Wine Country Times

Women’s Recovery Services has been working on creating a new client handbook. WRS clients were asked to create a welcome letter to the newcomer, remembering how it might have been for them when they first arrived, and what would they say to the new person. Two weeks later the ladies submitted this letter for our project. I was very touched by the compassion and insight expressed, and the support offered to their fellow sisters. Mother Teresa was once quoted saying, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”  And sometimes that makes the world of difference. 

Dear New WRS Client,

We, the women that came before you, welcome you to WRS. We know it sounds strange but we have been where you are now. It is difficult to explain to someone that has not experienced it -how it feels, to think you can do anything in life, but do nothing in your addiction except to gain momentum and spin out of control - we know. We know it took everything to break through the denial that you had a problem, and to put down the drug of choice, to stop lying to yourself that somehow you still had control over this drug that now controls you. We know. We know what it is to withdraw from the very drug you ran to for comfort, just to realize it was draining your very last strength.  We know what it was like, to lose the people you most loved, and the children that looked to you, relationships with people that fought with you to get you to stop, and losing your home, your job, your dreams, your goals and most of all- hope. The things you said would never happen to you – have now happened – finding your drug of choice as a constant companion on a road with a dead end- going nowhere quickly. We know. 

You took the first step by calling WRS and the second by showing up at the gate. These steps took an immense amount of courage and a desire to choose life over death. 

This was a leap of faith- from the grasp of addiction- into the safety of WRS community. You found us, a bunch of women, broken, beaten, shamed, shunned, and hurt, somehow landed in the middle of the safest place to recover. We will catch you, how they caught us, with open arms, and willing hearts. We will stand by you, until you can stand beside us on your own two feet, strengthened by the understanding that you and your children will begin to heal and recover. You will find yourself, your own voice, your own courage, truth, beauty, serenity, and peace. Your feelings will be everywhere for a minute, but you will experience tears of joy when your children begin to visit you and soon you will find you were exactly where you were meant to be, on the road to recovery.  

Everyday you stay, you will be strengthening your own dreams and hopes. 

It will not be easy. You will have to face the wreckage of your past, but it will be the most worthwhile thing you ever did, for you, for your children and for your freedom from addiction. 

Continue to breathe through it, trust that with each next step, solid ground will appear.  Work with your sponsor and make those fellowship calls. Rebuild your life.

You are a miracle! The fact that you are still alive is proof that your life was worth saving. Now you get to learn how to start living!

Signed, Your WRS sisters.

Diane Madrigal is the executive director of Women's Recovery Services.