HOLLY POND, Ala. – Trauma and addiction are two things that touch everyone in some way. It may be through a sister who is struggling with alcoholism, an incarcerated father or a single mother in an unspeakable position questioning how to feed her children. Life has a way of knowing when someone is down; as the adage claims, “When it rains it pours.” Addiction and trauma come in cycles, a fact Lisa Holmes is well aware of – a fact that led her to start a recovery group at her home church, Holly Pond United Methodist, following the national program, Celebrate Recovery.
Celebrate Recovery is a nationwide support program and is described on its website: “Celebrate Recovery is a biblically balanced approach to help bring sustainable recovery and healing to our hurts. It guides us toward new healthy truths and life-giving habits as we repair our broken relationships.” The idea is that hurt people hurt people, meaning people affected by trauma perpetuate that trauma and project it onto others.
Holmes appreciated the ideas behind Celebrate Recovery but longed for the support group’s name to reflect her feelings about the program.
“We changed our name and we’ve changed our format from Celebrate Recovery to C.O.R., or Celebrate Our Recovery, because it’s more than just a 12-step program. It’s a life, an all-time program,” she said. “This is a way you live the rest of your life – not just something you do in 12 steps – and you have to change your core. That’s where everything in our life starts, is in our core, in our heart, in our head. And if we don’t change the core, we can change our outside habits, but if the core doesn’t change, nothing’s going to change.”
Cultivating a welcoming environment is one of Holmes’ priorities, knowing that shame and being shunned are far too often attached to the stigma around addiction and traumatic situations such as domestic violence or trafficking.
Said Holmes, “I’ve come to realize that everybody, I don’t care who they are – male, female, rich, poor, middle class – they all have a hope, a habit or a hangup. Some people can’t go a day without gossiping. Some people can’t go a day without extreme anger. Some people can’t go a day without self-hate. People who have been in an abusive relationship, I’ve seen this go both male and female. Especially if you’re a male who’s been in that, there’s such a stigma that they shut out everybody. Because how can I go talk to God about the fact that I’m abused by my wife? Mentally or physically. I realized that everybody needs help.”
Helping comes naturally to Holmes, filling a void that addicts often lose through their struggles; Holmes replaces the village for them, making C.O.R. meetings a family event. Does the meeting fall during dinnertime? C.O.R. provides a meal along with a meeting. Childcare can be expensive, so Holmes and C.O.R. provide childcare for the duration of the meeting. Receiving support while trying to navigate sobriety, past trauma or even struggles of everyday life can be the difference in relapsing or flourishing mentally and physically.
Without support, Holmes understands how easy it can be to fall into depression and old habits.
“Everybody has some kind of depression,” she said. “It can be a loss of a job, it can be childbirth, it can be anything that can reel us into that depression state. We cut ourselves off from friends, family, everybody, and especially from God because we get all confused about it. That’s the one time we need to run toward God. We need to saturate ourselves with the word of God, with a prayer line, because that helps us to realize that even though my mental state right now is not where I want to be, I’m not alone.”
Celebrate Our Recovery meets every Tuesday night at 6 at Holly Pond United Methodist Church at 37861 Alabama Highway 91. Dinner and childcare are provided.
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