Freedom tastes like salt water and taffy. As a young adult, there is nothing more liberating than your first day trip to the beach. No patents, no curfew and three friends piled into the back of your car for your first road trip. Dolles stands as the big yellow welcome sign at the edge of the pier where I got my first taste of freedom. I don’t even really like taffy, but I remember the smell of the sweet candies mixed with the salty sea air as I burned my feet on the sun soaked old wooden walkway. To me, thriving is the sensation of experiencing freedom for the first time.
Dear Tully Hill,
I am an alumni of Tully Hill three times over. In 2002, I came as a sixteen-year-old club kid and was in NO WAY an addict. At age 22 I came only for detox and definitely was not going to quit drinking. Things got worse, so I sought treatment in Delray Beach and stayed in some frightening “sober homes.” At age 27, I was a miserable alcoholic who woke in the night to drink myself back asleep and quietly wished I would not wake back up. I spent a week at Crouse and then came to Tully Hill for the third time.
I have been sober since then, five years on the 25th of July.
I am more grateful for recovery than I can express here in words. I regularly think of Tully Hill and of the different women I was each time I came to you for help. Today, no one in my life would recognize them, but I have learned to love them all and carry them inside me. I don’t think I would be alive today if it weren’t for Tully Hill and the way your staff shepherded me through my disease’s progression and showed me kindness and love and a different way to live.
Again, thank you for my life and my sobriety. It is the best thing I have and the best thing about me.
Sincerely,
M. R.
Thank you M. R. for sharing your beautiful words with us. We hope that your sobriety story will inspire others to embark on their own recovery. Everyone deserves a life full of love and happiness. It brings us great joy to know that we have succeeded in our mission to provide the highest quality care for each patient and their families.
Please note that, whereas most if not all of our older blog posts do not have appropriate, non-stigmatizing language – i.e., substance use disorder in place of addiction and/or chemical dependency – all subsequent posts do and will retain language that avoids propagating negative stereotypes and biases through the use of slang and idioms.
Likewise, we have pledged to follow the guidelines set forth by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and that are conceptually and in general endorsed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASA), the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and other federal and state entities governing and regulating substance use disorder. We will therefore now use person-first language that respects the worth and dignity of all people; that focuses on the medical as well as clinical nature of substance use disorders and treatment; and that promotes the recovery process.
