John's Sober Living Success Story

Yeah. was that recovery for two years, which at the time was a lot.

I could never imagine myself being at a sober living for two years. But, you know, being able to help people and work, it was comfortable there. I wasn’t sure what to do when I moved or when the right time to move out was, you know, I always thought I’d move out and rent a place with one of my guys from Real Recovery. Figured it’d be a smart way to transition and be independent but still keep that camaraderie plus it’s cheaper, right? And that was kind of the goal.

But one of the big things that happened when I had a year sober is that I met, my now, wife. We dated for a year, and then she wanted me to move in.

I wasn’t sure about that. I knew I wanted to move out with somebody from the house, but she is also in recovery. So we talked about it for a long time.

I remember at one point, I was gonna move out—then I told Pat, I wasn’t ready. I ended up staying another three months and made it happen.

Looking back, how I handled that was the biggest difference between any time before at other halfway houses… I talked about it, you know, my MO with every other halfway houses is that I wouldn’t tell anybody, I would just start getting this plan together to move out. And I would make an impulsive decision.

Whereas this was a six-month process where I was like— “Hey, this is my goal.” This is how much money I want to save up before I move out. These are the things I want to have accomplished already. And I did every single one of those things.

Plus I talked to staff and I talked to Pat and I said—’Hey, what do you think about this? I talked to my sponsor… these were all things that were foreign to me, like, normally, I would just do what I wanted to do. That was the biggest thing.

Sobriety and being in a structured environment taught me that because I, I do well in structure. I’ve always done well in structure. And when I get out of that ‘safe’ environment and structure, that’s where there’s a healthy amount of fear at play. So you those healthy anxious thoughts of —

When potential residents are at checking out the Brandon location and you can see they’re just like—”yeah, this looks good. I don’t know if I’m ready.” Is there anything that you would tell them?

Yeah. Definitely. I’ll ask them — “hey, well, what’s your life like now?”

They usually share stuff in their story, like, how bad how bad it is [actively using]. Then I share a bit of my story and tell them—”what’s the worst is going to happen? You give this a shot, you actually stay sober, and life gets really good.”

And the great thing about this is like—”hey, if not, you know we’re more than happy to refund your misery,” right?

That’s what happens when we, addicts and alcoholics pick up… we’re more than happy to try again, and see if your way works out any better.

But I guarantee you this, the thing that Real Recovery does better than anybody else is, and what makes us different is that we actually hold people accountability. Knowing that you do have drug tests does keep people sober, right? Not always, but you definitely take that chance, and it makes you think—‘if I relapse, I’m going to be homeless.’

But more importantly, is the community here, right? And when I have guys around where I can just walk out my room, and I got two or three other guys there and I can just say— ‘Hey, man, I’m having a shitty day.” And I can be able to say that to somebody. They’re like—”hey, I get it, man. I get it.”

We have 55 guys here that are all going through similar situations. But we’re all in different phases of our sobriety. So, you know, we come outside, there’s always somebody playing basketball, there’s always somebody doing something, we have meetings on property.

You just have that community, it’s a lot different than if you’re just living at your mom and dad’s house. You don’t want to talk to your mom and say: “Hey, Mom, I feel like using.” She’s not going to respond well… she’s going to be like— “WHAT? Why do you feel that way?”

Whereas, here—we f#cking get it. “Yeah, bro, you feel like using. I get it.” I get it is this is what we’re used to doing. And so now we have to learn a different way to do shit. And that’s what’s recovery is about, doing things differently so we can get different, better results, and have a better life.