From Mark's Corner

Spring is upon us here at MHR! It is so beautiful this time of the year and it makes it so easy to see how our Creator is present in all things. I hope this newsletter finds us all sober and living a life of abundance.

Many exciting things continue to happen at MHR. We opened up a male only 30 day recovery program for those men whose life situations dictate a shorter length of stay.

We have remodeled the big house on the hill and it is beautiful. We have two chefs to serve great meals, gym, pool, and lots of step work and life skills for our new residents to experience.

We continue to grow in our awareness of the power of god in our lives and continually recommit to the strict disciplines of steps ten and eleven. May you all have a beautiful spring and don’t forget to give some thought to helping others.

Mark

Thoughts from Don B.

Spring finds me writing my third article for the MHR Newsletter. A time of rebirth and new beginnings, the trees are regaining their leaves, the swallows are nesting, and the flowers are blooming. This time is representative of the work that all of our residents are doing, as well. Men that have been hopelessly trapped in an endless spiral of destruction and futility have begun to find some hope of new beginnings. These men have begun the journey of self discovery but not without sacrifice. They have courageously stepped up (some more willing than others) to leave their loved ones, wives, parents, children, and other significant people, in order to face and be rid of the defects of character that have held them hostage for so long. They are re-creating themselves and their lives through self-examination, learning how to be of service to others and their community, and facing the old behavior patterns that have held them prisoner through addictions. They are experiencing the rewards that come from selfless acts of service while maintaining healthy habits of self-care.

Many new beginnings are happening for Mark Houston Recovery, as well. We kicked off the opening of a 30 day program option on April 1, in the newly remodeled mansion on the hill, and currently have two residents in that program. The program director’s offices on the hill are near completion and we have added 12 beds to our 90 day program option in a new addition to Joe Hawk Hall. We are also welcoming several new staff members to the RCA team this spring.

I continue to be blessed with interactions from our alumni. It warms my heart and fills my soul to see them continue the path of recovery and experience the blessings that their addictions have robbed them of for so long. To see families unite with smiles and gratitude keeps me eternally grateful for the blessing of new beginnings.

Don B.

Letter from Patrick M.

Hello everyone! I hope that this letter finds everyone doing well. I hope everyone is enjoying the spring season as it is such a fine time here in central Texas. The property here in Manor is green again after such a cold winter and full of wildflowers such as bluebonnets. There has been a lot of change here at Mark Houston Recovery over the last couple of months. We have used the sunny cool days of winter to do build outs at the First and Last Resorts. The place has been humming with tractors and workers of all types for the last couple of months. We have also seen a lot of activity with the alumni of MHR as well. In general, the last couple of months here have been a period of change and excitement. At the same time our focus continues to be recovery and living the best life you can live.

As previously mentioned, the last couple of months have seen a lot of construction around here. There have been trucks and work crews coming in and out of here day and night! All of the construction has been supervised by the amiable Ben Young, who we have enjoyed having around here again after a year. The construction has been amazing in watching what looks like to be a complete mess turning into beautiful well constructed rooms. In January, construction on Joe Hawk Hall began. Two new bedrooms were added that have beds for 12 men. In addition, 2 new bathrooms, a patio, and new offices for the team at Addiction Directions were added to Joe Hawk Hall. It looks amazing over there!

The biggest change around here has been the addition of the new 30 Day Program here at Mark Houston recovery. In March the big house on the hill was completely gutted out and redesigned for our new 30 day program. It too looks amazing! Yes, that is right, MHR now has a new 30 Day Program! As of April 1st Mark Houston Recovery now has a 30 Day and a 90 Day program. The house on the hill now contains our 30 Day program and is officially to be known as the First Resort. What was the First resort where Joe Hawk Hall is, is now the Last Resort and has everyone in the 90 Day program. This change was facilitated to meet all of our customers needs. The 90 Day program remains full and our 30 day program is filling up quickly! Our focus here at MHR continues to be teaching a life of abundance and our staff continues to focus on quality of care.

Working as Alumni Coordinator has certainly been interesting and exciting for me these past couple of months. The Saturday Night Speaker Meetings in particular continue with gusto. The speakers for the entire months of March and April have been MHR Alumni! Most of the alumni speakers have a year or more sober and have some amazing stories to tell. Mike P. spoke last weekend with such clarity that he is destined to become an AA circuit speaker. It was interesting to see the mix of alumni that came out of the woodwork to hear him speak. Also, the Thursday night MHR Aftercare Group at Club 101 continues to flourish. That meeting is a great way to catch up with old friends. I am always so touched to see how well many of these guys are doing and how they have changed their lives. Check our website www.MarkHoustonRecovery.com under the about/ events tab for the list of all the speakers. Also, I wanted to mention that the MHR Alumni Reunion is planned for October 17th this year.

Working at MHR continues to be as rewarding as ever. Mark continues to bless us with his guidance and wisdom about recovery. There is always room for growth around here, for sure. The entire team and staff here at MHR are excellent and I am grateful to get to work with such a talented group of people. I truly look forward to coming to work each day! On a personal note I am having a great year myself. I just returned from the UK where I was able to stay in a monastery, which was extremely good for my spirit! Continually, I look for ways to be rid of selfishness! Also, I continue to work with my sponsor and attend my home group. I hope this letter finds everyone doing well. I look forward to enlarging my spiritual life over the next couple of months. I will write again this summer.

Patrick McNamee
Alumni Coordinator

Alumni Stories

The following is a collection of letters written by MHR Alumni who who have reclaimed their lives from addiction. The stories give a glimpse of their lives before and after coming to Mark Houston Recovery. We hope you enjoy them! - Patrick M.

Kevin C's Letter

Hi, my name is Kevin Cook. I was born on May 30, 1989 in Longview, TX. Growing up, I was an avid soccer player, percussionist, and hunter. I started drinking at the age of 12 and by the time I was 16 I no longer participated in my hobbies and extra-curricular activities. Drinking and using had become my number one priority. Getting high was all that I thought about. It consumed me. It was fun and it worked for a while, but the consequences started to outweigh the effect produced by the drugs. I was arrested twice in one month when I was 17 and kicked out of school. The situations and the people the placed myself around were more dangerous than the dope itself. I finally made it to my first treatment center in August of 2007. Within two weeks I was using while I was a patient. At the end of October, I came out of a black out at a different treatment center. I arrived Mark Houston Recovery Center on November 27, 2007 with a new willingness and attitude towards recovery. I was “done.” There was something different about the residents at MHR. They were smiling and having a good time, which seemed odd to me. I was introduced to the clear cut instructions of Alcoholics Anonymous and my life has been permanently transformed since then. I learned the importance of accountability, selflessness, willingness, honesty, integrity, and humility. When I arrived at MHR, I was a child that was full of fear. When I commenced, I was a strong and confident man that walked with his Creator. Following my stay at MHR, I lived at Addiction Directions sober living home for 6 months. I feel that it was an essential transition into the uncontrolled environment of the “real world.” I was surrounded by guys to help and guys to help me. I moved out of Addiction Directions in October 2008 into a house with another MHR alumni. I am currently enrolled at ACC. In my spare time, I carry the message to institutions, exercise, and hang out with friends.

Eric P’s Story

I was born on July 3, 1984. I was always a high strung child who could not focus. By the age of 6 I was on ADHD medicine to try to keep me focused. I played every sport that I could but ended up focusing on swimming. I swam competitively with several clubs and competed against Olympians that I trained with daily. All this fell by the way side when I turned 15 and found I could buy beer.

At first it was something to do to show off to friends and especially the hot girls of my grade. I quickly became the “cool kid” who could get beer and tobacco products for people. That was also the year that I first got drunk. There was no drink of choice it was drink of convenience for me at this point in my life. I quickly found out that I loved to get completely hammered and black out. I never remember just having a few drinks at a party. I was that guy who was passed out by 10 if the party started at 9, and along with that came my high school nickname of Pukin Pampe.

That lifestyle quickly upgraded to taking vodka to school at lunch and mixing it with lemonade to get a buzz during school hours. With that came the end of my swimming career as showing up hung over to swim meets and practices was not fun, so I quickly overcame that situation by quitting swimming and drinking more. My senior year in high school had instances of alcoholic tendencies with getting caught alone and passed out in my room, and running into a tree in my front yard with my truck or trying to break into my own house because I couldn’t get my key into the key hole.

College life started with me going to school in Dallas area trying to get back to the University of Texas. Instead I drank too much and went to Texas State University. The Second semester there I received my DWI for driving with a 0.3 blood alcohol level. I received 2 years probation and random drug testing. Within 3 months I figured out when I was going to be tested and when I was not and was back to blackout drinking and hiding my grades, my personal life from everyone.

October 10, 2006 I was again arrested for not showing up to my probation officer for 6 months. Luckily my parents left me in jail for 10 days because I came out wanting to do anything but go back there, at least that is what I perceived at that moment. I was informed that in 3 weeks I was to enter Mark Houston Recovery for a 90 day treatment stent to help with my latest arrest.

Even 2 days into there I was telling people that I had a handle on this “situation”. Luckily my fellow brothers help me to realize the delusion I was living in and how to rise above it and live freely. Through the program and guidance of Mark and my brothers I am proud to say that my official “birth date” is October 11 2006.

My sponsor and good friend is Cole Shiflet. My program today consists of daily meditation and daily working out. I attend 2 meetings a week around Austin and Lakeway and am in contact with friends in the program on a daily basis, just talking and checking up on each other. The big thing I have learned is that it doesn’t matter how much time you have because each day is a new day with new obstacles and we live this day by day and be thankful for what we have.

FROM THEN TO NOW AND BACK - Mike P

I don’t feel as though I have to spend entirely too much time looking at the past and the places that I went in my addiction. The stories all seem to end up in the same places for all of us. Although I may have had a different drug of choice or I may have grown up in a different city we can all relate to the emotions that we experienced and to the lengths that our disease drove us. The bottom for me looked like a ten by six concrete cell in county facing a total of eight years in prison. I had used up all my resources and no one wanted anything to do with me. Me, a college graduate, had no better plan than that which ended me up there. As time passed and my court case grew nearer the reality started to set in and true fear took hold. I knew that what I was doing needed to stop, but it was all that I knew and it seemed that I had already done so much damage that there was no reason to change. It was then that I found myself once again asking A.A. for help. Shortly after the judge decided that I could go into a treatment center and seek some help for myself. I was allowed to leave my home state for nine months. The next home that I had was at 11503 Parsons Road in good old Manor, Texas. I can’t say that I went the easily nor that I really wanted to be completely sober, but I didn’t want to go into a prison.

When I first got out to MHR I thought that I could do my time there and get my life together then I could go back to my old games. I had no idea that I was going to actually do work and have some real life changing events take place. I remember my first few months flying by as I planned for my release and as I tried to stack the cards all in my favor. Then came reality… Staff knew that I wasn’t really doing what I needed to and they decided that they were going to hold me accountable. Needless to say I was not a happy client and in the end I stayed at MHR for seven months. After that I went to Addiction Directions for another three months.

Now looking back I can see that the time I spent in Manor saved my life. I may not have liked it nor did I agree with it, but the rewards are incomparable to anything that I could have imagined for myself. Because of the tools that I learned at MHR I am still sober today and I can deal with live on its terms rather than my own. Over the seven months that I spent in MHR I saw a lot of guys graduate the program and unfortunately not as many have succeeded in staying clean. We all received the same tools it was just a matter of who choose to put them into action and who didn’t.

Today in my life I am awaiting to go back to school to pursue my Masters at UT in Social Work. I have also held a steady, honest, job for the past nine months. I continue to go to meetings and I have a home group that I attend regularly. I actually enjoy working with others and my life is positive. Things do get me down now and then, but the difference is that I realize that it shall pass and I have resources today that enable me to cope with all that is going on. I have changed as a result of working the steps and I am grateful for the opportunity that I had to do so. What started out as a way to stay out of prison became a new way to live.

Jeff C’s Story

My name is Jeffrey Cadoux and I have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of body, mind and spirit. My sobriety date is April 17, 2008 which was the same day I arrived at Mark Houston Recovery from Connecticut.

I had been drinking, smoking crack, and taking xanax since I was 18 years old and I am now 53 (a very long history). I had loving Parents, family, friends, a great education, and was a practicing Attorney and Real Estate Professional. I knew from the first time I did drugs that they made me feel better. I also always knew that I was dissatisfied with the way my life looked and that I was constantly in a state of conflict and was resigned to the fact that this would always be the case. I was convinced and held the belief that I could successfully do drugs and still maintain some degree of a normal or meaningful life, if only on the surface. As is almost always the case, my drinking and drug use became constant and overtook every area of my life. I went to 7 In- Patient Treatments during the course of 35 years followed by very brief periods of sobriety. The first several times I never even wanted to stop using completely. In spite of numerous consequences, I was unwilling to admit that I was powerless. My ego and arrogance could not even begin to look at that possibility. I lived in the delusion that I still had choices and would find my own solution. The insanity of this was apparent to everyone but me.

I came to MHR after a 9 month crack run in which I had spent over $100,000, never slept and was totally depressed and miserable. I had no home, no money, no job and no friends or options. I couldn’t understand why I was even still alive. My Parents had died and the rest of my family wanted nothing to do with me. I was paralyzed by fear. I was desperate and I was presented the opportunity to go to MHR and I took it. To be accurate, it was presented to me as an ultimatum. I had no idea where Mark Houston Recovery was even located or what to expect, but I remember the overwhelming sense that I was done.

When I left MHR I was told to go to Addiction Directions, get a Sponsor and use him, get a home group, go to meetings, be vigilant with the daily disciplines, attend aftercare, and carry the message and I DID JUST THAT! I went through the work again with my knew sponsor and accepted a 1 year commitment to chair a meeting at the McCabe Center, a Federal and State Treatment facility I work with several sponsees and I have a group which holds me accountable and in which we all support each other’s recovery. I have even been blessed with a job in the field of recovery which was something that I put in my “I Am’s” from my first day at MHR. I stick with the winners. My life has changed completely and I continue to do the exact same things which have worked. I look at “my feet” as this is a program of action and that is my truth.

p.164 of the Big Book "..We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May god bless you and keep you- until then."