The willingness came to me through building a connection with a higher power. It started with just wrapping my head around the idea and coming to the conclusion that everything I do ruins my life and the lives of people around me, so I hoped to god there was something greater then me out there. I started listening to people and became willing to do anything they said. For me that was a big step. Anything means anything. I was told to move to Maine. I did. I was told to go to sober living. I did. I was told to do step work to the best of my ability and I did. It wasn’t always easy, but in time I saw results.

Building a connection with my higher power, my family and friends. Living an honest and healthy lifestyle. The willingness came easier and easier when the results started pouring in. I had to give up the thought of what I knew was best and grow from it. What I thought I knew didn’t work, clearly.

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So what’s the bright side to all this for a person in recovery looking to work in treatment? Well, I have seen that there are loopholes in the conundrum of recovery vs. work:

1. Doing the right thing when no one is looking: Goes against our entitled nature to “Freely” give our time and our knowledge to our employer and the people we serve with no recognition.
2. Social media connections with our peers are a good thing: We have the opportunity to connect with our counterparts on a different level and we show each other how to have healthy boundaries with our clients. Not friending our clients for a long period of time will protect them but also “delay our gratification” for connection to those
3. We like working in treatment for a hidden reason: Our peers are in recovery and we have a bonding experience by showing up every day. By seeing our recovery and even non-recovery peers go through life and experience the good and the bad, we are connecting to their life and can be a part of it if we choose.
4. Do not become a “workaholic”: By devoting endless hours to the cause and leaving no time for your life. Substituting work for your life is dangerous although your motives are good.

I am not the guru of this subject but these are just some observations I have had over my time in the two worlds. Please, let us know what you think. What do you do to stay sober? How do you balance home life, work life and recovery? By sharing how “we” do it “we” have the best possible chance to grow.

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Such is addiction. If we start off drinking or using because of lack of love or trauma, we continue to use because of a physical addition to the substance. While addicted, our disease has us take the easy way out to fuel our use. This would include not showing up for events, not making our bed, running from responsibility and not showing ourselves love. Engaging in this behavior long enough will change our purpose in life. We change from wanting love and connections in our life to severing our connections with habits and people that will ultimately give us strength. If the negative lifestyle continues jails, institutions, heartache and early death will eventually occur.

So how do you fix the problem?
The first step is arresting the addiction. No positive change can take place so long as the psychical allergy and the mental obsession take hold. This means entering treatment or getting some serious help to help keep you away from drugs and alcohol for the time being. The second step is to start changing your belief system. This involves taking a look at your past, not being a victim of it and altering your daily habits. Doing this will allow you to discard the garbage and open the door to new and exciting things to come. The last step of this process is to find purpose. This could be anything; having a commitment at a meeting, starting school, mentoring individuals, getting a promotion, meeting someone special or planning for the future. These are just a couple things but they are a great start in your journey to connection to your higher self. We crave purpose. Just like atoms, we float around until we bond with something. Getting clean, we break the old bonds of negative purpose that bring disappear and pain and form new bonds that give us hope and peace. Find purpose in your life that brings you to a higher good but take care of your roots that got you in that position. Purpose is strength. Be sure that you are connecting to a purpose that will give you everlasting strength and will propel you to your higher self.

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You hear stories like this every day, but this one particularly resonated with us. The man was known to Greater Portland’s recovery community because his sister is a leader of the Scarborough Police Department’s Operation Hope. HOPE stands for Heroin-Opiate Prevention Effort and the project helps Maine residents find treatment for heroin and opiate addiction.

The victim’s sister, in a post on her Facebook page, wrote this:

“My brother, who has been doing amazingly well in his recovery, died alone in his apartment in Portland overnight,” Higgins wrote. “He recently celebrated his one-year sobriety. Believe me when I tell you it only takes ONE TIME relapsing to lose your life. I am devastated. He could have asked for help and I would have done anything for him. Substance use disorder is a lifelong disease, don’t ever take that for granted.”

Such heartfelt words from a grieving sister and a recovery professional. It only takes once.

For the published newspaper story go here.

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In the past, when I would think of what it means to surrender, I envisioned a white flag waving and an overall feeling of failure.  I pictured battles lost throughout history, weakness, and complete defeat. In the infancy of my journey to get clean from drugs I heard that word a lot: surrender. I wasn’t in a space to connect the dots on my own to give it a positive connotation.  It took time, hard work, guidance from others who knew what I was going through, and most importantly, faith the size of a mustard seed.

Setbacks and pitfalls are part of life, but for the addict it can start to define existence.  Becoming overwhelmed by daily life while in the depths of addiction is typical, and can force one into a tailspin of confusion, depression, and hopelessness.  Consequences pile up one on top of the other, making the addict feel trapped.  One can feel like they have to be superhuman to concur the affliction they face, but they can’t muster the courage, and they surely don’t know how to navigate a path to recovery. Culturally and socially we are trained to never give up and never surrender, in hopes that the fight is what gets us the win, and winning equals success.  If you want to succeed to overcome your addiction, you should fight harder, right? On the contrary, it is in fact an admission of surrender that is the first step into the process of healing.  It goes against everything in us to admit defeat and say “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

My journey in recovery started when I made the decision to surrender to a life of recovery.  What was lacking every other time I attempted recovery? A lack of faith for sure.  I had doubts that letting go and giving up my will would set me free from the grips of my disease.  Why was faith such a complicated word for me to accept?  I gathered it had something to do with my associating it with religion.  I had to set aside all preconceived notions of faith (and religion for that matter) and attempt to view things from a fresh perspective.

I was broken and hopeless, with very little faith in myself and my ability to stay sober.  I met a woman in the halls of AA who I chose to help guide me.  She is a wonderfully caring and transparent woman, who never asked me to do anything she hadn’t done herself.  Her openness and honesty helped me relate to her story, and the healing process started without me being fully aware it was happening.   I like to say I borrowed my faith from her in the beginning.  How did her faith become mine?  I believed she was sober.  I believed she had transformed.  I believed she had been hopeless, just as I had been, and somehow she was now filled with hope.  She believed in me, if for no other reason than she believed the process works, and because I believed in her, faith sprouted.  I put my faith in a person in the beginning and that was a starting point for it to grow.

Through time, and my own personal journey, I find that the meaning of the word surrender has evolved into something positive and admirable.  I had held onto old beliefs and ideas for so long not knowing they were keeping me spiritually sick. Something about letting go scared me because I didn’t know what to expect.  When trapped in a dark place, the thought of emerging into the unknown can be just as terrifying as staying stationary.  Fear of the unknown and the anxiety of change, what that’s going to look like, and doubting if you have it in you to take the first steps can be debilitating.  I’m thankful for the structure of AA and the support system of women who walked me through uncertainty.  When I was afraid, they reassured me I would be alright, no matter what.  When I doubted the process, they reminded me to be patient, and showed me ways to work on growing patience through mediation practice.  I not only learned how to stay clean and sober; I learned how to live.  Every step of the way faith grew- with every fear I walked through, every doubt that was squashed, it allowed a new understanding to be born.  That mustard seed of faith had grown into something much bigger. As long as I continue to surrender to a life of recovery and a new way of living on a daily basis, the faith abounds and rewards me with a life of purpose.  These days when I think of surrender, I picture a girl standing on a mountain, arms stretched out in the air, shouting “victory” with a big smile of contentment on her face.

Chloe Arreola ,  Liberty Bay Staff

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Liberty Bay Recovery Center reached another milestone in its growth last week.

On Thursday, October 29th, Liberty Bay received a client who would fill our final open bed. Today, November 4th, we officially reach our 6-month anniversary from our open date.

Although we’re currently full, don’t mark us off your list of addiction resources – we regularly have new graduates to create new open spaces, and in the next few weeks, we plan to open an additional men’s house to make room for more clients, as well as introduce a new therapist to our growing team.

In the meantime, we’re accepting potential residents on a wait list. At Liberty Bay Recovery Center, our goal is to help the most people possible with the highest quality possible; this goal can only be reached by continuing to grow and change as the needs of our community become more apparent to us. To be added to our wait list, fill out our online application form here.

While Liberty Bay considers this a success – a product of our hard work and an indicator of our reputability, it also goes to show Maine people’s increasing need for addiction rehabilitation services. It seems that one of the largest barriers to addiction recovery continues to be the lack of resources out there for Maine people who are in search of treatment. Liberty Bay is proud to contribute to the services available to people who are ready to recover – we know that although we cannot help every single person who needs it, we are surely making a difference in the lives of the people we can manage to touch.

Besides providing the services that we do at Liberty Bay, we’re also working on building connections with other rehabilitation facilities in Maine. The more resources we know about, the more help we’ll be able to provide to those seeking it. Liberty Bay Recovery Center is not just a facility dedicated to helping people through our program – we also strive to be a valuable resource for people who look to us for information and support.

We’re proud to share our bittersweet milestone and look forward to growing with the addiction recovery community.

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Between 2011 and 2014 in Maine, heroin-related deaths increased by 714%, overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased by 378%, and in 2015, heroin and opiate addiction are currently found to motivate between 80-85% of all the property crimes we experience. These staggering statistics have continued to climb, while awareness of resources has continued at a steady low, and at the same time, resources themselves have been on the decline due to cuts in funding. Maine’s addiction problem has seemed to blow up overwhelmingly fast while being handled solely through criminalizing substance abuse, which has been the primary approach of the war on drugs. The Scarborough Police Department recognizes this – and in the beginning of October, they made a truly necessary and radical change to confront this persistent problem.

On October 1st, 2015, the Scarborough, Maine Police Department implemented an initiative called Operation Hope – similar to the Gloucester, MA Police Department’s “angel program,” effective June 2015 – to help those suffering from addiction to find resources for treatment, an alternative to continuing on a path that would otherwise lead them into the criminal justice system… or worse.

The initiative is aimed at targeting addiction rather than addicted people. It involves several types of work, with the ultimate goal being to lower the number of crimes, medical emergencies, and deaths relating to drug abuse. Tackling this problem from multiple angles at once will certainly be more effective than simply incarcerating drug users – and progress has already been made, with 26 people seeking help being placed in treatment facilities in a short frame of 27 days, and with 18 of them coming in uninsured.

First and foremost, the program offers the opportunity for drug users to bring drugs and paraphernalia to the Scarborough police station directly, without fear of legal repercussions. In turn, as long as they’re found eligible, the person is assigned an Operation Hope “Angel” – a volunteer who has likely had personal experience with addiction – who will help them to navigate the world of recovery, including helping the person find placement in a treatment facility. After completing treatment, an individual is offered follow-up and general support services through Portland Recovery Community Center. If the individual is found ineligible, they will still be offered other support services.

Among the many components of Operation Hope, one involves law enforcement training – provided by Portland Recovery Community Center – to help police officers understand and learn about effective ways to approach addiction-related issues, and to see them from the perspective of people struggling with addiction. The goal is to re-humanize individuals suffering from addiction through empathy and understanding. Police officers will be faster to help a person struggling with addiction than an “addict” (notice this disregards their humanity), and this training will help some to move past a narrow-minded view of addiction and people suffering from it, towards something more warm, helpful and truly life-changing.

Along with education provided to law enforcement officials, the Scarborough Police Department also provides education to the general public through outreach efforts. They maintain a current Facebook page with information about their Operation Hope services and relevant news regarding the program, including successful placements into rehabilitation facilities. This creates a great connection between the general public and the new Operation Hope resource through the most popular and widely used social media outlet. Additionally, if a police officer responds to a call where there is known or suspected drug abuse, the officer will provide the individual(s) involved with an Operation Hope flyer, while offering to provide assistance in finding help. This will hopefully bring resources directly to people who, for a multitude of possible reasons – for instance, for fear of legal repercussions – aren’t willing or able to reach out for help alone, as well as to those who are in danger of getting into legal trouble. This will hopefully change the appearance of police from people who want to arrest drug users, to people who genuinely want to assist them in finding help and recovering.

This huge attitude shift toward drug abuse and addiction will undoubtedly help tons of people to reach out from the illegal darkness of their disease, allowing them to find resources available to help them get clean and start a new, fresh life without drugs.

Liberty Bay Recovery Center is proud to be partnered with Operation Hope, and to have placed 7 out of 26 people seeking help into our addiction recovery program.

We are honored to contribute to such an amazing initiative and are blessed to be able to provide an opportunity for recovery, through our quality 90-day program, to individuals seeking treatment for their addiction – and to help them create a new, sober life for themselves that, upon entering, they often can’t even imagine.

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