There are no excuses in recovery

Michael’s world was surrounded by alcohol addiction for 20 years, and he was weighed down by down by suicidal and violent thoughts. But everything changed two years ago, thanks to an unexpected detour.

Coming from a very difficult background, Michael first found alcohol at the age of 14. He describes his life as chronically lonely, painful and filled with anger.

“I was reliant on alcohol, so it was just constant alcohol use. If there were drugs available, I’d take them as well,” Michael says.

Michael had called a friend to give him a lift home. His plan was to stop off at a bottle shop on the way home – and then hang himself. But his friend took a sudden detour on the way home to The Salvation Army’s Townsville Recovery Services Centre.

“I was sitting out in the waiting area to get a lift home. Next minute, my friend came out with this man and she said ‘You’re staying’.”

Michael recalls those first few hours at the rehab centre. “I didn’t know what I was doing, where I was or what was going on. I was ushered in to a dining room and this lady came up and handed me a plate of food. I said ‘I don’t know what to do’. And she looked at me and she just said ‘Eat. That’s all that you have to worry about’. So that’s what I did.”

Michael stayed in the program for five months, but due to circumstances he walked out. He immediately found himself back in his old habits, and he drank for two weeks straight.

“I went back to the rehab and sat out the front and I just waited for them to take me back in because I had nothing left. The staff were exactly the same and they asked me if I’d learnt something.”

Michael stayed in the program for another five months, this time successfully completing the program well before the recommended 10 months.

“When people in recovery are in rehab, they’re looking for any excuse to go back to what they know, because they don’t know anything else,” he explains. “The Salvation Army did not give me an excuse to leave.”

Now, more than two years sober, Michael is working as a part-time support worker at Townsville Recovery Services.

“Today, I don’t worry about much at all. I don’t worry about anything and I pray about everything,” he says. “Now I try to help others find freedom from addiction, just as The Salvation Army helped me to find freedom from mine.”

“I could never repay The Salvation Army for what they did for me”.