Heroin Addiction, Behavorial Health Services, ParkCare
“Five years ago I had compiled mounds of regrets and bad decisions. I was no longer the athletic and smart girl or daughter and friend I had once been. Today I am most grateful to St. John’s Riverside Hospital for not only saving my life (as I would surely be dead if I had not come here) but for giving my family back their daughter and granddaughter. For that, I am forever indebted and it inspires me to work on my recovery wholeheartedly.
Hailing from Mount Pleasant, Adrienne was a talented athlete and National Honor Society student at a local Catholic high school when she first started experimenting with pot. During her first couple of years at college she became more dependent on drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and eventually heroin. By 19, she had dropped out of college, been arrested multiple times and demolished three cars. But today, that is all history. After five years she is drug-free and focused on her goal of heading to law school after graduating from a leading NYC university with her Masters in Criminology.
“Five years ago I had compiled mounds of regrets and bad decisions. I was no longer the athletic and smart girl or daughter and friend I had once been. Today I am most grateful to St. John’s Riverside Hospital for not only saving my life (as I would surely be dead if I had not come here) but for giving my family back their daughter and granddaughter. For that I am forever indebted and it inspires me to work on my recovery wholeheartedly. Once I complete my law degree I plan on giving back to those in similar situations headed from central booking on drug charges and clueless about how to get their lives back on track. I hope to be every bit the inspiration my counselors were to me.”
From the administrators to the security guards, Adrienne was always respected as a person who could get better with time and help. She was never dismissed as an addict incapable of recovery. As a group they are non-judgmental and they completely respected patient confidentiality under all circumstances. She especially credits her amazing counselors and mentors for genuinely understanding her plight because they had been there and had risen above their addiction to receive an education and accreditations in order to guide and inspire others. This was a major difference she found at St. John’s Riverside Hospital versus other treatment centers. “At St. John’s Riverside Hospital I really fit in. They got me; I mean truly got me and the problems I was struggling with.”
For Adrienne, there is no doubt life is getting better at St. John’s Riverside Hospital.
When Adrienne speaks about this experience she recalls it was not easy nor did she have success on her own. She tried other treatment facilities in Westchester multiple times before she found St. John’s Riverside Hospital’s Park Care facility. Once she arrived she felt she was with the right “family” for working her program. Some might think that odd coming from a middle class, well educated honor student from Westchester, but there was something of a true kinship or “Brothers-in-Arms feeling that we were all in this together”- as she describes it at St. John’s Riverside Hospital.