25 years ago today our Chief Operating Officer arrived at LARC in Phoenix. He was at the end of a 27 year drug and alcohol run. And he was at death's door.
He was in such bad shape that he spent nearly a month in detox before being discharged to the Robson Street property in Mesa. He was among the first 15 residents.
At first, recovery was a mystery to him. He did everything he could, though, to be helpful. And to help build the program. He was hungry for change.
He says that when he first arrived, his only goal was to learn how to stay sober so he could go back to his old job - which was hustling and stealing.
After a while he found out that wasn't what recovery was about. He began attending 12 step meetings. He started running in- house groups, helping others to learn about sobriety. Before long he was TLC's first manager. He worked at a car wash during the day, then managed the house after work.
He was a driving force in the growth of the program. As clients kept showing up, he would work on adjacent houses TLC purchased. He painted and repaired them. He found beds at second hand stores. He looked for food donations. Eventually so many clients came in that he had to quit his outside job.
This blog would be quite long if I listed all the things he did to help the program grow and flourish. But among his larger accomplishments was opening TLC housing in Las Vegas, Nevada and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He also opened several of TLC's businesses, including the Inconvenience Stores, Roofing and Remodeling company, TLC Labor Group and more.
But one of the more important things he did was start the Hard Six program. It's a strict regimen for those who fail in the regular program three times. Hundreds of hopeless addicts have found recovery under his direction. He recruited some of our best managers from Hard Six program graduates who wanted to stick around and reinforce their recovery.
And during this time he's enjoyed 25 years of sobriety. Happy Anniversary Rockie.
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