Letters from grateful parents:

   Our family was blessed to have direction from Oklahoma Outreach as we stepped onto the road of recovery with our son. Our home had become a very hostile environment and our family had become a family we no longer recognized. The power of addiction was far stronger than our best thinking or actions. Our son was a minor and we were determined to intervene and get him to treatment. With the expertise and guidance of Oklahoma Outreach, we felt for the first time in months that there was help and hope. Hazelstreet treatment facility was the perfect place for our family to be directed. We will be eternally grateful. We learned there are no guarantees of continuous sobriety and relapse is common. Regardless, we have serenity because our son has been given tools to combat this disease for the rest of his life.

   After his treatment, we were relieved to enroll our son in the Sober High School for his continued support in recovery, rather than returning him to his home school. Oklahoma Outreach partnered with us prior to treatment, through treatment, and after treatment to support our son's and our family's recoveries.

   Two days after our son began treatment in Texas we attended the parents' support group. It was the best place we had been in months. We saw life, health, and laughter in the faces of other parents. We left there with renewed hope for our family. Our son's sobriety and recovery choice is his, but the help is there for the asking. We are fortunate that we asked and trusted.

From a gratefully hopeful Mom,

Karen, Edmond

   On May 3, 2006, my 16-year-old son, Chase, almost lost his life to drug and alcohol addiction. Today he is sober and in college. If you had told me in 2006 that he would be clean and sober today and enrolled in college, I
would not have believed you. I had lost hope.

   Chase started using drugs and alcohol at an early age. He was 12-years-old the first time I found him passed out drunk in his room. We began counseling immediately and I took him to his first AA meeting. I was no stranger to
alcoholism. This disease was common in my family. I was going to make sure it didn¹t happen to my son. I would control it.

   But I didn't control it. I couldn't. It did happen to my son. And it took him almost dying before I began to accept the truth- Chase needed help, ­ help I couldn't give him. What was I going to do? Everything I had tried had failed. All I knew to do was pray for help. It was obvious Chase needed treatment. But where? I was scared, scared I wouldn't find help. Scared Chase wouldn't survive. Scared I would make the wrong choices. This disease had stolen my peace, my relationship with my little boy, my hope for his future, my confidence in myself. I kept praying.  

   I wanted Chase to go to a place where I knew he would be safe and get the help he needed. Eventually I found that place. Chase went to a treatment facility in Texas that specializes in treating adolescents in recovery. He stayed for almost five months. It was difficult, but slowly life began to get better.

   When Chase was ready to come home from treatment I was still scared. Would he have the tools he needed from treatment to stay sober? What if he started using again? I kept moving through my fears with faith ­ "Trust the process" I was told. It worked . . . one day at a time we made it through. Chase attended Oklahoma Outreach Sober High School. He was able to transition back into the real world. In 2007, Chase graduated from the sober high school. He has since enrolled at Oklahoma State University where he finished his first semester with a 3.4. I am a proud Mom.  

   I have learned that each of us is on our own spiritual path. I am not responsible for my son's choices, nor is he responsible for mine. Chase worked hard on his recovery from chemical addiction. And I worked hard on mine from co-dependency. We could not have done what we did without the help of an incredible network of unsung heroes in the recovery community – many of them are involved with Oklahoma Outreach Foundation. With their help, Chase not only got  the treatment needed but he was given an opportunity to go to Oklahoma Outreach Sober High School on a scholarship offered through the Foundation. The school provided a transitional safety net for him after treatment – a place where he could get his education and know he had a better than average chance to maintain his sobriety. Oklahoma Outreach Foundation is saving lives - one at a time. 

   I remember when Chase was a young child my dream was that he would someday go to college. But as chemical addiction took over his body and our lives, I traded that dream for the simple hope that he would live. "Please God, just let him live." . . . Today my son is not only alive; he is sober and attending college. I credit his survival to many, but most of all I give credit to God, to Chase and to Oklahoma Outreach Foundation. I hope my story encourages others who are seeking help. There is hope.

Linda, Oklahoma City