Miranda A., Grace House Alum
By my high school years, I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities like dancing, modeling, and cheer leading. I also started drinking and using at this phase of my life. This was the beginning of my chaos. By the 10th grade, the effects of my drinking and using really started catching up to me.
Karen H., Grace House Resident
I had lots of friends and a decent family life—I just never felt like I belonged. I started drinking at the age of 16. Drugs followed soon after. This started the life I was to know for the next 35 years. I’ve been addicted to many different things-drugs, food, relationships and alcohol.
Sheri B., Grace House Alum
Today, staying clean is the most important thing in my life. I am involved in my life, and I am constantly learning to be a productive member of society. I have ups and downs, but I know that I have no reason to use again today. I love being alive today, and to have had that awakening was worth everything to me.
Brett J., Bridge House Resident
Alcohol and drugs were my solution for many years, but, somewhere down the line, it had turned its back on me. By working the steps and building my support group in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I began to learn how to deal with everyday life issues that I would normally get intoxicated over.
Kathleen A., Grace House Alum
Five years ago, I entered Grace House broken and completely lost—I had no idea just how bad. Although I was broken, there was room for hope to come in through the cracks. I am thankful to have had hope.
Rhonda S., Grace House Resident
When my oldest son was six months old I injured my back and was prescribed narcotic pain medication. At this time of my life I was a stay at home mom in a happy marriage. Eventually I became addicted to the pills.
Nicholas B., Bridge House Resident
In the humid presence of mid-morning, the shrieking howl of the Steamboat Natchez was my daily reveille. Noisome refuse washed up by the Mississippi would induce in me a sensation of nausea, which would linger until, clambering out of my living quarters beneath the wharf, I had procured a bottle of whiskey and drained it of its contents.
Nicole M., Grace House Resident
It started with using pain pills, and then I graduated to crack. In a matter of three months I had lost everything, including my soul.
Jason H., Bridge House Resident
I reached a point of hopelessness and misery before I came into Bridge House. I would pray every night that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. I was consumed by anger, fear, resentment, guilt and shame.
Jeff, Bridge House Alumni
In my mind I was not the ‘stereotypical’ alcoholic: I was a law school graduate with a promising future who had just had a string of bad luck, a young kid just making up for a mild college career by drinking and sometimes carrying it a little too far, who thought the drinking was something I could always turn off when the time called for it. Problem was that time never came.
Brittany C., Grace House Resident
As I heard someone say one day in a meeting “your worst day sober is still better than your best day high.” I believe that with all my heart and soul now.
Mike, Bridge House Resident
Three months ago, I had had enough. I came to Bridge House hoping, praying, and seeking a different life. I never thought I would find myself in such a situation. I was raised in a good family, I was educated, aware, yet as I have discovered alcoholism and addiction is no respecter of person.
My addiction led me to places that I never thought I would go: jail, living on the streets and no contact with my family or loved ones. I came to Grace House homeless, hopeless and helpless. I had nowhere to go, but I knew that I never wanted to live that way again. I was
Wirth, Bridge House Alumni
Too often I followed such visits to the rooms of AA with a stop at the bar, hoping to just have a couple to take the edge off the hangover that plagued my working hours, only to find myself in that dreaded cycle of not being able to stop after once feeling the effect of the first drink.
Chad. B, Bridge House Resident
I entered Bridge House as a total wreck and as a person with no direction in life. I had hit an all-time low, and the only thing that mattered to me was where and how I was going to get my next fix.
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