CRW Client Oscar F. first came to the PRIDE Site Residential program on September 14th, 2022. Since then, he has graduated and transitioned to our Project Contact Outpatient program, maintained over a year of sobriety, and has started working at Pavilion Solar, a solar panel manufacturer. See below for a conversation with Oscar about his experiences in recovery and how the journey has been for him so far.
What initially led you to seek treatment at CRW? What was happening in your life at the time if you feel comfortable sharing?
I had no direction as to where my life was headed. I was super depressed and had no idea what I wanted to do. My drinking became a big problem or how I tried to deal with how I was feeling, drinking to self-medicate. I was drinking because I had nothing to do and I had no sense of direction. Yet at the same time, the alcohol was keeping me from moving forward from doing anything.
It was causing problems in my life, my relationship with my parents was being affected, I really had no friends because I destroyed every relationship and friendship that I had because of alcohol. I was very alone and isolated. It got to the point where everyone in my life was scared, my parents were super scared, they almost called the police and had them do a wellness check up on me because I didn’t answer my phone. It got to the point where it was up to my mom, my therapist and outside people to say, “hey listen, you need to go into treatment or you’re going to lose your apartment and everything else you have.”
I went into treatment very hesitant and against it, not at all my idea. I went because I thought that it was the only way that I was going to get my parents, my mom especially, my landlord, and my therapist off my back. I thought to myself, “let me just go do the bare minimum so they can just leave me the hell alone. But I knew absolutely that there was a problem, since the first time I started drinking I knew that I was different from any other teenager my age drinking. I just didn’t want to change at that time last year.
What has your experience been like overall, first in Pride Site and then in Project Contact Outpatient?
I had one of the best experiences. I was so blessed to have Serene as my counselor. I knew Serene from rehab before at Urban Recovery, and when I found out she was going to be my counselor I was really excited. I remember telling Serene, “I don’t want to do this anymore, and the only way that I’m going to change is being really honest.” Honesty was a big part of my process because I was a liar. I was very good at manipulating people, manipulating my parents, my mom, manipulating the whole situation so it would benefit me so I could continue to drink.
When I met Serene, my first step with her was working on honesty about how my process was not how I pictured it, that it was worse than it was, and that I needed to start with the ugly parts of what I did. And that it was okay that I was not okay, that it was okay that I didn’t seem okay. I wanted to paint myself as someone that was okay, that I was an addict but not really an addict, because I still wanted to seem kind of “normal”. But I wasn’t, there were things that I did that I was not proud of, and which took me a long time to say. I called my parents in the middle of the night faking an emergency so they would give me money, just terrible things, lying to them, gaslighting my mom into thinking that she was the one who was crazy. Going days and days without eating just so I could save enough money for alcohol.
But everyone that I worked with was great. I had an enlightening experience in one of the groups when an older gentleman asked me a serious question. I was on my phone and I wasn’t paying attention to the group. He asked, “what do you want to get out of this program? Because I see you, you’re not paying attention. If this is what you came here to do, you should get up from the seat and give it to somebody else who wants it.” He said, “in the blink of an eye you’re going to be my age, is this what you want to continue to do?” That gave me a reality check and it kind of scared me a little bit.
The groups were also great! I really enjoyed that not everything was the same throughout the day and I had options to go to different groups. And now in the outpatient program I love Kayla my counselor, she has been a crucial part of my recovery. I’ve gathered so much from each group. I had a year sober on July 14th, and never in my wildest dreams did I think that I was going to be here, because usually what I did after leaving treatment was drink the first day. When I graduated from Pride Site, this was the first time I left and I wanted to continue to do the things that I was doing, because it felt good! It felt great to get up every morning, to start going to work, to call my mom and have her call me back and confide in me. Getting my parents and friends back, making bonds with people, having people to call in the middle of the night if there was something that was bothering me, which is something that I hadn’t had in a long time. It gave me back a little bit of the person that I was before. I had to change a lot of the things that I liked about myself, because some of the things that I thought were good were very toxic traits that I had. What CRW gave me back was really a sense of self and also helped me change a lot of things that I needed to change that I found out were not very beneficial traits for myself.
Did you also have a Peer Navigator at Pride Site?
Yes, I had a peer navigator named Kyle. I was so blessed to have people that really wanted to work with me. I think my openness helped, being like “I’m here, this is who I am, and yes I do want to work on things.” I was open minded, but I was so blessed to have people that I could really be comfortable sharing with. Kyle is in my age group and he’s in recovery himself. I see him as a brother, and it was amazing how easy it was for me to speak and feel comfortable.
Awesome! It sounds like you had some great people to support you.
I’m telling you; I was there from September until the end of June, and I didn’t realize how quickly time went by. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all easy. I live alone now, I’ve never had a roommate, and I’m an only child, so sharing a common space with people was not something that I was used to. But I feel really lucky to have been at Pride Site because it taught me to handle myself in situations that I thought I wasn’t able to. It made me handle situations sober that prepared me for the outside, and it made me more tolerant of other people. I was drinking basically to be able to interact with other people because I’m very reserved and don’t like being in the spotlight. I only drank to be able to tolerate people and be able to relate with them in some sort of way.
My time at Pride Site helped me make connections and friendships with people that I’m still in contact with today. Those are the bonds where I feel like I’m able to call someone at any time of the day and they’re going to pick up. I think that was one of the biggest things that my life before was lacking was a sense of camaraderie, a sense of community, and a sense of belonging to something outside of myself. It gave me a whole lot; I can go on and on–it gave me my self-esteem back.
When I first arrived, I was down the drain. I was not how I wanted to look physically, I was not in a good mental health state of mind, and I felt very defeated. But I’ve been working on things, and I feel healthy and good. I just saw my mom for the first time in over a year this past weekend. We had lunch at this place by the Hudson, and we went to the park, and we sat there for hours just talking on a bench in front of the river. It was a healing process–I was healing with my mom. I could have never done that without getting sober, without learning the things that I did, and being patient, open minded, and letting somebody else speak who was hurt from the things that I did. And being able to accept things that I did and willing to do something about them. I’ve been super blessed with everyone that has helped me. There are great counselors and great peer navigators and staff members, I was just lucky to have the best.
I’m so happy that you had such a positive experience! What were the most challenging and rewarding parts of the process?
For me, the biggest challenge that I had to tackle was internal. I had to really get to the root of what was causing me to keep going back to something that was so destructive. Because I would never want my best friend or someone that I care about to go through something like I’m going through. Why am I putting myself through something like this? Then I started to realize, I don’t really care for myself, I don’t really love myself, if I wouldn’t put somebody else that I love through the same thing. I think the most challenging part is being honest and taking responsibility and accountability for the line that I crossed, for the damage I caused, and for trying to portray a picture of somebody that I wasn’t even when I was at Pride Site, trying to almost be better than the people that were there, which I wasn’t. I think the most challenging part for me was handling the internal struggle and coming to face with it and saying, if I’m not going to be honest with myself this is not going to go anywhere. And at the same time, that was the most rewarding thing was realizing, I don’t have to be okay, I don’t have to be this person, I don’t have to be portraying a certain image of who I am because we’re all here in the same boat. Why am I going to be embarrassed of sharing my story when we’re all here to do essentially the same thing and to get better?
Were there any clinical groups that were your favorite or that you found most helpful?
Seeking safety was a close group and it was all people with trauma and PTSD. There were seven or eight of us and it was run by Samantha, she’s no longer with us at CRW but she did incredible. Like I said, it was closed so you really got to know the people who were there. You really were able to share deep stuff, you were able to share things that happened to you before, you bounce back ideas, and it was just very healing.
Healthy Relationships with Serene taught me boundaries. I thought I had boundaries before. I didn’t know that I didn’t have any and that I was not respectful of other people’s boundaries. It made me realize how much of a hypocrite I’ve been this whole entire time up to now in my life, I was not holding myself to the same standard that I held other people. I have to respect other people’s boundaries if I want people to respect my boundaries. It helped me hold specific boundaries for myself and choose what kind of people I want around. Healthy Relationships is great for that.
You mentioned earlier that you have a full-time job, can you tell me a bit more about that?
I started this training at BlocPower. I went to school for environmental studies and environmental science so when they told me that there was this training that was going to focus on green energy jobs, solar panel installation, and battery manufacturing, I was like, “oh that’s something that I’m very interested in.” I finished a training with Block Power and then there was a job opportunity with a partner that they have called Pavilion Solar, they manufacture portable solar panels and batteries, and they have different clientele. A few weeks ago, we built 16 portable solar panels for the army, we sent them out, and we created batteries for them. And tents where the solar panels go onto the tent, which is really cool. Con Ed just came and looked at trying to buy some of the stuff, some of the solar panels that we’ve been making.
Do you have any closing thoughts before we wrap up?
It only worked because I had enough. I’m young, but not that young. I’m going into my 30s and I’m like, I don’t want this to be a part of my life any longer, I need to make changes and I need to do that now if I want anything to change. I was sick and tired of creating things and then destroying them. After doing that for a very long time, I was like, I need to want something better for my life. I need to create a life that I cannot wait to wake up to. I want to go to bed and I already want it to be the next day. I want to create something, I’m not there yet, that is going to make me feel positive and useful and productive. And I want to do something in helping people. I want to be that survival guide for somebody else who’s going through something that I’m going through. They can look at me and be like, wow, if he can do it, I can do it too.
If you go into treatment, you don’t have to be like, yes, I’m going into treatment and I want to change. You can have doubts and be like, let me just try it out. All I’m saying is that try it out because something is going to definitely make you change your mind. Maybe it’s something that somebody else says, or something that you’re going to think of yourself. But yeah, give it a try. And life is great. Life is so beautiful. I’ve been a year sober and this year I’ve done more than I’ve done in the last five years.