Jonathan, age 45, was born in Miami, Florida, and raised in Severna Park, Maryland. He spent his formative years with his father. “I love him, but a lot of things were kept behind the scenes. And I watched a man that I respected my whole life, completely deconstruct through drinking. In 1997 he hit a big wall and sobered up. His life completely turned around,” recalls Jonathan. “Because of this, I have always been interested in the dynamic of parental role models. I needed to know these things.”
“I graduated high school and got accepted into schools with scholarship offers. In an act of hatred, I took the educational path off the table. My father thought that I did not want to go to college, but I did not go because I hated my father. The flood gates of addiction completely opened for me when I turned 21. I remember buying my first beer and drinking by myself. At that point, I knew it was a bad idea. I got into the restaurant business and that environment became gas on the fire of my addiction. For ten years, I wanted to go back to school and try and repair my relationship with my dad.”
“I developed anger issues that resulted into borderline rage. One day, I came to work drunk, got into an argument with my manager, and got fired. I would be allowed to come back to work if I sobered up. The next day I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting and it just hit the right spot. Soon after I started going to meetings, my friend hired me to work at his restaurant. The new job brought me back to Severna Park and the bus route that I would take drove right by Anne Arundel Community College (AACC). To me that was a huge sign. So, after ten years, I finally ended up going back to school. I was sober. I was going to AA meetings. I had a good sponsor. I had a good place to live. I developed a genuine enthusiasm for academia and wanting to succeed.”
“I would graduate AACC, then the University of Maryland with a degree in English language and literature. Being sober made it all possible. But, one night I decided to celebrate and celebrating became drinking. Even though I finally fulfilled what I dreamed of doing, I left college in a self-induced black cloud. I ruined the experience. My girlfriend since childhood told me that she ‘loved me but, could not watch me do this to myself again,’ and left me.”
Jonathan would spend the next few years bouncing from job to job, and hotel to hotel. “I celebrated my 43rd birthday in Portland, Maine. I was killing myself drinking and could not grasp the thought of my dad seeing my body on a slab. I called my father and told him that I was scared and could not live like this any longer. I got on a train the next day and came home. When I got there, my stepmother informed me that they knew about my problems and would like to suggest a place for me to go. ‘We would like you to try Helping Up Mission (HUM) in Baltimore.’ “
“I arrived at HUM in March. I had no other choice. But old habits die hard, and I relapsed and was out by October. My anger and rage came back and one of my best friends ended up calling the Sheriff’s office on me. And by that December, I was outside, alone, cold, and frightened. I had hit my ‘rock-bottom.’ “
“God, please help me get out of this! I called my friends at HUM and they told me to ‘just get here.’ I agreed. The next day, waiting for the bus and freezing cold God answered my plea. The bus that I was waiting for was not going to stop. He told me ‘go stand in front of that bus.’ It worked, the bus practically ran over me, but it stopped.”
Jonathan had to spend three weeks in HUM’s Overnight Guest Services (OGS) when he arrived. “Pete Griffin, Assistant Director of Programs, told me to ‘figure some stuff out for myself.’ And John Mister, OGS Treatment Coordinator, told me ‘to just show up, consistently, to prove that I wanted recovery.’ It was a humbling experience, but three weeks later he asked me if ‘I had anything to take care of?’ I said, no, everything is right in front of me. My diligence finally paid off and I was admitted back into the program.”
“The initial ‘Seed Phase’ (45-day blackout) moved quickly. After that was over, I started going out and walking for exercise – on purpose. A passion that I carry to this day. I also appreciated the continuity of knowing what I was doing, having been in the program before. I was held accountable, but there was room for me being able to ask, ‘am I doing the right thing.’ I learned how to let things go. I meditated, prayed, and read. We went on a therapeutic mountain biking trip. Getting on the bike helped me parlay my walking into hiking. I have been training with a 40-pound pack, so that during the next year I can hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia.”
“Thinking about what the future may hold, I have a lot more faith in my abilities. I could do a multitude of things. And one of them might have to be sitting still for a while, and I can live with that. I have gratitude for so many people here. HUM is an awesome, beautiful thing.”
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Your Support Gave Jeremy the Chance to Forgive
“My receiving and giving forgiveness was my Spiritual Awakening.”
How does the hope that you provide help change a man who has battled adversity through addiction in finding new life through the Spiritual Recovery Program (SRP) at Helping Up Mission (HUM)? To find out, please read this story of hope provided by Jeremy, age 45, born and raised in Southwest Baltimore.
“To understand my story, you have to know how it started.” recalls Jeremy. His stepdad took out his aggression on a six-year-old Jeremy, in many ways. One story of mental and physical abuse stands out. “When I was six, we would chop wood for our wood burning stove. He would make me hold the logs while he swung the ax. He warned me that if I had let the wood go, he would mess me up. Imagine, at six years old, having someone that you trust and is supposed to care and love you, swing an ax at you – mentally torturing you with the possibility of physical abuse.”
“I do not remember a lot of my childhood. I blocked out much of it because it was too traumatic for me to deal with. I went to my first rehab at age 12. And before I got out my stepdad divorced my mother, she had a nervous breakdown, and tried to kill herself. So, at age 12, I had free reign. I had nobody left to care about me and could do whatever I wanted. I did as much drugs as I could do to fill the void inside of me. To numb my mind.”
Years of drug abuse finally caught up with Jeremy and his younger brother. During Christmastime of 2018, Jeremy and his brother were looking to get high. “My brother called me to help him get high. He was “dope sick” . We got drugs and we got high. He fell asleep, but I had to go. I took two pills of dope, a spoon, and a new needle, and put them in his backpack and texted him the details so he could find them when he woke up.”
“I did not hear from my brother for a couple of days. He lived with his boss, and his boss called me to tell me that he had overdosed and died. I figured out that he found my text message, took both two pills of dope and overdosed. My soul broke that day. Something in the core of my body broke. I tried to kill myself. “
Jeremy was unable to end his life, however hard he tried. Eventually, after another attempt had failed, his girlfriend suggested that he needed to figure out what he was going to do. A friend of his had come through HUM’s programs twice. “He made the phone call for me to enter HUM at 6:00 am the following morning. So, I went to sleep for the first time without having to put another shot of dope in me.”
“One of the first mornings after my arrival, I walked by the chapel and something drew me inside. I heard a voice say, ‘let it go.’ My eyes welled up and I sat in the chapel and cried like an inconsolable child. I cried for an hour and a half letting go of 40 years of pain and agony. I cried for dealing with the grief over the passing of my brother, and my mother. It was just pure sadness. What was I going to do? So, I prayed for the first time in a long time. An honest prayer for help and spiritual healing.”
“I had to figure out what I wanted to accomplish and how to succeed. I was willing to change all my bad habits. I was willing to let go of my shame, my guilt, and my trauma. And willing to pursue a relationship with God. I knew that God was the answer. I just did not know how to seek Him out.”
“I needed a stronger relationship with God, because I needed to deal with not being able to grieve my little brother’s loss. I need to deal with the trauma of my childhood. My Treatment Coordinator Matt Joseph and Director of Spiritual Life Mike Rallo gave me the same advice. ‘Sit with the sadness, sit with the guilt.’ At first, I did not want to sit with it. Eventually I did and Matt asked me to write a letter to my brother and let my sadness out on the paper. He had me sit down with him and read the letter aloud. I could not get through the first words without crying. When I finished, it was a huge release. I was able to let go of the guilt and shame that I felt for my role in his death.”
“My next step was dealing with my relationship with God. And Matt and Mike said, ‘sit with it.’ For two months I sat with God. I prayed an honest prayer, asking Him to help me.” After weeks of other men in the program helping Jeremy find God, one day in a Trauma class dealing with forgiveness, Jeremy’s prayers were answered.
“I saw God’s sadness. I heard God say to me that this was going to hurt Him more than it hurt me. I had a vision and saw God crying. I saw my stepdad beating me and God was crying even harder. I saw Jesus being crucified. I saw what God was doing to His Son for me! And I forgave my stepdad.
My receiving and giving forgiveness was my Spiritual Awakening. God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit were in that room with me. Healing me from all the pain and telling me that my scars make me beautiful.”
“God, this is it, I’m done. Please make something happen.”
Listen and subscribe to A Shot of Hope: Recovery Stories
Struggling with addiction for over 20 years, Ramon (39) asked God for help, “God, this is it, I’m done. Please make something happen.” Thanks to generous donors like yourself, Ramon’s prayers were answered, and he came to Helping Up Mission (HUM), where he has healed, “spiritually, mentally, and physically.”
Born in Guatemala, Ramon’s family moved a lot: from Costa Rica to the Dominican Republic, to Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. His father, a preacher in the Seventh Day Adventist church, and his mother did a good job of making his family feel safe during the many moves. “I never liked to be in one place for very long. I got used to moving and liked meeting new people and discovering new cultures,” recalls Ramon.
Being raised Seventh Day Adventist, with a strict ethical code against the consumption of alcohol, Ramon did not have his first drink until age 19. That all changed while in college. “That first night, I drank two forty-ounce beers. After that, I never drank casually. Drinking was all or nothing and I always drank to get drunk and I didn’t care about the consequences.”
Ramon’s “no-care” lifestyle would continue for another 15 years. Much like his childhood relocations, Ramon would often move to change the situations, yet his addictions would resurface. “Through the geographical moves, I now realize that I was the problem. I had always blamed my situations on other things.” Ramon moved to California to live with his sister, but his addiction resurfaced and he moved to Texas with his brother. “I thought that if I were around my brother, everything would get better. But I wasn’t happy and quickly started isolating myself. I moved back with my parents who were living in New Jersey, and repeated the process. My father got transferred to Maryland, and I moved too. The pattern repeated: I got healthy again but started drinking.
In Baltimore, Ramon got arrested and while in detention asked, “God, this is it, I’m done. Please make something happen. That is when I met John. He said that he knew of a place that would help me. I did not see him again and I was released. We never exchanged information and I did not know how to find him. But through coincidence, or more likely by GOD, John was there when I returned to get my things. And that is how I found Helping Up Mission.”
“The hardest thing about the Spiritual Recovery Program at HUM is living in a dorm with 30 guys, although it is cool how the men come from all walks of life. Learning to stay still, letting the ‘fog clear’, and taking direction were also hard at first. But they (staff) provide us with so much and there are so many opportunities to carry us through the year. I joined the choir and connected with the group Brothers in Prayer. I signed up for everything that HUM had to offer, like backpacking. I joined a recovery homegroup and attended Celebrate Recovery.”
Throughout the year I also stayed connected with John. He said he had a job opening for me when I was ready. At first, it was hard to find a job because of my past. But HUM helped me expunge my criminal record, and I work for John now at Sofi’s Crepes Fells Point. A job that I can walk to! It has been a blessing.
As Ramon looks ahead to his future, he is thankful for HUM teaching him to sit still and just letting God lead. “I passionately want to be a Peer Recovery Specialist. I want to help people get over the hump of addiction. I know what they are going through, and I want to show them how they can start from nothing and relearn what they know about God, religion, and recovery.”
“My relationship with God today is very personal. Recovery has really helped me see His love for humankind, but we must find out how to love ourselves first. God has given me the gift of being comfortable around people. Because of my upbringing, I trust people, and that is what I want to help instill in others. By trusting in God, like when I prayed to him from the detention center, He opened the door and placed John into my life.”
“Today, I am most thankful for my health and my life. My family stuck with me, even when I was reaching a point in my life where (it seemed) there was no coming back. I am thankful for God bringing back my sanity (Recovery Step 2). And I am thankful for love allowing me to adapt to and accept people where they are. I am grateful for HUM healing me: spiritually, mentally, and physically. If I had the opportunity to go back and talk to myself on my first day I would say, ‘Ramon, you are at the right place. God brought you here. It’s starting now!’ “
Thanks to donors, volunteers, and partners like you, Ramon is well on his way to becoming a Peer Recovery Specialist. His true life-transformation is a testament to your generosity on many levels. And the hope that Ramon provides the men and women that we serve is immeasurable.
Bobby Johnson Sr. 59, a veteran from Salisbury, North Carolina hit rock bottom asking for a Christmas meal in Tampa, Florida. Because of generous donors like yourself, Bobby, a former chef, is now going to college with the hope to help kids develop their own culinary skills.
“I was raised by my mother, a single parent with help from my grandmother, but my father was in my life, so I had a good upbringing.”
“As a kid I loved to succeed. I wasn’t old enough to get a newspaper route, so, I helped the newspaperman carry papers. I was on the school yearbook team. I was good at acting and theater, and I played football. At age 15 I started DJing and my mother suggested that I wait until I became grown to start doing such foolish things (laughter). Later, she would tell me that “when I was in school, I never gave her problems. I waited until I grew up to start doing things that were not right.”
At age 20, Bobby joined the military, got married, and got divorced. “I was a food service officer in the military from 1980 to 1990. At 32, when I got out of the military, I remarried but found out that my new wife had a secret. Prior to our marriage, she had a relationship with my father. I was so hurt that I could not even think about loving the Lord. I started hanging out with friends and smoking marijuana laced with cocaine, which soon escalated to crack cocaine. I didn’t want to embarrass my family being a “crackhead”. So, I moved to Tampa, Florida and for seven years I held onto my resentments which kept me in my addiction.’
During Christmas in 2004, living in substandard housing, Bobby went to a place where they were giving away food. And at that point, he asked, “why am I living, if I’m living dead? This was not me and I thought I was going to die. So, I asked God for help.”
Eventually Bobby turned to Baltimore for Recovery. “I started out at McVets, where I got six years clean. And then my mother passed in 2016, and a couple of months later I relapsed. I struggled and went home to North Carolina. The Pastor from my Baltimore church called, and I told him the truth.”
“He said, “I’m sending you a train ticket – pick it up, come back here, and we can get you some help.”
“It turned out that my pastor was a graduate of Helping Up Mission (HUM). When I realized it was a Spiritual Recovery Program (SRP), I knew that’s what I needed because I was spiritually broken. So, I arrived in August 2018, and I have not looked back, and I have more joy today than I’ve ever had in my life.”
“At first, the hardest thing about being in this program was me. I was sensitive to authority. Now, I understand that people are put in positions to help and that I am here to get help. For example, I think I did every job the HUM has to offer. Free help and I was getting fired from free jobs! (Bobby belly laughs).”
“The easiest thing? Growing with God. Pastor Gary Byers taught bible classes, which planted a seed in me, just like when you start in the seed phase (first 45 days). Now I go to recovery classes at Mount Zion Baptist Church on East Belvedere. My pastor is a very caring teacher. He knows that I am now hungry for the word and breaks it down just like Pastor Gary did.”
Because of YOU Bobby has reconnected with his family. “My grandkids know who their grandpa is. They came to HUM with my son and left crying because they had to leave their “papa”.”
Bobby also credits his friends in the SRP for developing the rich relationships he has made in recovery. “We try not to keep our feelings locked inside by feeling weak, or less than a man – we let them out. Then you can laugh together and at the end of the day you’ll be laughing at yourself, too.”
“Today, I’m enrolled in college! My plan is to get a bachelor’s degree in culinary skills and teach underprivileged high school kids at my church’s school, so that they can take care of themselves and their families. Whatever you have been through, can be used for the good of helping someone else. God can use all of us in ways that we don’t know, and I believe everybody’s story is intended for somebody else that crosses their path in life.”
Finally, Bobby would like to Thank You for your generosity. “With donors like you, the prosperity of the HUM is spiritually connected, because of all the good work that you do to provide for this spiritual program. “
Eric is 40 years old and from West Baltimore, but moved to Carol County as a child. He explains that his parents were good people and he wanted to be like them. Eric was a good student, and his goal was to become a police officer after college. He recalls, “I wanted to be a detective. I always wanted to protect everything around me and police did that.”
Eric started using at the age of 14 when he saw the cool kids using, and he wanted to be like them. Not long after, he began getting drugs from the city for his friends in the county. Despite his drug use, he managed to continue through school with good grades. He had a teacher who noticed something was going on and confronted him. Eric remembers, “She told me she would help me in any way.”
Shortly after graduation, he was charged with robbery and assault. Although the charges were eventually dropped, Eric was no longer able to attend college to become a police officer. Before he could start college again, Eric got into a street fight and ended up in jail for robbery.
Eric moved to New York to be with the mother of his child and began a pattern of drinking and bad decision making. When he returned to Baltimore, his mother died, and Eric went on a six-month drug run. He explains, “Literally, I was trying to die.” He tried to get clean but instead became addicted to heroin. He and his girlfriend had their children taken from them because of the drugs.
He went through several cycles of getting clean and then messing up. In 2015, he got clean again and was clean until he was in an accident. The doctor prescribed pain medicine and Eric refused to take it at first. Eventually, he was in so much pain that he started taking the pills. After about a week of taking the pills, he decided to come to HUM. Eric said, “I knew I was getting ready to go on a run.” He could tell he was losing control and knew he needed help.
When he came to HUM, Eric “saw people making it. I saw people making themselves make it. I saw there was a whole lot going on in one building.” Even though he didn’t need the majority of what was offered at HUM, he was impressed. He had a place to live and the ability to leave, but Eric decided to stick it out to see what would happen and recently graduated.
Eric shares that he is sure that, “you cannot skip the struggle. That is where the personality is built. That is where the character is built. Anybody, anywhere that skips any struggle when they fall on their face, they are lucky if they get up again. People are dying from that.”
Eric is now the overdose outreach advocate at a nationally known hospital. He goes out into the places of need to help those struggling with addiction and tries to share hope with them. “I care about people seeing who they can be,” Eric explains. He likes providing options. “When I was in the midst of everything, there were no options. You wake up every day, and your intent has to be get money or be prepared to die. I have choices nowadays.”
He believes there is something at HUM that is special. There is no reason this many men who would never even speak to each other in the street can get along at the mission.
Eric feels like he is living right now to help others out. “I feel like my existence right now on this earth is if I am not making it better, don’t touch it.” He is thankful that he got to meet every single person that he met at HUM. When asked about his plans, Eric explains, “I want to try to share the hope that I learned. To me it is real.”
Robert is 67 years old and just recently celebrated three years of hope being clean and sober after fifty-two years of addiction. Better known as Blue by everyone at HUM, he explains that someone once joked about him being one of the Blues Brothers and while he didn’t see the resemblance, he loves the blues so he let the nickname stick.
Blue was born in 1950 in Baltimore. He started drinking and smoking by the time he was twelve. At the age of fifteen, a friend’s older brother introduced him to heroin. He explains, “It was just the sixties. I was a hippy. I was high through the whole time. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was getting high off of something.”
Blue recalls, “This is the era of Vietnam with the draft. So, guys like me didn’t really have anything to look forward to. None of us wanted to fight in some jungle that didn’t make sense. So, when I went down to the draft board I was extremely high, and I never got drafted.”
Blue was arrested for possession of heroin.
In 1968, a month after graduating high school, Blue was arrested for possession of heroin. Blue said, “I went on methadone after I got busted. My mother and father didn’t have a clue what to do.” They took him to a psychiatrist who prescribed the methadone.
During this time, he met his wife and fell in love. They were both on methadone for ten years, and then he detoxed off of it. His wife was taken off of it abruptly and overdosed a few days later. Blue gave her CPR and brought her back to life. After a few days she overdosed again, and this time, he could not bring her back. Blue was devastated and did his best to bring up his daughters without their mother.
“I got high for fifty-two years.”
Blue explains, “I was jumping from one thing to another. I was in a program; I wasn’t in a program. I was shooting dope; I wasn’t shooting dope. I was drinking because I would go to that when I didn’t want to do dope because I would get strung out on it. I smoked a lot of weed. I got high for fifty-two years. I didn’t get high off of any one thing for fifty-two years, but I was getting high off of something for fifty-two years. I didn’t go three months where I didn’t get high a couple of times.”
“I got so cold.”
In 2000, Blue lost his job because he was shooting dope and couldn’t work without it. He ended up homeless and set up a makeshift shelter between two buildings. After about a year of living on the streets, he found an old broken-down hearse in a parking lot. The back was unlocked and he moved in. He remembers, “I almost froze to death on Christmas Eve in 2004. I was dope sick. I didn’t have any money. I went into the back of the hearse and covered up with every piece of clothing and blanket that I had. I got so cold. I will never forget that.” He went into a shop and sat there to try to warm up, but was forced to leave. As he was walking down the street, a lady saw he was distressed and let him sleep on her couch and get warm. “It was quite a Christmas. It is not something I am trying to go back to ever. When I see [homeless] guys come in here at night, I know what it is like.”
Blue had been in and out of programs so many times
In January 2014, Blue went to Bayview Hospital to detox. He had lost so much weight and gotten into such bad shape that he couldn’t walk. He was sent to a rehab center to regain the ability to walk. He was physically getting better. But in September of 2014, he took some pills and drank a pint of vodka and woke up in an ambulance on the way to St. Agnes. The social worker at St. Agnes told Blue’s wife about HUM. He had been in and out of programs so many times and had always focused on the physical and mental health side, but never had he thought about the spiritual aspect of recovery. When he arrived at HUM, they told him that it was a year-long program and he was not ready to commit to that. He admits that he thought, “Oh no! I am gone. I headed to the door. The only reason I came back is because my wife stayed at the desk and stared at me.”
“I was in really bad shape, really.”
The first three or four months Blue struggled and did not sleep much. “I was in really bad shape, really.” When asked what changed for him, he explains, “I stopped fighting God. It sounds like something you would say because it sounds good. Just the difference of not having to fight.” His entire life he had been an agnostic. He could not explain the existence of God and the existence of bad things at the same time. Now he says, “It has been a relief not to have to understand, I know what I know. I learn what I can. I help whoever I can. I do the best I can.”
Each week, at the graduation chapel, Blue sits in the same place and jumps up to give a hug and hope to those who are celebrating their graduation from the one-year Spiritual Recovery Program. He explains, “I feel very strongly emotionally about what is happening here. I know what it took for me to do it – to come in here and go for a year. I’ve been out there for so many years, and I’ve seen how this struggle is with drugs and alcohol. To me, a year is a miracle. So, yeah, I hug them guys when they make that year because you started something, and you finished it. We don’t do that a lot. We’re good at starting things, but not finishing them.”
“I came to understand that God kept me around…”
Blue is a graduate intern here at HUM as a Treatment Coordinator Assistant and sees his role now as to help others who are struggling to get clean. “I came to understand that God kept me around through all that stuff. God let me survive all of that. So what’s the purpose? I am 67 years old. I spent 52 of those 67 years getting high off of everything. So, I can look at my life in two ways; I’ve wasted my whole life. Or no, I’ve put 52 years of hard experience to understand the stuff nowadays. So, I choose the second.”
Blue is well known at HUM. He explains, “I am a firm believer that the small things in life make the difference. The big [things] are going to happen to everyone. The little ones are gifts. When someone talks to you and they actually care, it’s something you remember. It can make a huge difference in the rest of your day. It might make a difference in the rest of your life. Care might be the difference between life and death.” This New Year, Blue will continue to do what he can to offer hope to the hurting.
“I was using drugs for so long that I didn’t know how to live without them.”
Dustin was a Baltimore City firefighter when he fell through a flight of stairs and was injured. He was prescribed pain pills to help him recover, and “started needing more and more.”
“When I couldn’t pass the physical to go back to the department, the insurance got cut off, which means the doctor got cut off. I realized I was addicted and started feeling the withdrawal.” So, Dustin started buying pain pills on the street. When he couldn’t get them anymore, a buddy suggested trying heroin as a stronger and cheaper alternative.
He woke up one morning and couldn’t find any drugs. He remembers, “I was sitting around, hating myself, and hating life. I cursed God a lot and was wondering what went wrong.” A week earlier his sister and mom had tried an intervention. Dustin decided to try to detox and went to Bayview Hospital. He was in there for seven days when a social worker, “an angel on my shoulder” as Dustin puts it, came to him and explained that he needed to do something or he would die. She told him about Helping Up Mission and showed him videos of the Mission on YouTube, but he still wasn’t sure.
Eventually, Dustin decided to come to HUM. He remembers, “When the cab pulled up out front, I was scared and nervous. I was still sore and feeling [the effects of withdrawal]. I was using drugs for so long that I didn’t know how to live without them.”
At first, a year seemed daunting, but after three months of going to classes and chapel, he decided he wanted to stay. “I liked the way I was feeling. Every time I would see [my mom]; she would say ‘You’re looking good. You’re walking tall now. Keep it up.’”
“I started building a strong support network. I was making good friends. We started playing softball together. We were all learning to live again, learning to play again, learning to have fun again. Besides my family, the friends that I made here that are still my friends today; I consider them family now. There is no way we would be where we are now without each other’s support. We still hold each other accountable every day.”
When he came to HUM, Dustin knew his mother had terminal cancer. The time they had together while he was going through recovery allowed them to get to know each other better than ever before. Dustin remembers, “It was kind of a blessing that we knew she was terminal and we got to know each other [again]…it was liberating. One Sunday I visited her, and they did a church service in the cafeteria at the nursing home. We prayed together there for the first time probably since I was a little boy. I still remember that.”
After about six months, as Dustin was beginning to get his life together, he got a phone call that his four-year-old son had pneumonia and was in the hospital. Although they thought he was getting better, he did not begin to breathe on his own when the hospital removed the ventilator. Dustin was on his way to say his goodbyes to his son when his friends rallied around him. They wouldn’t let him go the hospital on his own. They were with him and went through the painful time with Dustin. While he was numb and thought about using again, he didn’t want to lose all of his progress and all the trust he had built back up. He didn’t want to disappoint those who believed in him. “I loved to see the look on my mom’s face. I loved that my daughter smiles back at me now.”
His mom’s health was deteriorating, and she could not make it to his son’s funeral. Three weeks later, Dustin’s sister called to say that his mother only had a day or two left. He and his sister spent the night with his mom as she passed away. “I just felt gratitude. If I would have picked up [and started using] after my son passed away, then I wouldn’t have been able to be there with my mom. It just kind of put everything in perspective for me. As hard as it was, it was peaceful. We were able to be there with her. I was clean and clear-minded. I was at peace, and she was at peace.”
Dustin explained how he continued his recovery during this difficult time. “I leaned on my network. That is a big part of my story; I had that positive network.” He remembers, “It was hard at first. All I knew is that I had to keep moving forward.” A few days after his mom had passed away, Mike Rallo encouraged Dustin to share his story with the new guys at HUM. “It was an emotional day. When I walked out of there, I just felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.” It was also an opportunity for him to help others at HUM. “Before, I thought nobody’s going to learn from me.” Now he can see that others learn from his struggles and how he got through it.
Dustin graduated in November of 2015. Shortly after graduation, Dustin and his close friends were all offered staff positions at HUM. He recalls, “To be able to give back to a place that saved all of our lives, it was awesome.” He continues, “It’s about the guys that are here in the program. Just to be able to give back to them, it’s a special place, and I feel it when I walk in here.”
Dustin has a new life after coming to HUM. In August, he had a new a life come into the world when he and his wife had a baby boy. “Hopefully I went through the struggles so he won’t have to.” Dustin’s daughter is eleven now, and he gets to be there for her, too. “I love being a dad.”
Dustin says that those who support HUM matter. “You save lives every day. I’m not just thankful, but I’m sure my family is. I’m sure my kids are. I’m sure my mom was thankful to have her son for her last six months – her real son, not her son who was showing up high.”
John, 50 years old, was born at Baltimore Memorial Hospital as one of six kids. He graduated from Arundel Senior High where he played baseball and ran track. He was especially close to his mom growing up but admits, “I was a curious kid, so I always stayed in some kind of trouble. She always had her hands on me.” His father was around but was not very involved in his life.
At “the age of 16 or 17 years old, I basically went on my own path” and began hanging out and smoking marijuana. After John graduated, he worked at a racquetball club and watched people playing the sport. “I started to fall in love with the game. I used to sneak on the back courts on my days off.” The club pro taught him a few strokes and soon John was beating everyone around. He got sponsored and became a semi-pro racquetball player. “The thing that killed me with that is I would go to tournaments with nobody watching me, nobody behind me. I felt kind of lonely at tournaments and got introduced to cocaine.”
He met his first wife in the racquetball club, but after she became pregnant, she left him because of his drug use. She moved to Montana and John followed her. He remembers, “My dad didn’t have nothing to do with me when I was a kid, and I wasn’t going to do that to my child.” He started going to 12 step programs, but couldn’t relate because everyone in those groups was an alcoholic. “They didn’t want to hear my story, and I couldn’t tell my story.” John and his wife got divorced and then remarried. When they were apart for a year or two, he went on using sprees. They divorced again and, after seventeen years in Montana, John moved back to Maryland and went back to his cocaine and his life as a “go fast boy.”
John came to HUM for the first time in 2012 because he was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” He was dating a girl whose brother was at HUM. He stayed for several months but got in trouble while away for the weekend and couldn’t make it back to HUM. “It ate at me because I was doing the right thing and let the wrong thing happen. I eventually knew that I was coming back here.”
John stayed clean for almost three years. But, he started dwelling on all of the problems going on. His mother was battling cancer, and his brother passed away. He thought, “I didn’t come home for this.” He missed his son, but John says that his past using “was shaming me from keeping in touch with him.” After his mom had lost her battle with cancer, John says “I fell right back in the boat I always fell back in.”
His girlfriend wanted him to get help and called around. Eventually, John told her to bring him to HUM. “In my own mind, I always knew I was going to come back.”
John ran track in high school, the 440-yard dash and some long distances. When he was at HUM in 2012, he joined Back on My Feet and ran with them as part of his recovery. Upon returning to HUM, joining a running team was a priority for him. “I went right to my counselor and told him I need to get back on the team.” He explains running “is therapy to me. It puts me at ease. It lets me think, it lets me really think about what’s going on in my life.”
John explains that he isn’t normally one to socialize, but being part of the Back on My Feet team has helped him to relax a little. “When I first joined the team…I wasn’t really a talker and everybody on the team talks. Once I settled in and realized it was okay to talk, they aren’t trying to dig into your business; they are just trying to help you. Once I got that in my mind, I was good with it.” Now, John says his teammates think, “Man he doesn’t shut up.”
The time on the running team encourages John and helps him to help others. “I find myself around the Helping Up Mission talking to guys…trying to show them certain things to do, not to sit up in corners hovered up. I even encouraged some guys to get on the team and just try something different.”
John is currently training to run the marathon in the Baltimore Running Festival in October. He recently finished in the top thirty-five runners in a ten miler with a time of 78 minutes.
In addition to the support he has found in a running group, John also goes to an NA 12 step program. “For me, I am dead in the water without it. You can’t do this alone; it’s just impossible.”
John is proof that good people can make bad choices, and while he may have to live with the consequences of those choices, there is hope. Once he graduates from Helping Up Mission, John plans to stay connected with his support community of HUM, as well as his NA group and will keep running as alumni of Back on My Feet.
Born into a Marine family in North Carolina, Jackie was one of six children. His parents divorced when he was twelve, so Jackie grew up with his mother and was close to his grandmother who shared her faith with the family.
Not having his father around was quite difficult for Jackie. “The last time I saw my dad was when I was twelve years old and when I saw him again, I was twenty-four,” he shared. Jackie started drinking with older friends when he was sixteen. “I wanted to do it to try it out.” Jackie continues, “When I first started using, I just gave up. When my daddy left, it took a lot out of me. I said well, if I do this, maybe I will get some attention. I got attention, but it wasn’t the right kind of attention.”
By the time he dropped out of high school in 12th grade, Jackie believes that he was already an alcoholic. He recalls, “Momma told me I’ve got to go or go back to school, so I left the house.” He stayed in the area but would work during the day and drink at night. It only took a few years before he started using drugs. Jackie continued to drink and use cocaine for many years, working odd jobs and just getting by.
About five years ago, Jackie came to Maryland to see his father who was living in the area and had been diagnosed with cancer. “When I saw my daddy in the hospital, I made a promise I would stop. I made a promise to him, and I stopped for a while. But it took a toll when he died, and I couldn’t help it.” After his father had died, Jackie stayed clean for a while, but gave up and picked back up again.
A few months later, Jackie had a light stroke. His wife is a nurse, and she recognized the symptoms. Even after the stroke, Jackie kept on drinking and doing drugs. His wife finally gave him the ultimatum: “It’s either the liquor or me.” After that, things just kept going downhill. She left him, “but at the time, I didn’t care,” Jackie said. He had to move in with his uncle and kept up the drinking and drugs for about three years.
He heard about Helping Up Mission from his cousin, a bishop at a local church. “I was tired,” Jackie remembers, so he agreed to come and was ready for the year-long Spiritual Recovery Program. Jackie recalls that he was worried about coping with all of the other guys at the mission, but he knew he needed HUM.
Jackie shares, “When I got here I asked God to help me stay faithful and humble and to give me patience. I went into the chapel one afternoon, and the choir was singing, and I just felt the power. I wanted to join the choir. Ever since then, I’ve been singing in the choir.”
His cousin also told Jackie’s wife that he was at HUM, and she came to see him after the 45-day blackout of Seed Phase when residents have no access to computers, cell phones and are not allowed to leave the campus generally. Jackie explains, “She told me that she never gave up on me. She wanted me to get myself together.” Once she saw his recovery, his wife suggested he move back in, but Jackie wanted to finish up his time at HUM, responding, “I told her I’m not leaving. I’ve got to do this for me.”
While at the Mission, Jackie was able to participate in Cornerstone, the substance abuse program associated with Johns Hopkins that is embedded at HUM. This program helps residents understand the effects of chemical addiction physically, and employs group therapy sessions. Shortly after he finished up the Cornerstone program, Jackie became an Intern in food services at the Mission.
Jackie is going to take full advantage of every opportunity given to him and has decided to not only finish the recovery program, but he has also decided he wants his high school diploma. Jackie has two choices to obtain his high school diploma: the more traditional General Equivalency Diploma based on exams and the National External Diploma Program (NEDP). The NEDP is based on life experiences and course work, such as real life skills like financial budgeting. Both tracks require computer literacy, resume writing and job search skills. He will benefit from the Innovative Learning Center at the Mission and use the tutors provided to him and other assistance while he prepares for the exam.
After he successfully completes both the Spiritual Recovery Program and his GED, Jackie is looking forward to getting a job and spending more time with his wife and his church.
When asked about HUM, Jackie says, “This place is awesome. These people will go out of their way to help you out in any way you can.” Jackie wants to thank those who support Helping Up Mission in a variety of ways: “Thank you for all of your offering, dedication, and your donations. You are tremendously helpful people. The volunteers are awesome. They are real good people.”
Jake is 32 years old and working on his bachelor’s degree from the University of Baltimore; he has plans to earn his Masters in Public Health to work on water security or to develop vaccines. Looking back at everything that brought him to this point in his life, Jake says that he is, “grateful for the Helping Up Mission and for everything I’ve been through.” He believes that “not everyone’s life has to be reduced to shambles, but I’m grateful because maybe if mine didn’t, I might be living a mediocre life.”
Jake grew up in Severn where he went to several small, religious schools. His parents divorced when he was eight years old, but he continued to have relationships with both his mother and father and knew that they both loved him. Jake’s father was more like a best friend growing up – he was always encouraging, but rarely disciplined Jake.
He remembers, “I figured out pretty early that, if I can project the appropriate image, then I can get away with anything.” Jake had always been a good child and had earned his parent’s trust, so he barely had any oversight at that point in his life. He explains that he liked the “thrill of living a double life.” In high school, Jake started using a variety of different recreational substances off and on. After he graduated high school, he says, “I just wasn’t expecting the lack of direction that I had in life. ” That hit me really hard because I had all the confidence in the world throughout high school that, in spite of my behavior, I thought I could have anything in the world that I wanted.” Eventually, Jake started “relying on drugs to get any enjoyment out of life.”
He remembers that “I didn’t want to do school anymore. I didn’t really want to do anything anymore.” After he had wrecked a car, he was sent to a strict rehab facility and then tried other rehab programs. Jake recalls, “I hated the life I had and didn’t know how to stop or make it change.” So, he believes that he made one of his best decisions and joined the military. He has always had an interest in the medical field, so he joined the Navy to serve in the medical corps.
During the five years in the Navy, Jake trained in Illinois and served in Italy and Pearl Harbor. He was also able to serve on a six-month humanitarian mission to Central and South America. Jake says the military “let me travel, let me know that I could do anything that I put my mind to, gave me friends around the globe, and gave me ideas for my future.” While he may have had the opportunity to drink with his peers, Jake recalls that substance abuse was not an option for him while in the Navy.
When he got out of the Navy, Jake had the best of intentions. “I got out thinking that I was different enough that coming back here everything would be different. It wasn’t really true. I came back to the same old frustrations, the same old obstacles.” “I can’t remember what the first reason I went back to using drugs was, except maybe boredom.” Although he had a job he loved, Jake went back to his old ways and struggled for two years with his addiction.
His older brother told him about Helping Up Mission, so he came to HUM for the first time in 2015. “All II wanted was to salvage what was left of my life. I didn’t know anything about really addressing me at the core and what is wrong. And I didn’t even really care to do that. I was too scared to do that. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t think it was necessary. I just wanted to protect the few things I had in this world – a car, apartment, and a few decent relationships. I just wanted to stop digging the hole deeper.” Jake stayed for about three months but wanted to get back to his life as quickly as possible.
Two months after he left HUM, Jake was “way out of control. It was my worst ever. There was daily use of heroin and cocaine.” His family was worried, and his sister staged an intervention, but he didn’t get the help he needed. He just kept using. It wasn’t until he overdosed and got in another car accident before Jake felt broken enough to see that he needed help. Two days later, Jake came “crawling back in the doors of HUM.”
This time around, Jake entered HUM with a quiet new focus. He found a couple of guys that he could relate to, stuck with them, and then really did some introspection. He has taken advantage of the mental health counselors during this time at HUM. “Before, I had no desire to really dig. I was too afraid of what I would find. Now I know that there is no hope of hope if I don’t do what is uncomfortable.”
Jake has learned to cut himself a break and to stop clinging to his past. He now knows to take responsibility for the things he needs to, but that he isn’t responsible for the things he can’t control. “I walked into the doors this time and just let go of the entire outside world. I was no longer trying to save anything from the past. I just knew that I needed to get myself straight.”
Jake says just hearing that “I am a wicked sinner and it’s okay” really helped him. Now he knows that he “doesn’t need to be righteous for God to love me, or for me to love myself.”
Since coming to HUM, Jake has realized that he can combine the strengths of the 12 step program with his faith to make recovery work for him. In fact, Jake is the Secretary of his AA home group and enjoys serving in this way. “I have been fortunate to find a meeting where I connect with the guys there.”
Jake will stay at HUM through graduation this time but then plans to move on and finish up his schooling. Because he has allowed himself to focus on his recovery during his stay at the Mission, Jake is celebrating his independence and believes God knows how his future will all work out.