Providing a look inside a long-term residential substance abuse treatment program for women.
Purpose:
Transforming the lives of women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction by providing a long-term residential program to experience physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through recovery.
Breakthru House, Inc., is a member of the Action Ministries family of ministries. Action Ministries, Inc. is an independent, faith-based, Georgia non-profit corporation with roots in the United Methodist Church. As the first long-term residential recovery program for women in Georgia, Breakthru House is designed to meet the unique needs of women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. Utilizing the 12 Steps and a Therapeutic Community, Breakthru House provides a safe, structured drug free environment to foster a life of recovery while therapeutically addressing addiction as a disease, unresolved grief, trauma, and poor self-esteem issues commonly associated with female addicts.
Since its founding in 1969, Breakthru House's founding principle remains constant: physical, emotional, and spiritual healing through recovery is possible when each woman's treatment program is designed to meet their individual needs.
Here's our latest client theme song - Rock out to Pearl Jam's Given to Fly:
And he still gives his love, he just gives it away
The love he receives is the love that is saved
And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky
A human being that was given to fly
On May 14th, Breakthru House held its annual Alumni Picnic. Clients, board members, volunteers, and alumni gathered on our campus to celebrate Breakthru House and how their lives have been impacted through it.
The shared time began with a celebration moment for the life of Laura Z., a Breakthru House board member and long-time volunteer who was instrumental in establishing our weekly Big Book volunteer group.
There was good food, fellowship, volleyball, and even some hula hooping! At Breakthru House, we are so grateful for all of our supporters, but especially for our Alumni who remain actively connected with Breakthru House, and can provide a living, breathing example to our current clients of a changed life that is possible through treatment at Breakthru.
Thank you volunteers, supporters, and Alumni!!
*Note - no clients are pictured above. All volunteers, alumni, and board members provided consent for their pictures to be posted. If you are pictured above and would like to removed from the blog, please contact Breakthru's resident blogger and Clinical Coordinator, Melanie Storrusten.
Recently we posted a blog featuring some of our clients Healthy Goals for our Spring Challenge. One of our clients listed a goal to train for and participate in a triathlon. This directly ties in to treatment at Breakthru in a couple of ways: Exercise is an example of the healthy coping skills that our clients need to develop to help them deal with their discomfort by behaviors other than using drugs and alcohol. Exercise boosts natural "feelgood" chemicals in the body to combat depression. Exercise leads to healthy bodies, which increases self-worth. I'm sure that you can intuitively list many more benefits of exercise and how it might be especially beneficial for women in early recovery.
In order for our client to meet her goal of actually participating in a triathlon, she needed access to a pool to train in, bike repairs, an entry fee, and some other obstacles that were financially out of her grasp. That's where our awesome Breakthru House community of supporters came into play and overwhelmingly responded to the call. Our client is now able to actively train and will be competing in her triathlon soon, and in doing so, inspires other clients to work to meet their goals as well.
Client Art by D.
I hope that you can see the impact that donors and volunteers can make in the lives of our clients - in HUGE and meaningful ways. We are so glad that you care enough to stay connected and responsive to Breakthru's needs. And we are super stoked to get to pass along the great things happening as a result of your generosity. Our blog and website are some ways to stay connected - we also have a newsletter. Check out the latest edition here, and sign up to be on our mailing list here.
I'm not the average girl from your video
And I ain't built like a super model
But I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen
...
When I look in the mirror
and the only one there is me
Every freckle on my face is where it's supposed to be
And I know my creator didn't make
no mistakes on me
Many people struggling with addiction, and especially women struggling with addiction, have a very low evaluation of their self-worth. For many clients (unfortunately the vast majority of them), this stems from a lifetime of trauma and abuse. 100% of Breakthru House clients acknowledge a background of trauma and abuse where they repeatedly received the message, "You're not good enough," "You deserve horrible treatment," and "Nobody cares." Once they entered active addiction, our clients sent this message to themselves by not taking care of themselves and abusing their bodies and spirits, and by placing themselves in dangerous situations to be re-traumatized and have those shaming messages again reinforced.
It is a part of most of our clients' official treatment plan goals to increase their self-worth. In addressing low self-worth, clients are asked to identify their negative self-talk throughout the day and challenge the truth of those negative messages. Some clients find using daily affirmations to be helpful. Some clients use collages and other artwork to surround themselves with positive messages. Clients are encouraged to participate in a variety of activities so that they can discover that they can have fun while sober. Many of our assignments are emotionally difficult - asking clients to look at where their negative beliefs about themselves originated. Some of our assignments are a little more light-hearted.
The following video clip is from the old TV show, Allie McBeal. Tracey Ullman's character in this clip does not play a very professional therapist, so I am including the disclaimer that this isn't what actually happens in therapy! :) I do use this video clip though, to explain the assignment to many clients to Choose a Theme Song.
The following is an example of a client's theme song. Stay tuned for more!!
What about you? Do you have a theme song? Maybe you should! We'd love for you to share your thoughts and theme songs in the comments below.
