Alumni of the Month Steven S

Hello friends, my name is Steven S and I’m proud to be an alumni door boy.

This is part of my story, I grew up in a good family with love and care and had a great child hood. I had everything a kid could dream of and had all the support to be successful but I picked up drinking and drugging. I was a soul who was completely lost, broken and destroyed by the disease of addiction. I started using socially in high school with what I thought were the cool kids, quickly it went from socially partying to being wired to drugs. The drugs took my soul and I had some really dark painful days, dragging my loved ones through the pain and darkness with me. My family did not sleep properly for years, waiting for that phone call that there son was either in jail or dead.

Then I got the chance to come to the Last Door on December 23 2014 at 22 years old to start my recovery journey. I got some relief from active addiction and so did my loved ones. My family really helped me get to the Last Door by calling every day, and I got a glimpse of recovery and connection with other recovering addicts. Unfortunately I did not stay clean this time and relapse became part of my story.

I came back to the Last Door on July 28 2015 for the second time. I showed up high on drugs, I couldn’t stop on my own, completely broken, nowhere left to go. The Last Door gave me a second chance.. Today I am a grateful recovering addict and I will never forget the people that helped me come back. They took me in when I was low and helped pick me up when I needed it most. I had the greatest time of my life at the Last Door, I mean there were some really tough days of course but I had all the support in the world to persevere though them, and change my old bad habits into new good ones.

I finished a set of steps at the Last Door and this showed me to a new way of life. Through making connections and taking responsibility I was able to make amends and show my loved ones and people I harmed that I am not living a life of addiction anymore. I learned how to live and cope with life and most importantly I made some of the best friends I could have ever asked for and have a great support group because of these actions.

I am extremely grateful that I took the program at Last Door seriously, just recently I got into a motor cycle accident that was life altering. I was hospitalized for over a month and was put onto pain medications that I used to abuse, because of my connections to the alumni of Last Door who are my friends, I was able to recover quickly, ask for help with my pain management, and have friends supervise my medications.. I was able to get off of the medications that risked me relapsing.

My friends and family visited me every day in the hospital supporting me through this process and helped me to make a decision to temporarily check back into the Last Door for a month so they could support me with a medical tapering off my pain medications, helping me not abuse them.

Because of all the support of the Last Door and the Alumni Program I was just recently given the gift to take a two year cake with all of my friends and family sitting in the front rows.

This was the greatest feeling.

My advice to anyone in recovery going through a tough time in recovery is to reach out, and we can get through anything clean together with a program of recovery!

I am so glad to be clean.. Even after a horrific bike accident, I have a life I could never have imagined.

Door Boy
Steven S