Beau, from the Youngstown area, will be graduating from Adult & Teen Challenge Ohio Valley in December 2024. When he arrived in December last year he thought that he would stay for a couple of months, which turned into a few more and now it’s been a year of growing and learning. Upon graduation, Beau was selected to serve as an intern.
Beau recounts how he came to ATCOV, “I was doing a lot of kitchen and restaurant work and I got caught up in the party lifestyle and doing lots of cocaine. I held my life together pretty well, always having a steady job, but didn’t have much money because it just went to fund my addiction.”
“In the past couple of years, it got to the point where the cocaine started to take over and I was not showing up for work and slowly stopped having jobs. So I started moving a lot of drugs, fentanyl pills and stuff to support my habit because I made a lot more money doing that. I never used fentanyl – I just moved it to support my cocaine habit, but on December 20th of last year I was doing cacaine at the trap house and somehow I got some fentanyl mixed in with it and overdosed, blacked out and ended up in the hospital. They had to Narcan me twice and that’s when my mom had had enough and I came to treatment.”
In the past year, Beau says that he has had to learn a lot about himself. “I think the hardest thing for me being here (which I’m still working on) is controlling my mouth sometimes and self-entitlement. A big problem in my addiction was instant gratification – I wanted everything when I wanted it. It just wasn’t the cocaine. I’d steal or take whatever I wanted to get whatever I wanted right now and I had to learn differently. I had to give up control. That helped me a lot – it was just as important as getting off of drugs.”
Although Beau was raised in church, he didn’t take it seriously. “Even when I came to Teen Challenge, I didn’t know it was a Christian program. It seems as if God led me to where I needed to be. I saw how God was working in a lot of other people’s lives. I knew that I needed to let God back into my life because I couldn’t do it on my own. If I could, I would have stopped doing drugs a long time ago.” he said. Beau also loves that there is a religious and clinical side to the program – it certainly gave a balance to his recovery.
Beau’s mom has always been a stable figure in his life. Even when he was stealing and lying to her, she was always there. Their relationship has been restored and is stronger than ever. “It’s an open and honest relationship now. I told her everything that I was doing behind her back and now has the ability to hold me accountable.”
“I’m thankful that I have learned coping mechanisms and to ask for help. My dad almost died when I was in here. I normally would turn to Xanax but realizing that I could talk to someone and learn how to deal with my feelings and stress is huge. Continuing the things that I have learned here like reading my BIble, praying every day and renewing my mind daily will keep me focused and not wanting to go back to the old way of life.”
