationships, and figuring out how to manage these boundaries will be one of the first steps you’ll take in the recovery process.

Why You Should Set Boundaries

Throughout active addiction, it’s easy to let the boundaries you have set with the people around you fail. Poor boundaries can lead to manipulative, dangerous relationships, an uneven power dynamic, and a host of other unpleasant relational consequences. Some unhealthy boundaries include not taking responsibility for your actions, forcing and discouraging other’s opinions and beliefs, and sacrificing your values to appease others.

On the other hand, setting clear boundaries allows you to create healthy relationships, regain mutual trust and respect, share your thoughts openly, and give you a platform to state your values and goals for the future of your recovery. Creating boundaries for the people that are in your life will facilitate healthier relationships and allow you to flourish in your recovery and beyond.

What Boundaries Should You Set?

Figuring out what boundaries to set will look different for each relationship you have. For instance, the boundaries you have with you parents will look different than those you have with your friends or your significant other. The boundaries you set can be physical, mental, or emotional. Here are a few examples to get you started:

Let those around you know you don’t want them talking about or using substances in your vicinity.
Establish relationships where it’s okay to share your thoughts and feelings without negative repercussions.
Don’t allow other people to abuse or manipulate you.
Don’t allow others to solely depend on you for their own emotional stability.

Inform Your Loved Ones

After determining what boundaries you’ll have with the people in your life, it’s time to inform them. It’s common for people to set boundaries and then fail to let others know. This can make your loved ones feel as though they should be able to read your mind, and it can be very frustrating for them and you.

Have a discussion with each person and go over what boundaries you’ve decided to set for your relationship going forward. Telling them up front lets them know you’re serious and that you expect them to respect the boundaries you’ve put in place.

Stay Firm

Being in recovery is difficult on its own, and managing new boundaries within your relationships can only make it more challenging. Find someone who completely understands that you need these boundaries around your relationships, and lean on their support if other people you surround yourself with aren’t being respectful of your decisions.

Create boundaries that will benefit your relationships and don’t be afraid to stick up for them if anyone dismisses them. They’re necessary for your recovery, and anyone you allow to be in your life should respect your wishes.

If you’re looking for support throughout your recovery, reach out to us today. At The GateHouse, we provide residential treatment and intensive outpatient programs where we can help you determine what boundaries you want to set with the people in your life.

Smoke on a black background. Defocused. Toned

What is K2 and How is It Impacting Lancaster County?

While K2 has been on the market for several years, it recently attracted major media attention when over 100 people overdosed on the synthetic marijuana product in New Haven, CT, earlier this month. Sadly, this wasn’t the first instance of mass overdoses on K2, but it did serve to intensify the discussion surrounding the deadly drug.

What Is K2?

Synthetic marijuana, “spice,” and “K2” are all street names for synthetic cannabinoids. But what exactly is a synthetic cannabinoid? It’s a manmade chemical that is typically sprayed onto dry leaves that attaches to cannabinoid receptors in the brain—similar to THC and CBD. Although K2 is also called synthetic marijuana, it has no relation to real marijuana aside from producing similar effects.

Barring symptoms that mimic marijuana use, K2 can produce other reactions, such as seizures, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, confusion, violent behavior, increased heart rate, decreased blood flow to the brain, and a multitude of other undesirable and dangerous symptoms. People who use K2 regularly have shown signs of addiction and dependence upon it.

Is K2 legal?

Initially, K2 was unregulated, and it was marketed as a healthy alternative to marijuana. Because of this, many states allowed the sale of K2 at gas stations, tobacco shops, corner stores, and even online. Since K2 is created with manmade chemicals, there are covert factories—mostly overseas—that produce it and make it difficult to figure out the initial source of supply.

With numerous overdoses since its inception in the mid 2000s, legislation has become stricter, and over 40 states have banned the sale of synthetic marijuana. To circumvent these new laws, drug-producing chemists have attempted to create different strains of K2 using a variety of substances to circumvent the legal restrictions.

While many of the substances used to create K2 are illegal, K2 is also frequently laced with other illegal drugs. According to NPR, the overdoses in Connecticut were likely due to the deadly drug fentanyl, which is becoming a more common mixer for synthetic marijuana. Although no one who overdosed died, at least two people suffered life-threatening symptoms.

K2 in Lancaster County

Many people in Lancaster County overlook the severity of the drug use problem in the County. In fact, drug use –and specifically K2 use—has seen a tremendous uptick in recent years. Just last summer, in July of 2017, 102 people in Lancaster County were treated for K2 overdoses in under four days. And that’s not all. In April of 2018, Lancaster EMS reported being called in for over half a dozen K2 overdoses each day. Although this is a nationwide issue, it’s essential to recognize these issues residing in our own backyard.

If you or someone you know uses K2 or has become addicted to it, reach out to us today. We offer residential and intensive outpatient treatment at The GateHouse, and we would love to help you or your loved one overcome addiction.