By Pat C.
I remember the day I walked into The Family Foundation School; I was anxious, excited and fearful about how the next eighteen months of my life were going to be. I knew that I didn’t want to go back to the way I was living at home: drinking, drugging, constantly lying, and stealing, but I had no idea what I would have to do to keep from slipping back into my old behaviors.
With that said, I came willingly from a wilderness program in North Carolina to The Family School on July 11, 2008. I was received into Family Four (Mann House) with open arms by Joe and Jackie Petriella. I didn’t come into the school as a defiant kid, mostly because I didn’t see the point in wasting time not going to class.
I remember feeling that because I wasn’t going to be able to use drugs anymore that my life was going to be boring. I thought that I was going to be “chained down” because I wouldn’t be able to go back to old people, places, and things if drugs weren’t going to be part of my life anymore. I sat in this mindset for the first few months and then one day Terry McCarthy told my living skills class that people get sober and work the 12-step program to break away from the chains or enslavement of addiction.
This really made sense to me, and because I knew that I was a drug addict and alcoholic, I made the decision to not sit in self-pity about not being able to use anymore, and I began to work the program. I did a thorough 4th and 5th step with my sponsor and really began to feel free from the insecurities within myself. I learned that getting sober isn’t just about putting down the drugs or alcohol, because they are merely symptoms of the disease I have today.
After getting completely honest for the first time in my life, I began to grasp the concept of living an honest life, which was something that was extremely foreign to me before I arrived at the school. I had really begun to develop a relationship with a loving God as I understood him, and I learned to put my trust in him each day, regardless of the situation.
When I was here six months I joined the journalism class. I only signed up because my mom wanted me to and because I was decent at writing. Little did I know what was in store for me! The first question Chris Stein, the publisher of The Family Times, asked me was, do you want to learn how to work?
I responded with a hesitant yes, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I quickly got involved in writing articles, including the guest editorial each month, and began covering the natural gas drilling issue.
The first semester went by quickly, and I became co-editor of the paper for this semester. Co-editor was another responsibility that I really knew nothing about. I thought I was just writing an editorial every month and that was it. How wrong I was! I have to not only make sure my assignments are completed, but everyone else’s as well. The past six months in the journalism class have been tough, but they have taught me how to apply the tools I have learned from the 12-step program to my daily life.
Chris Stein has been hard on me over the past few months and it is sometimes humbling for me to say how much he has helped me out because I am the arrogant type. But the bottom line is that he has helped me a lot and has definitely taught me how to work.
This is my last editorial for The Family Times and I would like to thank everyone who reads the paper, but most of all Chris Stein for everything that he has done for me.
Graduation is soon and it is time for me to open another chapter of my life. I know that the outside world will be tough but I believe that if I continue to surrender my will to God every day and attempt to apply the tools of the program to my daily life, I will be able to maintain the freedom and happiness I have gained at the school.
