Meet Lori!

       I grew up in upstate New York and about four years ago, decided that I had enough of the snow and the cold and packed myself up and headed south. It was by grace and by God that I found my way to The Courage Center because I was looking for a place to continue my own personal recovery. I still had so much to learn about how to deal with a past that had a child with substance use issues.

     Five years ago, almost to the day, my son told us he was addicted to heroin, and I had no idea what to do or actually how to even breathe during that period. I learned very quickly that substance use disorder is a family disease and each person has their own way of dealing with it. I decided that I wanted to learn all that I could possibly learn about this disease and how it could’ve happened to my beautiful boy. There was a point in his life right before he started his own path to recovery that he wasn’t sure whether he was going to live or die. As a parent, that’s just something that you can’t even fathom.
    I spent the first year, just barely surviving, and learning to breathe again because thankfully he had chosen recovery, unfortunately I was just so fearful of whether or not it would really work for him it consumed me. That’s when I found a center in New York that helped me begin to let go and they helped me start on my own personal journey of recovery. As I said, when I moved to Chapin, I knew I had to keep going and keep learning. That’s when the Courage Center came in to play. I started taking classes, hoping to learn how to help other people that were faced with the horror that I had been faced with.

     I have been lucky to be able to get my certification in Family recovery and now I have the opportunity to sit with Families and share my story and I’ve learned to meet them right where they are in their recovery journeys.

    I consider myself one of the moms that are blessed beyond measure.

My son has followed his path to recovery in helping people learn to find peace and acceptance of their disease and realize that it’s truly a gift to be given to those that want it.