Beyond The Shelter: Transformations in Faith and Recovery

After years of searching for a meaningful way to address addiction recovery and homelessness, we've rebranded our podcast to More Than a Shelter to better embody the mission of Gateway Rescue Mission. Today, we promise to guide you through our New Life program's unique approach, blending traditional 12-step methods with biblical principles. Joined by Forea Ford, our insightful Director of Programs, we unpack the daunting challenges participants face, such as co-occurring mental health disorders and the scars of childhood trauma. We also emphasize the critical role of faith, not just in personal transformation, but as a foundation for enduring recovery.

For more information about Gateway Rescue Mission, visit us online at https://gatewaymission.org/

Transcript

Gateway Mission's New Life Program

Rex Baker 0:00

I'm Rex Baker, the Executive Director of Gateway Rescue Mission, and in this episode today I want to discuss a change we're making with our podcast. We're changing the name of this podcast from "God After Dark to More Than a Shelter. The reason behind that is we're going to continue to share success stories from people who've gone through our addiction recovery programs. But we've noticed a lot of people don't fully understand all that we do at Gateway Rescue Mission. They think we're just a homeless shelter or just a soup kitchen. Now we do both those things. We serve hot meals, we offer shelter, but that's not all we do. So we're shifting to the title "More Than a Shelter, and this is because we want to highlight different issues on this podcast. We want to highlight different aspects of our ministry, sometimes discuss issues of interest in the nonprofit world, and today we'll start with a big part of our ministry at Gateway Rescue Mission and that is our New Life program.

Rex Baker 1:02

The New Life program is basically our addiction recovery program. It's a Bible-based six-month program where we offer men who are seeking to break free from addictions a place to do that. Joining me today to discuss our Gateway Rescue Mission New Life program is Forea Fori Ford, our director of programs. Forea, let's talk a little bit about the New Life program and what we want to accomplish, and a few notes here. It's a six-month residential, bible-based program for men seeking new direction in life. Men live at Gateway at no cost. We don't charge for the program. So take it away Forea and tell us what you're seeing these days with the people coming into the program.

Forea Ford 1:47

For the program, we are seeing a lot of people come in with mental health disorders. That's one of the main things that are co-occurring with addiction, with drugs, and part of that is how do we deal with that? I often say which came first, the chicken or the egg? When we look at the mental health disorders, a lot of the drugs that folks use they kind of exacerbate what's going on in their head. They would start to have hallucinations, they start to do a whole lot of things around that. We see a lot of schizophrenics, a lot of folks with bipolar disorders, along with the alcohol and drug situation. So we've seen a lot of that and I think I've been doing this maybe 30 years and I've seen a lot of trends that go about over the years and part of that is the mental health component is really really rampant.

Forea Ford 2:45

We look at our program as a holistic program, not just focusing on alcohol and drugs as sort of the tip of the iceberg.

Forea Ford 2:55

The other things are the underlying conditions that people have to deal with. Some of the trauma from childhood, some of the post-acute withdrawal symptoms they have to go through once they get the drugs out of their system. So a six-month program gives them enough time to clear their heads, get that out of the system and then we can assess where we need to go from there. Getting Christ involved. I love that because through him all things are possible. We know that. W e're Bible-based, but we also like to look at, what people often look at, is the 12-step model that's out there today and that's been out for a while. And I look at the 12-step model and we bring in the traditional 12 steps along with the biblical comparisons, the biblical principles and so we have the people that come through they can just recalibrate their lives to focus on Christ and to focus on getting into recovery.

Rex Baker 4:02

I really believe sometimes, particularly with the drugs we're seeing out there today, when you take an individual who's been doing crystal meth or heroin or whatever that is for a good while, addiction changes their brain. It takes that first six months or so just for the fog in the brain to lift. That even really before healing of the brain can actually begin you've got to get everything cleared out. So six months is a start toward that process and that's the length of our program. But I think one of the things that I'd like for us to comment on here is the typical church answers, and I don't mean this in a critical way, but a lot of times in church we kind of put forth this idea if you have a problem, if you will just pray, turn it over to Jesus, then the problem will go away and you know case solved and you move on. But that's just the first step in dealing with an addiction.

Forea Ford 5:02

You're correct with that, when we look at how they turn their lives over to Christ. That's one of the things and we do that because that's the first step in getting their lives together is recognizing they've got a problem, they turn it over to God and then they move forward. And that's basically what the 12 steps is about. That's why we incorporate biblical principles within the 12 steps. You have to realize you got a problem first, that's getting through your denial. You have to realize you're powerless over that and something outside of you can help you with that.

Forea Ford 5:40

Now a lot of churches have looked at in the past and I think they're getting better with this today in accepting 12-step programs that come within the church, something like Celebrate Recovery, because it has a biblical focus. But they've looked at it and they've said well, "you give everything to Christ, everything will be fine. I'm a Christian, I know that, but everything ain't fine in my life. There are certain things I have to work on, you know, and he don't want you just doing it yourself. You have to call Him into that. So part of what we do with our 12-step program and with our model that we have and you know it's a model that we kind of created and we know that works for our population. We put that together and the men seem to do really well with that. And once they clear up and they can understand the basic concepts that we're trying to get and we guide them through that, mentor them through the process, quote disciple them through the process they do real well.

Rex Baker 6:48

What are some things that you see from the men who come into our program that you know everybody's different, but there are certain kind of scenarios that we see play out a lot. What are some of those that you see?

Forea Ford 6:58

Basically, I can say that the majority of the men that come through our program have had some type of childhood trauma. That's one of the main things we look at, some type of childhood trauma. They've had neglect. They've had trust issues growing up. Some of them have been abused, not only physically and emotionally, but some of them have been sexually abused.

Rex Baker 7:21

They don't talk about that a lot, but that's a factor with a good many of these guys.

Forea Ford 7:27

That's a factor and we deal with that. We talk to them about that and some of them are very open. Some of them are closed with it. But once they get this out and you put it out on the table and they look at it through the steps that we work with them, then they can understand that a lot of times it's not their fault that they're the way that they are. But they have to take accountability. That's what we teach, accountability. Yeah, you may have had a horrific childhood, but it's your responsibility on how you deal with it from this day forward. You have to take accountability. You can't act out on your stuff. You've got to be able to deal with it, and a lot of it, like you say, you turn it over to Christ, but a lot of it you deal with it, the day-to-day walking in that.

Forea Ford 8:11

I've seen six months work pretty good. Traditional program 30 days, 45 days, 90 days. I've seen those. I've been a part of those. Those don't work as well as I think the six month. Sometimes the year program works better. Getting people, these men, to open up, to trust you, to talk about their issues and to understand what role the alcohol and drugs played in it, because, what a lot of them are doing is they're trying to medicate the pain. Childhood trauma, the things that go on, always equal emotional pain and what addicts do and what most people do, they want to medicate their pain. So people find different ways to do that. Very often these folks would do it with alcohol and drugs, with gambling, with all kinds of addictions. That's how the addictions come in and the most part, from the drugs that we have today, like the crystal meth and all of that, they change the brain chemistry, so much you know? They change the brain up. It takes a long time for the healing process. So we'll mentor them through that. We'll walk with them through that.

Rex Baker 9:27

Talk about the maturity level of the guys coming in. I mean sort of like having puppies around you. One minute they're cute and cuddly and the next minute they've deposited something on the floor and you got to go clean it up.

Forea Ford 9:46

You know the rule of thumb, the way I was taught, is these that you start using drugs or doing that is the time you stop maturing. The maturation process gets put on hold and people don't have the emotional responses to life normally that they should have. So you'll find you have grown men who act like pre-teenagers. They act like 12, 13 year old kids and their emotional response to life is like that. You tell them no and they throw hissy fits. Part of that is you have to understand that. That's a big part of how we have to deal with it, because everybody is different and you have to have the I guess, the fortitude or the patience to work with them through that and a lot of people don't, because they are grown men and they act like kids and they look grown but they're not.

Forea Ford 10:40

So getting them to kind of get clear of the alcohol and drugs, get clear of all of that, and then beginning to understand that they have to take personal responsibility and accountability for their recovery and their progress

Rex Baker 10:54

Traditionally, if you go back 100 years ago, or let's say, to Jackson in the late 40s, when Gateway Rescue Mission first opened, you had a generation of people who had been through the Great Depression, they had fought World War II, so they might end up sleeping on the bench at the train station in Jackson, but they had a background of structure where they had some work ethic and all that sort of thing.

Rex Baker 11:24

Sometimes I think one of the things we sort of wrestle with in Christian-based recovery programs today is there's still some of that model that holds over into it and we think, well, if we just, you know, get them doing some chores and go to chapel a little bit and you know, a few days later we can patch them up. But today we're dealing with a generation of people who didn't fight World War II. They didn't go through the Depression. A lot were exposed to drugs as 10 and 11 year olds and started getting into it. So yeah, they come to us basically as emotional children.

Forea Ford 12:06

They do. One of the things we do see is a lot of them come out of homes that don't have fathers. That's one of the key things we look at and to have that fatherhood piece. It's missing. Some of them didn't have that, so they didn't have the foundation, they didn't have the structure, they didn't have all of that growing up. It may have been a single parent family. The mother may have been out working two jobs and the kids are at home alone, and then they get caught up and that's where a lot of the gang activity come up, because the gang becomes a surrogate family for them and the fathers are not there. So they don't know how to be men. They don't know how to take responsibility and to work with the work ethic, and that's what a good father would teach them. H ow to do that and to have structure, work ethic, and that's what a good father would teach them how to do that and to have structure. So what we do? We provide the structure. We have men there myself and some of the other staff who try to, and I guess we step in as surrogate parents for them. That's how we mentor them through that process.

Forea Ford 13:09

And I've seen that and it's a generational thing, and part of that is getting them to not only understand that you love them. That's what we teach them. We do love them, but if they don't have trust and they find it very hard. I f they don't have trust in us, they find it very hard to trust a God they can't see, and that's another part of the piece of the puzzle. So it's a lot that goes on in our treatment center, this treatment component that we have, and the Bible-based component, all of that. And we have to get them to where they understand that if they give their lives to Christ, then that's the beginning of their recovery. That's the beginning of their healing. That's the beginning of their journey. That they can move forward.

Rex Baker 13:53

One thing that we see a lot, and I'm sure we're not the only recovery program that deals with this, but people will come in, they'll say "I want to join the program, I'm tired of being sick and tired and all that sort of thing, but they look at it like "I'm going to go through this six-month program and I'm going to get cured and so when six months is over, I get my certificate and now I can go back home and I can hang out with the boys" or their old buddies because they're cured now. And then they get back with the old buddies and have a drink or smoke and it's back off to the races a lot of times.

Forea Ford 14:37

Relapse is very high with our population that we're dealing with. We're dealing with people coming out of prison, people coming off the streets, people coming their parents have brought them and the relapse is high and that's part of what we teach them. They have to change their people, places and things. That's basic. So not going back to that environment is key, and finding a new path is another that they have to do. We want them to understand that when they go back, it's almost we talk about a verse in the Bible that talks about like a dog returning to its vomit. That's what we teach them. If you go back, that's what it is. So you have to change all of that. You have to become not only change your recovery process, but you become a new man in Christ. You change your new creation. So not going back to that environment, not going back to that lifestyle, is going to be key. Changing your identity in Christ is part of what we have to do and we teach them that.

Rex Baker 15:38

When you've got a guy for six months in your New Life program, Forea, what do you want to accomplish in that person? Because he can't do everything in that time, but what do you want to leave them with when they graduate?

Forea Ford 15:51

Well, the first thing is for them to understand that they can't go back to that behavior. They can't go back to the alcohol and drugs and they have to find a new way to live and we prayerfully, prayerfully, want them to find Christ and to be men of God. I know that's a big, tall order, but one of the things I always say this I want them to have an encounter with God while they're at Gateway. If they have that encounter, a true encounter, it's going to change them. Now, will they go out and succeed? Will all of them go out and succeed? No, but they will know who God is and they can call on Him somewhere down the line. If they fall, if they go back, they know that there's a way out. They know that there's a way, a different way they can do this.

Rex Baker 16:38

You said this earlier, when we first started, and I want to go back to it. You've been doing this a long time. What's different today from 25, 30 years ago, when you were getting into this line of work?

Forea Ford 16:51

You look at it, I think the mental health piece is big. I know I keep saying that, but it's so prevalent. It's huge. I've not seen that before. Years ago you could get somebody clean, sober and their brains would be kind of functional. E ven if they had some other type of mental health disorder, once you remove the alcohol and drugs out of the system, and give them some time for the brain to heal up a little bit, they become functional, rational individuals. Today it's totally different. I mean, the drugs destroy the brain. It really does. It destroys it, so it takes a long time for it to heal. We often tell them "look, you're not going to always get back to 100% of what you were before you started using, but, man, if you can get back to 75%, god bless you.

Rex Baker 17:45

So when you look in our world today, we may have someone listening to this podcast several months from now, from the day we're recording it, but most families, or at least a lot of families, have been impacted by addiction. A child, a spouse, a parent, a sibling that struggles with "fill-in-the-blank. What would you say, Forea, to somebody out there listening who has a family member who is dealing with an addiction and they're kind of going through that thing right now.

Forea Ford 18:24

Well, the first thing I would tell them is that there is hope. There are programs that you can send your folks to to get the help. I would tell them to do a lot of praying. F irst of all, you do the praying and there's always hope. We have a gentleman that had been in prison 42 years. 42 years, and went in when he was young, he was ex-military when he was young. Got out and he came to us. We accepted him in our program and he's done real well since he's been out. He's been out about three years. He's got him a car. He's got him a job. He's doing you know those kind of things and when you see that, you understand that there's always hope, no matter how old you are. He's in his 70s but there's hope for him. So that's what I would tell folks. Addiction is a strange animal. There are many, many addictions. People might not even look at them that way, but I'll tell you, if you got your cell phone and you leave it at home, do you go back to get your cell phone?

Rex Baker 19:37

Oh, absolutely. Can't function without it.

Forea Ford 19:40

You can't function, but there were times when you didn't have a cell phone that you could function. But some people, and that's where the addiction comes in. So we're living in an addiction society. There's so many. You're addicted to social media platforms. You're addicted to your cell phone. You're addicted to foods or sugar. It's all over. So the brain is primed for addiction. It's kind of what that person choose to put in and how quickly they self-destruct is what we look at. So if addicted, switch it out, get addicted to Jesus.

Rex Baker 20:15

I told my wife last night that I'm absolutely addicted to a little word find program that I look up online and play it on my phone. You know probably more than I should.

Forea Ford 20:28

So we all have some forms of addiction in our lives. It's just some of them are much worse than others and some of them cover up so many deep-seated problems that we have and I like for people to get to where they could talk to somebody about those problems. We got an excellent counselor at work that she listens to these men every day and they talk about their problems, their deep, deep problems that they have, and so I think we have a real well-rounded, holistic program that we have. Gateway Rescue Mission New life program for Men.

Rex Baker 21:04

It's easy sometimes, or tempting or our tendency maybe, to look at the failures, to look at the people out on the street corners that are under the influence of drugs, let's just put it like that, and most of them are out there.

Rex Baker 21:20

I don't want to paint everybody with that same brush, but it is drugs that is driving a lot of probably the majority of what you're seeing in the current homeless situations. We also get the joy of looking at people every day and you see where God's brought them since the day they came to Gateway Rescue Mission and where they are now, and it's like "wow, and I have to realize that I really didn't do that. You know God did it. We can give them a place to stay and some food and preach at them a little bit, but it's God that does the changing, and just watching that process is a beautiful thing. So, Forea Ford, our Director of Programs at Gateway Rescue Mission, thank you very much for joining us on this episode of "More Than a Shelter and I want to thank all of you for listening. So until we meet again, may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace.