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Review 5/5/2011
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I wanted to take the time to write about my experience with Spencer Recovery Center. I was raised in good home but started experimenting with alcohol & marijuana at a young age. I realize now that marijuana was infact a "gateway" drug for me, but early on I had myself and my family sold on the idea that it wasn't. Early on I could identify with the saying "we thought we had found something different and we thought we found it in drugs". Eventually cocaine and other drugs became common place. My college career suffered tremendously but I was still a fairly respectable human being until opiates, mainly heroin took the stage. And from there my life became a horror story. Loads of consequences came as a result of my addiction. I dragged my loving and loyal parents along with me through the mess I created. Early on my family sent me to treatment at Hazelden in Minnesota. It is a large treament center located on beautiful grounds but I felt lost in the shuffle, almost like an ant in an ant farm. I had a good experience but never gained enough solution oriented knowledge to keep me clean & sober when I got back into the real world. From there I crawled through a few more depressing years of active addiction with several failed attempts at recovery. I tried phychiatrists & medications, geographic relocations, different jobs, visited some AA & NA meetings, but I continued to relapse again and again. Luckily at some point my brother found Spencer Recovery Center on the internet. He and my father flew me out to California in one last hope that I'd find recovery. Spencer Recovery's approach is different in that it is a drug & alcohol treatment center but in a real life setting. I recieved intense counseling which allowed me to sort out and work through my past. My counselor assisted me in taking that much needed "leap of faith" into a new life I had been running from for so long. The group therapy was smaller and more intimate than what I was accustomed to and that allowed me to share openly and freely with my peers. Spencer's scenic and relaxed location of Laguna Beach allowed for a holistic approach. The hour of beach time a day gave me an opportunity to get in touch with nature again, sort out my thoughts, and begin to discover some serenity. A big turning point for me was that I decided to continue with treatment after 28 days. In my 2nd and 3rd month I continued with counseling and groups, but I also choose to volunteer at the center a few hours of my day a few days a week. This helped to me keep busy and made me feel a "part of". All & all my experience at Spencer Recovery Center was exceptional. I gained the tools needed to get in recovery and stay in recovery. Today, I'm clean & sober and content, and that is a miracle.
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