Tag Archives: Support groups

Remembering What My Mother did For Me Fourteen years ago, Today.

Every year this thought goes through my head on this day. I’m sitting at my desk in my den and thinking about “THAT DAY” with tears of joy. December 16 is not a birthday or a names day but it is a significant anniversary for me. Fourteen years ago on December 16, 2000 I had not

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My Last Thanksgiving, 2000

My mother had found a rehab for me to attend but that was not scheduled for another 2 weeks before I actually flew out to New York. It was Thanksgiving morning on my way to my apartment after an “after hours” party. I had been up for 48 hours snorting cocaine. On my way home

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A Turning Point

Heading into the eleventh grade I was well into my cocaine use. It had escalated from Fridays and Saturdays to four or five nights a week. The quantity had gone up now to about one gram a day, from a quarter of a gram, that’s almost $100/day! I needed a way to make money for

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Transitioning from Jr. High To High School

So far I have written about my Jr. High experiences, now I want to transition into my high school years. At the age of 14 after trying cocaine for the first time I began a lifestyle that demanded money, style, and a charismatic personality. I think I already had a charismatic personality to begin with, cocaine

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STORIES OF FREEDOM TOLD

 Sharon Shantz – Philadelphia LIFEiLEAD Support Group Leader “I love LIFEiLEAD very much and I am just thankful that the team played a part in my transformation in the last couple years. I was just thinking how I went from coming to your support group two years ago, then being ​invited to become a group

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Routine, Escapes, Love, and Acceptance – By Angela M Kalaras

I Would like to talk about  a few things: routine, escapes, love, and acceptance. I think it is safe to say that these are foundational “needs” of any person. We look for it in our family and friends from the moment we are born. The term “It takes a village to raise a child” is true on so many

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LIFEiLEAD at The House of Hope in FLORIDA – Meet Our Team

Greetings Everyone! As Summer has come to an end and Fall is here, we hope that you all are enjoying the beautiful and mild weather we are having! In the last two monthly updates we introduced to you our LIFEiLEAD Team from New York and the great work that they are doing. Please continue to pray

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My First Time Using…..

I tried my first cigarette at twelve years old. In 1981 a few of my friends and I took the liberty to take my mom’s car keys with the intent to go for a “joy” ride around the block. We thought that driving at that age was cool and we also thought that it would

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My Church Growing Up

St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church of Chicago is the Greek Church I grew up in. Growing up in a “Greek” neighborhood is how we distinguished where each Greek was from, for example, “he/she is from Holy Trinity (West side of Chicago)….he/she is from St. Harry’s (Northern Suburb of Chicago)” make sense? Now, I heard that we were

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