“Life is wonderful now”
I am a five-time client of Bridge House. I first came to Bridge House in 2014. I left without completing the program and came back four other time. The beautiful thing is they kept taking me back. I was in Bridge House a total of 19 months out of 24; and I needed every bit of it.
I am an alcoholic and drug addict. Alcohol, crack-cocaine, meth or anything else I could get my hands on for a couple decades came close to killing me. I was chronically homeless and once lived under a bridge in California for two years. Stays in hospitals, psych wards and jail became normal. Jail was actually a reprieve from the streets, from myself. I literally had nowhere else to go.
The amount of time I spent in Bridge House began to reshape the way I viewed the world. It used to be me against the world. Things slowly got better; I began to have a little hope. Hope that I could recover. The alumni came back to Bridge House to help us, and it helped me see that recovery was possible. I was also assigned to work in the car lot and having a job gave me a purpose. Bridge House / Grace House eventually offered me a job as assistant manager of the Used Car Lot and it blew my mind. The opportunity was a godsend.
Life is wonderful now, yet challenging at the same time. There are good days and there are tough days, but if I don’t use during the difficult times, things will get better. I don’t need to complicate things for myself. I learned that there are a lot of people who love me and I didn’t believe that before Bridge House and recovery.
I’ve been sober for three and a half years and I’ve been able to build a life for myself. Today, I am in a loving and supportive relationship with a wonderful woman. I am now the Director of the Bridge House / Grace House Used Car Lot and I am able to give back each day to help someone just life me. As I like to say, “We aren’t in the business of selling cars, we’re in the business of saving lives and selling cars just enables us to do that”.
I came to Bridge House with only the clothes on my back, literally. If it weren’t for Bridge House / Grace House, I wouldn’t be where I am today.