Celebrate Recovery
My Experience with Celebrate Recovery
By
Leonardo Martinez
After considering all of the recovery support program options to choose from I attended a Celebrate Recovery (or CR as they call it) meeting in Concord. The first thing that I noticed was that, while they are scattered throughout Northern California, the meetings were usually on a single day of the week in one city location – that is Concord only had Thursday nights, and Castro Valley only Wednesday nights, etc. The meetings are also unbelievably long, three hours in some cases. Being that I had already attended Life Ring and a slew of other 12 step options I was expecting the same format in CR and was trying to figure out what could possibly take two to three hours to complete and keep all while keeping an addict’s attention. Needless to say my curiosity was sparked.
Due to my busy schedule I was about 20 minutes late to the meeting but I was greeted with an unforced greeting in a whispered tone, as there was a man on a microphone speaking. “Joe is up, take a seat,” a gray-haired gentleman gurgled in a whisper. I told him that I was a newcomer and he assured me that I would be briefed on the routine as soon as “Joe” was done doing whatever he was doing. Upon taking my seat – decorated with a colorful pamphlet displaying the crucifixes on Calvary – a man on the verge of tears discussed “The Top 7 Reasons Why We Get Stuck in Recovery.” The two widescreen projection screens illuminated the reasons one by one and Joe (with the magic marker written designation upon his chest) quoted scripture and shared his personal stories as to how they relate to the topic. An occasional “Amen” or “yes indeed” resonated from unknown sources but the peaceful faces seated in stadium seating all bit their lower lips while exhibiting accepting head nods in unison. All the while I was more concerned about my anticipated briefing as I had a feeling of not belonging and dreaded the speaker calling on me to speak since I was
By
Leonardo Martinez
After considering all of the recovery support program options to choose from I attended a Celebrate Recovery (or CR as they call it) meeting in Concord. The first thing that I noticed was that, while they are scattered throughout Northern California, the meetings were usually on a single day of the week in one city location – that is Concord only had Thursday nights, and Castro Valley only Wednesday nights, etc. The meetings are also unbelievably long, three hours in some cases. Being that I had already attended Life Ring and a slew of other 12 step options I was expecting the same format in CR and was trying to figure out what could possibly take two to three hours to complete and keep all while keeping an addict’s attention. Needless to say my curiosity was sparked.
Due to my busy schedule I was about 20 minutes late to the meeting but I was greeted with an unforced greeting in a whispered tone, as there was a man on a microphone speaking. “Joe is up, take a seat,” a gray-haired gentleman gurgled in a whisper. I told him that I was a newcomer and he assured me that I would be briefed on the routine as soon as “Joe” was done doing whatever he was doing. Upon taking my seat – decorated with a colorful pamphlet displaying the crucifixes on Calvary – a man on the verge of tears discussed “The Top 7 Reasons Why We Get Stuck in Recovery.” The two widescreen projection screens illuminated the reasons one by one and Joe (with the magic marker written designation upon his chest) quoted scripture and shared his personal stories as to how they relate to the topic. An occasional “Amen” or “yes indeed” resonated from unknown sources but the peaceful faces seated in stadium seating all bit their lower lips while exhibiting accepting head nods in unison. All the while I was more concerned about my anticipated briefing as I had a feeling of not belonging and dreaded the speaker calling on me to speak since I was