The next stop was a halfway house. It was a halfway house that was a part of the Cove. In this house there were 30 women. As someone who had never really enjoyed a huge circle of female companionship, I was completely overwhelmed to say the least.
Once I arrived at the Cove halfway house, I was greeted with my new counselor, Amy. For the duration of my stay there, I would be meeting with Amy on a regular basis. Amy, as it turns out, was the wife of a pastor at a Lutheran Church. While everyone else looked at me as if I was fake or delusional when I spoke about how I was solely leaning on God for recovery, she was the only one who actually understood and believed that my heart was sincere. There were so many people I had told along the way that I wanted to change my ways by blanketing myself in the Lord.
As the weeks progressed at the halfway house, I came to learn that if you follow the rules, do what you’re supposed to do, accomplish your goals and participate in the groups and your treatment plan, you are allowed to earn privileges. Some of these privileges are to leave the house for a certain number of hours, go on outings, leave with visitors or go to an outside service for religious activities such as church.
I surprisingly exceeded my own expectations as well as my counselors. The entire length of my stay I remained engaged and compliant with the entirety of the program. After about one month I had established enough rapport to be able to go to the Catholic Mass on both Saturdays and Sundays. I also earned the privilege to walk down to the local prayer garden to say the rosary with the local community and congregation on Wednesdays and was able to volunteer at the Catholic Church for events.
Just like at the Cove, I spent a great deal of my time alone, writing, journaling, listening to music, reading and in prayer. At about the two month mark I did something that no other client in the history of that halfway house had done.