Former Guest Becomes Outreach Coordinator for FL Rehab

“He’s already been to rehab several times…” “She has been to five different centers for the same problem…” Sadly, it’s common for calls to our facility to start out like this. Loved ones go away for treatment and come back full of hope, energy and willpower and then…the slide begins. So many people simply assume that relapse is a natural, unavoidable part of recovery it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But is relapse inevitable? Is there hope for someone who has been to multiple rehabs in the past, only to relapse once more? What makes Gulf Breeze Recovery different than any other rehab? 

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When former guest Alex first called our facility, his family had all but given up. Attending eleven different rehabs prior to calling us made this call seem especially bleak. Why would they think that number twelve would be any different than the previous eleven? He had all but given up on himself, but through the haze of his addiction he had a small seed of an idea that would ultimately prove to be true: while he had been to eleven different rehabs, since each had been taught along the same principles and same basic program, he’d really only experienced one program. Each one focused on substituting his addiction for counseling, fitness, hard work, or religion rather than offering a real solution. When he realized that Gulf Breeze Recovery was fundamentally different than any other treatment facility, he knew that his past recovery attempts were no longer a factor in his ability to succeed. 

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The program created by Gulf Breeze Recovery is based on the simple idea that in order for a person to make a lasting change in their life, that person must have their own personal insight into their addiction that makes continuing with that past behavior unthinkable. They know that steps and songs and mantras can be beautiful, but if they don’t culminate in personal insight they are simply pretty words. They know that chips to count the number of days clean can be useful as long as the chips aren’t marking a time of mystery where the person holding them has no idea how they achieved it. They know that their counselors greatest gift is the ability to help their clients see for themselves their own true nature that is healthy and whole, and not their ability to cheer and coach from the sidelines every time their clients do well. And most importantly, they know that their job as a rehab is to help their clients learn to not just “hold their addiction in” by managing it, but to move beyond it by understanding how it was created. 

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Today as our Outreach Coordinator, Alex explains to other families what he was told when he made that first call, that no matter how many other rehabs someone has been to, if they focused on substitution rather than solution, the ingredients necessary for insightful change were missing. Although he would have earned an impressive stack of chips by now, Alex knows that his success isn’t measured externally even if it is obvious to those around him. The real beauty in his recovery is having no fear that he will ever relapse again, knowing that he isn’t “in recovery” or even a “recovering drug addict” but simply a healthy human being, living and thriving. Alex and the rest of the staff at Gulf Breeze Recovery know that as long as a person is alive and willing, there is a way for them to live a different life and that no person is defined by the successes or failures in their past. At Gulf Breeze Recovery, the future is limitless and bright for all our clients. Check out the stories of clients who are now living their best life ever after graduating from Gulf Breeze Recovery, and call Reed or Alex today to find out if your loved one can come today.