A Forever Recovery

When I went to A Forever Recovery 9 months ago, it wasn’t because I wanted to get myself clean. My parents gave me the choice of either going to rehab or getting cut off. So, I agreed to go to rehab. It’s happened a few times before, where I would go to rehab just because I didn’t want them to cut me off. Each time, I’d fake my way through the program and wait until I could go home and start using again. I went to AFR, thinking I’d just fake my way through rehab again. A few weeks into my program my attitude about the whole thing changed. My counselor saw that I wasn’t taking my program seriously and understood that I was just biding my time until I could go home and start using. She sat me down and made me really look at my life, what it was like before I started using and the changed in my life that using brought about. She made me realize that my life wasn’t anything that could be considered good. See, I had convinced myself that my using didn’t change that much, that I was still doing alright and that I could continue getting high for as long as I wanted. I honestly never thought I’d want to get sober. Changing the way, I saw myself and my addiction completely changed my attitude towards getting sober. I decided to start taking my program seriously. Going through my program was hard for me. Really hard. For the last 5 years, every emotion and every problem I didn’t want to deal with was solved by getting high and forgetting about it. Having to actually deal with my problems and emotions turned me into a wreck for a while. My counselor was great with me though. I know that I wasn’t an easy person to deal with. Even knowing that I had to do my program right, I would still try and get away with not trying all that hard. When I first started taking my program seriously, even knowing that I needed to work hard didn’t mean that I actually worked hard at it. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, it was like my default after being that way for so long. She got me to see what I was doing and made sure I put every effort I could into getting my program right. When I being bad-tempered and hateful, she’d get me see why I was being that way, what I was trying to avoid and then made sure I actually dealt with it. She kept me focused through my program and was there, getting me back on track when I just wanted to quit. It took me 3 months to do my program and since completely it I feel amazing. Since being home, my relationship with my parents has only gotten better. At first, they weren’t convinced that I was really done getting high. I’ve lied to them so much it wasn’t a big surprise when they didn’t believe that I wanted to stay sober. It’s taken a while but they are finally starting to understand that I really am planning on staying sober and they are starting to trust me more and more. Knowing that by working hard and staying sober I’ve actually earned that trust is a pretty amazing feeling for me. Going to AFR changed how I looked at my life. It heled me get sober, but more importantly, going to AFR got me to realize that I actually wanted to be and stay sober.

Going to A Forever Recovery has completely turned my life around. I’ve been there twice because it’s the only rehab where I felt like I was being helped and after I relapsed I knew it was the only place that could help me get a hold of my addiction before it spiraled completely out of control. I started using heroin when I was 20 years old and in the last 8 years I’ve been to 5 different rehabs not including AFR. Going to AFR was a completely different experience for me. First, the staff there are phenomenal. I’ve never been to a rehab where I felt so completely cared for as I did at AFR. When I first got to AFR the staff were kind and compassionate and made me feel comfortable there. I was surprised at how easy my detox was there. It wasn’t comfortable or fun by any means, it was easily bearable though and that’s pretty amazing in itself. The main reason my parents and I chose AFR when we were looking at rehabs was because I’d have a choice of what program to do. All the other rehabs I’d been to were 12-step programs and I knew that another 12-step program wasn’t going to help. I had no idea what would though and before choosing AFR I had two options. Either relying on my parents to pick the best thing for me or trying to pick what kind of program to do while I was still getting high. Neither was a good option and so being able to choose after I had gone through detox really appealed to me. The program I ended up doing was the SMART Recovery program and it was perfect for me. I learned so much about myself, my addiction and what I needed to be doing in order to have a happy, productive life. After graduating from AFR the first time I went home and was clean for 6 months. Towards the end of that 6 months though I got lazy. I stopped doing the things I knew I needed to do to keep myself on track, thinking that I’d be okay. I wasn’t and relapsed. Even my relapse was different after going to AFR. I realized where I had messed up, realized that I wouldn’t be able to fix it on my own and asked my parents right away to send me back to AFR so I could get the help I needed. The staff at AFR made me feel just as welcome as the first time. Helped me figure out where I had gone wrong and the things I needed to pay better attention to. I graduated again from AFR 8 months ago and I’m doing amazing. Definitely not getting lazy this time around. Going to AFR changed everything for me. It’s the best rehab I could have gone to and if you’re looking for a rehab either for yourself or someone else you couldn’t find a better place than A Forever Recovery.