I hate being obvious. So it pains me to write to you all that the name of this halfway house, “Peace and Purpose,” is a fitting moniker for what I’ve found during my time here. I can honestly say my stay at P and P has been transformative.
“We’ll get along famously,” Ronan said to me in our first interaction, a phone call that was made as I was preparing to leave my rehab. That makes me laugh now. Not because it isn’t true, but because of what it took for it to be so.
Ronan treats his sober living like a Labor of Love, his blustery, thrive-in-chaos personality derived from his working-class Irish upbringing is tailor-made for what he does. Which is, in short, working with addicts fresh out of rehab. Basically he deals with a lot of bullshitshit. He sports a casual, Hugh Grant-esque, flipped back hair style, and his favorite pastime, antiquing, serves as a symbol for his ability to see the potential and beauty in those that may have been overlooked or given up on by others. We connected over The Smiths, New Order, and “Madchester” in general.
I landed here in April, fresh off *gasp* 14 months of inpatient rehabilitation, and, despite my Recovery knowledge I quickly learned the spiritual life is not theory: you have to live it. I was lucky in that I had close friends from rehab that had been here several months upon my arrival
When you get to Peace and Purpose your recovery comes first, with the house managers making nightly trips to local meetings. At one of those Will C, observing my uncomfortability, gave me a nudge to share. Your weekdays are spent volunteering, and at 12 Baskets I was able to be of service while getting to know my new community and all the eccentric, like-minded people that make up Asheville. Weekend trips with other “Phase One” guys, most memorably to the aptly named Paradise Falls in May, give you a chance to get off property and see the beauty of the Blue Ridge mountains.
Any halfway house is a place where all addicts and alcoholics with an authentic desire to be sober will struggle. My own personal struggles arose with problems with other guys in the house along with sideways expression of my disease. Always a little defiant, Ronan and I clashed about monthly, but he always used these as an opportunity for me to grow as a Sober man. When a short-lived, nightmare,roommate interfered with my sleep and Ronan got a seething late night text from me, he turned it into a lesson for me on Fear. When I lashed out over something trivial (whatever it was escapes my memory), it served as an opportunity for me to disclose what was really going on with me, which is a difficulty I have had with the spiritual principle of Forgiveness.
Ronan told me that alcoholism is a disease of relationships, something made clear to me over and over at the manufactured crisis that is sober living.
The house managers are solid. Will has a self-assuredness that I immediately gravitated towards. When my best friend at the house relapsed and I got “that call”, he rushed with me to administer to him. The next day, when I had an emotional breakdown at Subway over for the first time being up close and personal to the insanity of active addiction, a perspective I have only given to other people, he met me there and offered solace and strength. He also stressed the urgency of self-care in times of crisis, as I was struggling to eat my Sub. That’s who I want to be, someone on the front lines of the opioid crisis who runs to the danger and can be or the utmost service.
Dave has an uncanny ability to point out things with clever, relatable one liners.
Matt seemingly never tires, and has an innate ability to be in absolute touch with other people's pain.
I love Peace and Purpose. It will always be the place where I introduced Avery 2.0 to the world. My parents and brother have visited, and I got to show them this wonderful city and who I can be in sobriety. I did my 5th step in the basement here, and the hour after I sat out in the backyard and watched my surroundings melt away from their boundaries of separation. Ronan believes in everybody, and when the chips are down will do anything for any of his guys.