An autonomous community of self-supporting peers in recovery from addiction
Beach House Recovery is an unconventional, twelve step drug and alcohol recovery community for men located on the beautiful shores of Brunswick County, North Carolina. WE ARE NOT a medical detox or professional rehabilitation center. We offer an alternative faith-based approach with a unique commitment to self-support and fair labor standards. THIS IS NOT another work therapy or fundraising program and WE NEVER use uncompensated labor or social service benefits. We represent a counter movement based on fair wages, ethical reform and affordable housing. Our limited liability company is NCARR certified, our outreach is 501c3 registered, and our hybrid organization is commercially insured
Sober Living Community
Addiction, at heart, is an illness of the human spirit. No single treatment approach has proven entirely effective. It’s an unsatisfied urge for something elusive. Thirsty people eventually drink. We find the solution involves an authentic experience unique to each individual. It’s an inside job. Recovery is a personal adventure and our approach is to provide an environment favorable to spiritual growth. We must, in effect, address the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Quite simply, an awakened spirit doesn’t need a drink.
Cookie-cutter treatment is a possible barrier to spiritual progress. The dominance of the indentured worker model represents the materialistic nature of today’s one-size-fits-all approach. The popularity of generic curriculum and impersonal dogma offer a one dimensional response to a complex challenge. Having no personal experience with the problem, many seek to moralize or peddle in academic theories about the solution.
In contrast, we believe that cases of chronic addiction represent an individualized strain of a personal illness that’s developed resistance to medication and therapy. The substance-based symptom hides a person-based sickness that’s seldom understood and rarely addressed. Recurring bursts of “clean time” ranging from mere months to a year or more is often the natural progression of a cyclical illness. “Success rates” are notoriously misleading and diminish rapidly with time. Substance abuse is the symptom and relapse is the result of treating symptoms.
Recovery, we’ve found, is a by-product of spiritual living. In short, we believe our Creator seeks a conscious contact with each and every one of us. This was the function of the original twelve steps. Not something we believe, but something we experience. Our staff encourage something other than an interest in therapy or doctrine, we seek to initiate a personal relationship with God through sustained action. It’s a thoroughly different approach. This is not another short term, look-alike recovery course on religion. It’s a rare opportunity for practical application. There are no workbooks, academics or graduations. Only a spiritual awakening as the result of the process. We know this involves action and more action. In fact we’re steadily more convinced, faith without works is dead.
The Beach Recovery movement (501c3 #83-0960683) is dedicated to the awareness and reform of a widespread predatory system that financially preys on the public sympathy, nutrition benefits and uncompensated labor of those stranded without options in a period of vulnerability. No matter how skillfully they package or present it, exploitation of susceptible families for personal power and organizational gain is the new status quo and the primary barrier to stability and success for those seeking recovery.
Whether you are dealing with alcohol abuse, opioid addiction, or systemic exploitation within the unpaid worker movement, Beach House Recovery will work alongside of you to develop an ethical solution. Contact us to start your recovery journey.
Addiction, Relapse and the Mystery of Recovery
What takes place at Beach House Recovery is fundamentally different from anything you’ll find in a traditional organization. From the founder to our pastor, the counselor to the latest arrival, we are fellow students of a shared experience in recovery that binds us. Most of us sought refuge from the exploitation of bait and switch addiction centers and found a community with each other. Self-support was our ticket to financial freedom and self-governance our path to personal independence.
Together we believe our distinctive approach is practical: those given opportunities to prosper in an open society with an abundance of proven success and authentic leaders will emulate the behavior they observe and flourish. In contrast, men sequestered with other repressed men in an authoritarian environment will mirror poverty and frustration. We know from personal experience: life in early recovery without fair compensation and independent employment left us broke, homeless and unprepared for life. Separation from the twelve step community left us further isolated and alone.
You can find more than a dozen alumni of our community that continue to reside on campus and focus on what they can pack into the stream of life. All practice self support and lead by example rather than by authority. Like the organization itself they live within their means, ask nothing of society and take personal responsibility for their existence. Surrounded by a worldwide recovery fellowship, they participate rather than isolate and cooperate rather than criticize. Today they represent a fellowship that serves, rather than solicits, the local economy.
The Beach House Recovery model of self support and fair labor standards was designed as the antithesis of the traditional fundraising center. We believe that funding yourself is the most effective means by which to restore dignity, honor financial obligations and foster a personal stake in your own recovery. The following pages will challenge everything you know about addiction recovery and the organizations that claim to promote it.
God Shows Up When I’m Done With Me
When I first sought treatment way back in the early 90’s, I had no clue what I was up against or the humiliating cycle of crushing defeats that were to follow. Unfortunately, when I arrived at treatment for the 14th time in March of 2008 I was none the wiser. I couldn’t put my finger on the problem.
Each recovery center along the way had a reasonable explanation, a slightly different emphasis and a plausible new solution:
Was it a case of physical dependence? Yes. Maybe an example of chemical imbalance? True. Probably a psychological complex? Of course. A product of my environment? Agreed. Just a sinner in need of God? Right again.
There was an element of truth in every theory I heard. They were all fine people with good intentions and sensible explanations. Each theory plausible, yet each theory incomplete. Seems I was born with an itch i can’t scratch.
So I did the only thing a man in my position could possibly do:
I detoxed at the request of the physicians. I repeatedly accepted treatment. I swallowed endless pills to satisfy the psychiatrists. Endured countless sessions at the insistence of therapists. Changed people, places and things to satisfy the counselors. Attended thousands of recovery meetings with dozens of sponsors. And spent more time crying at the altar than singing in the pew.
And the conclusion?
Well at age 35 I clung to life in another emergency room hooked to another ventilator after another major overdose bracing for one more detox. My fugitive life at the homeless shelter was over. There were felony warrants. I begged God to let me die. And it wasn’t just the reality that I wasn’t getting any better, it was the undeniable truth that I WAS GETTING WORSE, EXPONENTIALLY WORSE!
I was removed from life support on St Patrick’s day of 2008 and I haven’t put a chemical in my body since. Yes, I know it’s impossible to get from there to here, but by the grace of God I’ve found myself beyond 15 years of sobriety. But not JUST sober, I’ve been rendered unthirsty. I’ve fully recovered from the only illness that ever left me better than it found me! You see the thought of dope hasn’t crossed my mind in as many years, I lost interest in alcohol and I have a life that’s second to none. None of which I deserve, for none I take credit.
How?
In 2008 I was introduced to a course of action that changed me from the inside out. The process transformed an illness that used to occupy my body. Not a program for self help, but a program for self abandonment. And I lost myself over the next year immersed in other-centered thoughts and actions. I discovered a passion for working with others. Once helpless myself, I was divinely crafted to reach those like me. My sponsor called this selfless service. We placed the welfare of others ahead of our own. God received all the credit.
Some things are certain. We are divinely called to this — the dance. No one enters alone. The price of admission is to bring someone with you. Right now an invitation has fallen into your hands.
The prescription for healing me calls for helping you.
