We sincerely thank the young people and the parents who have shared the following testimonials about their experience with The Crossroads Program. Please click here if you would like to submit your story to help others who may view this Website in the future. Our daughter was not one of those rebellious, combative, “bad” kids. In her junior year of high school we were aware that she was occasionally drinking and smoking pot, but we chalked the behavior up to experimental “rights of passage”. After all, she wasn’t doing anything we didn’t do as teenagers. By her senior year in high school, unknown to us, she had added cocaine to her repertoire, and marijuana use was almost daily. During her freshman year at the University of Missouri, the other dorm residents that shared her proclivity for smoking weed found each other like magnets. Of course, the escalation of daily pot and doing coke on weekends and evenings led to mediocre grades the first semester and flunking out by the end of second semester. In the meantime, an overnight emergency room incident for LSD-induced psychosis led to our awareness that her drug use was way beyond an occasional joint. After several promises to quit and many failed attempts to pass drug tests, we finally gave her the “big choice” – the streets on her own, or rehab. She was adamantly against rehab. There is no more horrible time in the life of a parent than the terror of contemplating what will happen when you force your child out to the streets, with no resources and few life skills. But we willed ourselves to a firm ultimatum. She chose rehab. Finally, we had her in the clear. We could breathe again. After research, and a major depletion of our life savings, we flew her out west to one of the "best rehabs in the country". She spent four weeks there, and we spent one week there as well for family group therapy. She was superficially compliant with the program. Why not? Beautiful grounds, fabulous food, recreation, celebrity life style, and more drama than daytime TV. Unfortunately, the truth was she still had no personal commitment or desire to become sober. I am now convinced this type of rehab is probably not an effective treatment for most teenagers. Her first week back home, she tested positive for cocaine on Thanksgiving Day. The disappointment and desperation was almost overwhelming. We again gave her the rehab-or-the-street choice, and reluctantly, she succumbed to the pressure. The next day, we drove the two hours to Crossroads in St Louis. She was high on coke. We basically turned her over to the counselor there and left. We did not have high expectations. Meanwhile, back in Columbia, the local Crossroads Parent Group provided us with enough direction, testimony, and caring argument to convince us to let the process work. For most parents it is not easy or intuitive to let go. The parent group basic education is critical. While in IOP, our daughter became a couch kid with two other more advanced Crossroads girls in their St Louis apartment. Her entire social structure of sober activities was organized by the Crossroads members and counselors. The group provides virtually a 24/7 safety-net of bonding, encouragement, monitoring, love, counseling, and pressure to succeed - all from the kids themselves. The kids in the program sometimes look a little rough, they all smoke cigarettes, they often act wild and crazy, may have purple hair or rings in their noses, but you will find they are all very positive and absolutely wonderful to talk to. Our daughter has not touched drugs or alcohol since joining Crossroads (16 months at this point). She now has a fulltime job and is financially independent. She shares a rental in St Louis with other Crossroads kids. She is busy, happy, healing psychologically, and maturing emotionally. She has become a whole person. She sees other Crossroads grads eventually leave the protective fold to successful independence and can see herself eventually doing so as well. She has started to believe in herself. Why is Crossroads superior to other adolescent treatment programs? The answer is really simple - ongoing support. The support offered by Crossroads is not limited to the kids either. There is ongoing support for parents and other family members, including spouses and grandparents. Our family has had two kids go through the Crossroads treatment program. For the past four plus years, we have needed support from staff and sponsors regarding substance abuse issues as well as issues about daily living when such issues are clouded by the effects of the substance abuse and the abusers on a whole family. We are grateful for all the support we have received as a family and for the fact that, even though the kids have graduated and moved on in their sober lives, the phone messages are still returned and the support is still there for the kids and their family members when new issues arise. Thanks Crossroads!! This letter is for people who are interested in this program and are looking for some help. We got involved with the program about three years ago. It still seems hard to believe how quickly the time has passed. At that time in our lives we were in a state of limbo. We knew we needed to do something, but we were not sure what to do. Our child was in three other recovery programs and successfully stayed straight while in them. After they ended it usually took a few days to a couple of weeks before he was back doing the drug he loved. During his time in recovery programs we attended alanon meetings and developed a new direction of gaining back our own lives, no matter what our son was going to do to his life. At some point when we let him back in the house, we received a call from one of the counselors to see if we wanted to meet with him. WE said sure, because the only thing we had to lose was our time. After a couple of meetings our son agreed to meet the same counselor, of course he was reluctant and went because of our duress. During this time we saw the slip back starting again. WE told the addict in our life that if he was to stay in our house; he had to choose a program and work it. In time he did choose crossroads. In time he did go into outpatient. Not the perfect patient there was a minor incident, but that was quickly corrected. Part of the problem was us, not doing all the things the counselors told us. To make a long story short, he did get sober in the program, and has been now for almost three years. I firmly believe it is the unending dedication of the group of counselors who are involved in this program, and the unique support system that is part of the program that made this possible. Can I say that this will happen to every young adult who goes into crossroads? Well no, because addiction is a tough cookie. But I can say from my heart that I have not seen any finer place where I would spend my money to help my child. Thank You Crossroads This is a message for fathers who are beginning to suspect to that their child has a problem with substance abuse. I was where you are three years ago and hope that I can share some of my experience to make your next few years easier to handle. Although I didn't accept that my son had a problem with substance abuse until he was 17 years old, I now know that the problem began much earlier. I also know that my wife's sensitivity and intuition was, for the most part, correct. She had picked up the warning signs much earlier and was also much more willing to accept that we had a problem. We are a solid family, active in church, community, school, scouts, etc... We have successfully raised a daughter who is married and has two wonderful toddlers. My wife and I are both professionals, involved in education for many years. We thought we knew what we were doing in raising children. It was perhaps the self-assurance that we were doing everything right that caused me to resist so strongly and for such a long time the idea that our son could be abusing mind changing chemicals. Early in our journey, we turned to professional counselors and our pastors for guidance. We wish we had received earlier and more forthright guidance from our son's school. There seems to be reluctant on the part of high school educators to come to grips with the extent of the problem and its seriousness. We had great support from our family, but what it all came down to was that problems of adolescent drug abuse are beyond the scope of practice of most counselors, pastors, teachers, and family members. As I look back and it now, given what I knew then, I would not have done anything differently; I just wish I knew then what I know now. Most of my useful education came attending lectures by Bob Meehan, and reading several good books on the subject, including Meehan's Yellow Brick Road. There are other good books that I will be happy to suggest later, but for this first communication that is aimed just at fathers who have not yet come to grips with what they are up against, the bottom line is that I strongly encourage you to get involved in one of the Crossroads parents' groups as soon as you possibly can. Contact the Crossroads office and meet with a counselor. Even if your child is not yet in the program, you can begin to learn what you're up against from other parents who have already been down the road that you are just beginning to travel. What you're going through now does not need to be as frightening and frustrating and saddening as it is. Meet and talk with other fathers who are just as competent and as loving as you, who have had the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes and from the mistakes and triumphs of those of us who have gone before. I typically attend the meeting on Thursday night. They are excellent, and full of caring and resourceful parents who will be happy to listen and share. I look forward to meeting you sometime soon. By the age of 16, I had been kicked out of my house for refusing to stop using drugs and alcohol. I had been a consistent user for nearly 5 years at this point, and I truly was in love with drugs. I don't think I would have ever gotten sober had it not been for Crossroads. The group provided for me something that I never thought I could find without using some kind of drug. It was fun. That was so powerful to me. I ended up going through IOP and, strangely enough (I never thought that I would ever be saying this) it was the most fun that I have ever had. I learned how to stay sober, but most importantly, I learned to enjoy life... sober. It has been nearly 7 years now, and I am truly grateful for all the blessings that are in my life as the result of working the 12 steps. I love my family, friends, and my relationship with G.O.D. I Love you all. I started using alcohol and drugs at the age of 12. During my using I maintained above average grades, and my commitments in most of my extra-curricular activities. Meanwhile, my family life was becoming non-existent, and weekly visits to a counselor consisted of me sitting in silence for an hour, and a yelling match with my mom on the way home. If a question about me using drugs & alcohol came up, I quickly referenced my 3.8 GPA and that I never came home past my curfew. While it appeared to everyone else I was experiencing "normal teenage problems,” I was slowly deteriorating behind a front, entertaining suicidal thoughts, and feelings, and becoming more and more anti-social. My drug and alcohol abuse went from Friday and Saturday nights to almost daily using. When a family member, my brother, decided to reach out to me and offer me help, most everyone, including my parents, counselors, and teachers, were shocked to hear I had been drinking and smoking pot consistently for the past two years. I sobered up at the age of 16 in The Crossroads Program in St. Louis. Since then I have learned how to interact socially without drugs and alcohol. I have gained self-esteem, meaningful relationships with friends and family, and have successfully maintained my sobriety. Today I am an active member of A.A. and can honestly say I would not have sobered up without the experiences I've had in Crossroads. I am grateful for the love and hope shared with me, and I only hope anyone looking for recovery from drugs and alcohol will have the opportunities I have had to develop a meaningful life full of love and happiness. Thank You Crossroads!!!! You all are in my thoughts and prayers every day. Thank you for being the friends you are, and for years of wonderful memories I love all of you. I was struggling with my alcoholism and was kind of lost in AA. I found through a job a young man who was involved with crossroads. He took me to my first meeting. I later went into the outpatient program. I stayed for three years and was very happy there. Crossroads gave my avenue into AA and the fresh start that I needed. My life has been profoundly better through the caring attitude that the counselors took towards me and the fellowship and friends I met from Crossroads. I'm currently enrolled in college working on a bachelor’s degree in math I hope to pursue masters in math and teach at the college level. None of this would have been possible without help with my alcoholism which crossroads provided. Thank you for the help and the lifelong friends. Growing up I never anticipated having a drug problem like my father. I would always tell myself,"That will never be me, I have control". But after I began using more frequently the control part slipped away. Throughout getting loaded, I hit many bottems that never seemed to cut it. I tried committing suicide a few times and couldn't find anything that would make me happy, not even in the moment. My mom tricked me by telling me I had a meeting with a councelor, not a drug abuse councelor. Of course I was skeptical, but at that point I was so miserable I would do anything to get out of the hole I dug myself. I met with the councelor and thought he was stoned because all we talked about was drugs, I stuck around. I saw the light in the peoples eyes and wondered what they had. I gave the steps and the program a shot and it really does work, if you work it. I've never been happier in my life. All I had been looking for getting high I found here. I wanted friends, and now I couldn't ask for better ones. I wanted a relationship with my family, we talk every day and say I love you. And, I wanted to be happy. My worst day now is better than my best days getting high. I found the solution I've always wanted. Now, I'm finally free to live my life outside of the bondage drugs held me by. Now, I have a life. I never could have imagined when rocking my baby that 15 years later I would be picking her up at the police station for assult and possession. It had been obvious that our once happy, carefree daughter had a problem. She was a mess and so was our family. The problem was that noone was able to help us. We had been to Psychiatrists, counselors, and school staff. We had a psychiatrist suggest we "put her away for 6 months". She had been labelled as oppostional defiant disorder. She was going down a slippery slope of drug abuse and I could not find a solution and was losing my daughter. A coworker told me about Crossroads and within a day we were meeting with a wonderful counselor. My first thought was that she would never talk to these people but an hour later she was still in there talking. She now has over 21 months clean and sober and is a different person. She smiles, laughs, gives hugs and is someone I loving living with every day. If you have any hesitation in Crossroads I can understand - I was there 22 months ago. The dedicated counselors worked with a child I brought in who was under foreign management (drugs) and not give up on her. There were numerous miracles that happened regularly and still happen. There was the counselor that sat in a lawn chair and talked to her for 3 hours through an open car window because she was struggling and did not want to be a part of the group or get out of the car (she was so stubborn). There was the insightful counselor who called one eve. because she knew she was struggling and prevented her from going out and getting high that eve. I cannot tell you enough about the love of the group and how awesome it is to have a house party with 22 or more sober kids laughing and having fun. The parent support group that helped me with my own control issues and insanities and in finding serenity. In less than 2 years my daughter went from wanting to be a body piercer/tatoo artist to completing high school early and now attending the comm. college. Life is good! She told me that drugs was like going to church for her and she loved using, 24/7. Miracles do happen - ours happened at a loving, caring place called Crossroads! If your story sounds like ours I hope you can find your miracle at Crossroads. Thank you to the parents, kids and staff! Love you! We came to know Crossroads when our daughter was 18 and it was our first experience with a recovery program. We have been active for 4 years and have grown to understand that recovery is not a sprint but more of a long distance run. Our daughter has experienced more in her last 4 years than many of us experience in a lifetime; and through it all has had the support of the staff and friends at Crossroads. Crossroads is a bit unconventional but it works!!! We have seen many young lives change through this program and you will not find more dedicated counselors and staff who's purpose in life is to help young people live with enthusiastic sobriety. If you are struggling to find an answer to "what am I going to do?" make a call; your life will change along with that of your child. I would like to say how thankful I am that our family found the Crossroads program. Over the course of the last 18 months we have experienced growth and healing both as individuals, and as a family. For me an unexpected but wonderful blessing of being part of the Crossroads program has been the parent support group. We are able to share our experiences with other parents that can relate to our situation. The parent group also strongly encourages us grow as individuals by working through our own 12 step program. While that seemed new and somewhat scary to me at first, it has turned out to be a great way to help cope with the extreme emotions that come with loving and caring for someone with drug or alcohol abuse issues. Crossroads is not a magic answer. Parents and kids in the program still struggle (sometimes daily) with difficult issues and feeling. But with the love and support of each other, the 12 steps, and God (as we understand him), we take each day as it arrives, and remain thankful and hopeful for the future. I came into Crossroads 4 years ago. It took me awhile and a few relapses to really figure out that this program as trying to give me something better than getting high, and I'm forever grateful that the group and the staff never turned their backs or gave up on me... A few months ago I finally hit an emotional bottom which for me was what I needed to wake me up and reliaze I NEEDED this place and these people. Once I started trusting the counselors and the other kids in the group my life changed drastically. I was happy, more confident, I wasn't angry all the time, and most importantly I was comfortable in my own skin for the first time ever. I also learned how th have fun, yes, FUN without drugs. And that was a direct result of me working this program and relying on a God of my own understanding. Today I have a better life than I could ever imagine, not exactley as I planned it when I came in here at 18. But better than I could have ever planned myself. I will always be grateful to everyone at Crossrads for helping me find this way of living, that is better than I could have ever dreamed!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! I joined crossroads in July of 2009. I am not being dramatic when I say my life was an unbearable mess that I could not clean up alone if I had tried. I was 19 years old and living in East Saint Louis as a homeless junkie. I had hit the lowest bottom of my life when I started outpatient. I had been living with various addictions since I was 16 starting with an eating disorder that progressed into alcohol to pot to cocaine to LSD to opiates to any and every drug i could find. I was obsessed, alone, and out of control. I had tried to get sober threw many programs, treatment centers, hospitals, and A.A./N.A. but i could never keep more than 3 months of sobriety at a time. No matter how matter how miserable or far down the scale i had gone it was never enough to get me to stop. I had not always been so obviously crazy and out of control. I was a strait A student in high school and was involved in dance, debate, student council, church, and many other activities. The disease progressed so quickly my family didn't even know how to react. My eating disorder soon turned to a drug addiction in a matter of a year and I hit the ground running after that. It wasn't long before i had dropped out of college, wound up homeless, overdosed, fell in love with heroin, and basically just wanted to die. I came to crossroads as a last resort. I was desperate and nothing else had worked. Outpatient taught me how to work a twelve step program honestly, find what i now call God, deal with my feelings, and learn to forgive and love myself. I made friends who truly loved me for who i was and i finally learned how to be me for the first time. I reconnected with my family who i am very close with today. Words cannot say how much gratitude I have for this program. I no longer have the need to take depression medication, throw up my food, get high, get drunk, or hide. I'm learning to love myself and grow into the woman i am meant to be. I completed outpatient and aftercare and now i am on steering committee, i sponsor other girls, and am coming up on six months and have not relapsed once. It really does work. I guess the thing that really made me want to stay in the group after i completed treatment is the love and fun of the group. I love my friends and my life here. I am happy for the first time in a very long time. I choose to stay and i choose to stay sober because i want to. I have found somewhere i feel like i belong and can start building my future. I have been working for a few months and plan on going back to college in the near future. After the hell i went through for many years with my disease, I'm grateful for that experience because it lead me to the life i have now. I wouldn't trade my worst day I've had in sobriety for the best day i had in my addiction for anything. Crossroads is amazing, it is THE place for young people to get sober. Having joy and enthusiam in your life is a necessity to truly living, and plenty of that comes into your life when you enter The Crossroads Program. You meet amazing, passionate people who are living everyday to the best of their ability. Plus, we do plenty of fun things like scavenger hunts! This program has helped me in more ways than i can count. I am comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life, and actually genuinely happy as well. I live for myself and not drugs anymore and that is a miracle. All thanks to the support group and counselors that are my dearest friends by far. During my son's senior year of high school we had a painful awareness that he was drinking, and drinking to excess. He was beaten and ended up in the hospital. He graduated and went to college where he partied enough to end up in his last semester away at school with a 0.76 grade point average, one wrecked car and two DWIs. I had visited a counselor for advice on what to do with/for my son after the first DWI. The counselor replied that my son would probably get another DWI and that I should get him in a drug and alcohol treatment center at that time. He suggested two places one of which was the Crossroads program. I called Crossroads and made an appointment to take my son for an interview with Mike Weiland, the director. My son reluctantly went, mainly to appease me, but after speaking with Mike(who sports a beard, long hair and a deep, raspy voice and speaks the language of youth) my son decided to get into the program at the age of 20. My son has now been sober for 14 months and is developing into a young man that I can trust again. The counselors at Crossroads have been fantastic in helping my son to be real. The counselors at Crossroads are recovering addicts and can see through the lies that my son would tell far better than I could(it takes one to know one!) I highly recommend speaking with the folks at Crossroads if you just don't know what else you can do for your young son or daughter that is abusing drugs and/or alcohol. What a way to start the New Year! Knowing one thing, 100% for sure, and that is, my daughter is in the BEST place that she can be,to get sober and Learn How To Live Life On Lifes'Terms! And, yes, I am learning that too...you see, this is a two fold program our children grow up and so do we as parents (if we chose to work the steps). Love you, Susan I got sober when I was 15. I lost hope in everything around me and myself. I thought that I was just really depressed and didn't have a chance. I tried suicide and cutting and pill popping and none of it helped me get better. THIS DID. I have almost 4 1/2 years sober and could not be happier. I am graduating in less than a month and am so grateful that I got to spend the time I did here. I can’t thank the people who showed me a better way to live in words. But thank you for the St.Charles group who helped me save my own life. When I was growing up I never had the soaring aspiration to become an alcoholic or addict when I grew up. But after a series of events unfolded as a result of my uncontrolled substance abuse, I found my way to Crossroads at the age of 18. I began using at the age of 12, and due to my uncanny knack for getting myself into trouble, and living a life full of guilt and regret, my drug and alcohol use escalated to a point of complete misery and depression. So, broken and somewhat ready to begin a new life I embarked on an experience that has been life changing and completely worth the risk. Because Crossroads introduced me to a way of living based around the twelve steps. And as a result I found that though life has ups and downs, I have the capacity to live a meaningful life today if I choose to, and for that I am extremely grateful. Today I am proud to be an alcoholic, because I find serenity in knowing that I do not have to try and manage my life on my own anymore, there are answers out there. And I am eternally grateful for the fellowship that I have found to help me manage my life, and for the tools that have been made available to me to live the life that I always dreamed of. Though the path that I have chosen for myself was quite unexpected at first, I find comfort in the fact that I am not alone, and that there is a spiritual solution for the disease that I suffer from. Thank you all for your help. I went to my first Crossroads meeting when I was 14. It took me about 6 more months to come back to another meeting, and that was only after the therapist I had been seeing suggested it. I was barely 15, but I was miserable. Alcohol was the only way I ever felt comfortable in my own skin. My grades had gotten worse, my friends weren't really all that great of friends, and my mom had absolutely no trust for me. I was never someone who used everyday, but even without daily use drugs had caused at least a part of my life to become unmanageable. It took a little bit of time for me to be completely committed to being sober, but I knew that the people in Crossroads had something I wanted. It was the first time I truly felt loved by my friends and began to feel comfortable with myself. I completed IOP, and with help from that my life just continued to get better. I graduated high school with a 3.89, have a great relationship with my family, and have friends who I absolutely trust and can go to with anything. Today I have almost 5 years sober and I genuinely love my life and get to work for the same program which helped me get sober. I wouldn't trade my life now for anything. I love you guys! It's very difficult to briefly state the positive impact The Crossroads Program has had on my family and on my two children who went through the program. I am so grateful the counselors who have touched our lives. Desperate parents, sad, sick children, angry siblings, disheartened teachers, mind-numbing mental health 'professionals', bewildered grandparents all seek answers to the causes of the kid(s)' distress. Medication is only a band-aid and often worsens the underlying disease(s) of these children. The spiritual principles demonstrated by and taught by Crossroad's Staff offer the first glimmer of hope in this sea of disaster and pain. It isn’t a perfect 'program' but it works so much better than the rest - and I’ve been to the rest with my kids. I'm exceedingly grateful that God led us to this program and that my children had the opportunity to learn and internalize the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps through the Crossroads approach of Enthusiastic Sobriety. What took me fifty years to begin to learn was available to my children in a form they could comprehend while still in their teens. This program may not be for everyone - but it IS for everyone who sincerely seeks solutions to the symptoms and disease of addiction. Those who do not seek with honesty and openness will NOT find serenity. Now everyone in my home lives by these spiritual principles. Thank you Crossroads! I have been trying to write our story for days and never make it through because I want to say just the right thing to help another parent. Hope and Faith is what I hope to give to struggling, lost, hurt and desperate parents. Our daughter led a charmed high school life up to her introduction to her "drug of choice". It was a fast descent from here. In a matter of three months we lost her to her "drug". She lost all of her "normal" friends, a boyfriend that she had dated for two years; she flunked out of school and etc. Our family life was a living hell and there was violence. She despised me (mother). I was the reason for everything wrong in her life. Grandparents did not understand or really believed that she had a problem so every time there was a fight at home, she went to them. She failed every drug test she was given and we were at wits end. Our first visit to Crossroads did not go as we had hoped. My husband and I left there and said there was no way we would allow our daughter to go there. She would end up more of a drug addict being exposed to all of those people. We went to "traditional treatment" and one our insurance would cover. Let me see, we were filling out the paperwork, she asked to go to the bathroom and ran away. When the police were helping us look for her, they said, you don't want to put your daughter there; she will only learn more tricks of the trade. So when we found her hours later, we took her home. A month later, we found a treatment center that was in Booneville, MO. It was a much recommended place and we were happy with the treatment; however, week three she was kicked out for not following rules. She came home and agreed to do AA. We trusted she was going to meetings but actually only attended a few and started using again right away. Now I want you to understand the extent of our daughter's addiction, she was not only using every day but also manufacturing and selling. All of her "new friends" were going to prison. When was she going to get caught? We went back to Crossroads because that was the only way her "sober" high school would accept her back. CROSSROADS was God's answers to our prayers. No, she did not go willing at first. She hated it and told everyone we had made her join a cult including grandpa and grandma. After about two months, she began outpatient.....not happy about it she agreed to it. Her first outpatient lasted 13 weeks, how long is traditional therapy?? She would have been discharged after four weeks at the most. She remained sober for about 18 weeks and then wanted to live a "normal" life. This time she was gone from home and her family for about three months during which time her grandma passed away. I do believe this was her bottom. She came home, lived with another family and started outpatient again. She now has been sober for almost a year. She is a wonderful, loving, active member of our family again. She is working, going to college and has a sober boyfriend and friends. Her father and I do believe that if it wasn't for the guidance of Crossroads and the support of the program, she would either be dead today or in prison. Our thanks, gratitude and love to everyone. They spent endless hours with her and our family. We took a 2nd mortgage on our house, we charged to credit cards, my husband's family helped pay for treatment but it was worth every penny spent and what choice do you have in life and what is important in life, surely not money. Thank you for listening to this long story of ours. May God bless you and if anyone wants to talk to me, I will be happy to lend a shoulder or ear. I said No! NO to Drugs, No to Alcohol, No to crazy times. Everyone has a story; my story is the same being told over and over again. I am a single parent with two wonderful children, each of us doing what life called for. Goals being met, loves being won and lost, and then one day something just didn't feel right. Your gut clenches, doubt sets in, and the craziness begins. My two children had decided to join their friends in the best thing ever. No matter what I had said, no matter what DARE said, no matter what any person who loved them thought of the drug scene, this was for them. I spent way to much time trying to figure it out. I did not bring these kids into the world to watch them destroy themselves. You just seem to get to a point and, everyone's point is different, when you realize we have a problem, we need help. We made the choice to take a new direction. We made it to Crossroads, where the most remarkable, dedicated people, listened to our story, and started from right there, making a difference in our lives. All three of us have been sober and working a program for 17 months. And if you’re lucky enough to find Crossroads, you'll find us in your group, ready to start right there, making a difference in your life too. My son was a mess, but we didn't know it. He had lied to us and conned us for years. He almost made it through college, but his lies and his cons finally caught up with him. For almost a year he had kept his mother and I from discovering that his previous two semesters had been a near total waste; and he was failing his current semester. When we finally discovered the extent of his academic lapse, we confronted him. He admitted to us that he was smoking pot daily, not attending most of his classes, and really had no idea about his future. (He later admitted to using lots of other drugs as well, and to lots of heavy drinking.) We had heard of Crossroads from a friend whose son had been through the program. I remember thinking as I first heard his story years ago that I was glad none of my children would ever come to that. But here we were. We immediately called our friend and he told us what Crossroads had to offer, and put us in touch with a counselor. Within 24 hours of hearing about my son's drug abuse, we were sitting with a counselor, and he was describing my son to me after hearing only 10 minutes of our story. Together we decided that it would be best for our son to leave school and begin a program. He was too old to be forced, but he reluctantly decided on his own to quit school, talk to a counselor and after several days, start at Crossroads with intensive outpatient. Crossroads helped my son turn completely around. He became totally honest with us and eventually asked us if he could make amends for all of our money he had wasted, for all of the ways he had hurt us, and for all of the lies he had told us. We were so proud of the transformation in his life, and of the hard work he was doing to regain a productive future. We were so happy to have our son back. At Crossroads I have learned not to be resentful of myself (or my son) for all of the terrible decisions he made in his life, nor the bad decisions I myself have made. I learned how to restore sanity to our lives and to our family. I have discovered the meaning of the word serenity and have found ways of experiencing serenity in my life every day. I have experienced the love of the Parent's Group as they accepted us unconditionally and showed us that not only were we not alone, we were cared for and supported. My son has been sober for over 18 months now. He has a meaningful job and is giving back to the community in powerful ways. We are eternally thankful to the Crossroads program for all they have done for him and for us. And, we love you. Our son "should" be dead or in prison. All throughout his high school years his dad and I kept our heads buried in the sand, not wanting to acknowledge all the signs of drug use that were screaming at us. Somehow he finished high school, kept a steady job and moved out on his own. When we were finally faced with indisputable evidence of his drug use, he was addicted to heroin, selling it and fading fast. We were overwhelmed and devastated. Totally ignorant of how to deal with this situation, we were fortunate to have had Crossroads recommended by our family counselor. Our son was more than ready to get drugs out of his life, even though he didn't actually believe he could do it. He took to the kids right away and the staff too. Former addicts themselves; they know all the scams that drug-kids use and don't let them get away with anything. One day at a time, our son faced the truth about himself and used the steps to turn his life around with the help of God, as he understands Him. Our joy, at having our son "back from the dead" is HUGE! Our love for the Crossroads staff and their sacrificial lifestyle is EMMENSE! We can't say enough about them! Our son is now a proud father with clear eyes and a positive focus on the future. We believe that Crossroads has given him the tools to maintain his personal growth and reach success in the years ahead! Luv ya! I am 15 years old; my sobriety date is around July 31st. Before that I was in a boy's home called OZANAM. I was there for 18 and one half months. My mom put me in there because I was an angry, thizzed out, alcoholic that got into too many fights for my own good.:) My days were spent doing drugs and flirting with the wrong girls. A K.C. senior counselor came to OZANAM and saw me. He later told me I was a miracle for that. I got into O.P. July 31 and was an emotional, jerk... still I have spent 127 days in the crossroads program and I have learned how to be o.k. with being ok, I have also found my higher power and have REAL friends I can count on. Thank you, My son's life, my life and my family life changed profoundly for the better thanks to Crossroads' enthusiastic sobriety program. The genius of this program is their understanding of young people, of creating an environment that is amazingly appealing to kids -- so appealing that they are willing to get sober. Crossroads also understands the family dynamic and is uniquely able to help families handle problems and situations that seemed insurmountable. My son has been sober for six years, is a college student and is working. But FAR MORE IMPORTANT than that is that he is the happiest person I know. Could a mother ask for anything more? I cannot thank Crossroads enough for giving me that gift. You know its always kind of difficult for me to explain this 'thing of ours' to people, a lot of people don't seem to realize how cool this group really is. If you were to ask me two years ago if I would be sober today I would tell you my old favorite line, "Dude I am going to smoke weed until the day I die". I truly believed the only thing that could fill my many voids was drugs and alcohol. I have changed my life drastically because of these 12 steps and I probably wouldn't have found them at the young age of 16 if it wasn't for this group and what they do for young people. Before I got in the group I had been to countless therapist, psychiatrist, and doctors and not one of them had the enthusiastic outlook on sobriety that crossroads does. I am done writing now but I would recommend this program to any one needing help to get off drugs and alcohol. I am a dope fiend, alcoholic. How am I able to tell you guys this today? Crossroads... Outpatient changed my life in so many ways. I helped me realize who and what I was...DOPE FIEND and who and what I have become today...SOBER DOPE FIEND. It helped me find and use my god to help me stay sober and be loving and healthy. I started getting high when I was in 8th grade and after smoking pot every so often with my friends it became every chance I could get by myself. Being arrested twice, caught with my parents countless times, lying to every one I knew even myself didn't once make me regret the decisions I had made. I could see the consequences in my actions but still did them anyway... I finally took a bottom (running away in Kansas city for 2 days) for me to realize "maybe, just maybe I have a problem. So my parents set me up an appointment with one of the counselors here in Columbia and since then it's been great with seven months sober today! Thank you everyone I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH I came into this program a mess, I had run away from my house and was living with a friend to get away from the pressure put on my parents from my out of control usage of drugs. When I got here, I talked to someone who seemed to know exactly what I was going through. Loneliness, depression, and of course addiction. However this person didn’t seem to be any of those, on the contrary he seemed to be quite a happy guy. I agreed that I would try it out. I have been in the group since and have 4 months sober. That might not sound like very long but in the short time I have been here I have learned more about myself and how my brain works than most people learn in their entire lives, and the best part about it is that I have had way more fun than I ever had using. Anyone who can honestly give this program a shot can make it. I owe my life to this program. Today I understand that I am a drug addict and that that will never change, but I can deal with it and life a sober lifestyle I never imagined. Things at my house have mellowed out a lot, while I was using I fought with my parents constantly and disobeyed everything they said. Now I have an incredible relationship with them I could never have hoped to imagine. I honestly could describe how much love and gratitude I have for this program and everyone in it. I LOVE YOU GUYS. When I first came into the program I was 14. I was a lonely wreck. The only love I had ever felt was by alcohol or whatever drug it was at the time. I continued to try things my way, and not accept the love that had been given so freely to me at the time. I don’t think I ever knew I was even worth loving. After many years of destroying myself piece by piece, I looked over my life and saw that I had nothing left. No amount of booze or dope could fulfill my needs anymore. I had pushed my family to the point that they didn’t even want to be around me. When I made the decision to finally sober up at the age of 19, I saw the one thing that had always been consistent in my life was the unconditional love that had been given to me by the people in the program. Today on the 14th of July, 2007, I am 6 days shy of one year of consecutive sobriety, and preparing to begin my career in the recovery field. The amazing things I have in my life today, from the great relationship I have with my family, to the awesome friends that I have gained, was made possible with the help of the Crossroads program. One of my counselors used to, and I'm sure he still says, your highs will be higher, and your lows will be lower, but if your heart can take it, come fly with us. Thank you for everything, forever grateful, I came into the program at age 16 after three years of drug and alcohol abuse and several attempts at taking my own life. I was scared of almost everything around me, especially people, and I didn't talk much. I wasn't much more than an empty shell of a human being walking around taking up space. This program and the people in it taught me how to love and they started to open my eyes to who I really was. It was here that I was reacquainted with the idea of a higher power who had long been absent in my thoughts or deeds. Today my life is friggin' awesome. I have eight years clean and sober, a ton of friends whom I've come to trust with almost every detail of my life, a wonderful' relationship with my family, and more days than not I spend laughing my ass off. I'm in school studying for a degree in International Studies (that may change next week so don't hold me to it). My foundation for life was firmly placed upon the love and guidance I received while in Crossroads and for that I am indebted with gratitude. Thank you I was duped into coming to my first meeting at the age of fourteen. I was back living with my mom after having been kicked out of my father's house, as well as several schools. I had a few friends, but the thing that made me happiest was sitting alone in my room, getting high. I had managed to develop a pretty decent rap sheet with the local police. I had nothing to look forward to and it's not an exaggeration to say that I thoroughly hated myself and my life. After that first meeting, I agreed to go to one more function, just to get my mom to shut up about it. I stayed for five years. While I don't feel that I have the words to describe my time there, I will say that this was the place where I learned that life can be beautiful. I had my ups and downs, but today, three years after leaving; when I think back on my time there the memories that come are of wonderful friends and counselors that I trusted more than I had ever trusted anyone up to that point. I loved them with all my heart and somewhere in doing so I learned to love myself. I hope that's not too sappy for you guys. I graduated the program in April of 2002. Today I have a job as a tutor and counselor for autistic children, and I am perusing a degree in early childhood education. I am still active in my recovery, and all this time later I can tell you that whenever I really manage to make a mess of things in my life (often), it is usually a result of my not doing something that I learned while in the Crossroads group. In many ways I have moved on with my life, but I will always carry a piece of the group in my heart. Thank you for letting me share. I entered the program at 24 years old thinking that there was no hope of me getting sober. I had been drinking and using since the age of 15, and realized a few years later that I had a serious problem but refused the possibility of treatment. I thought I could get sober on my own. Obviously that did not work; I continued using and was facing 6 months in jail, and losing my family. I knew that I had to do something and soon. After a talk with the closest members of my family, I agreed that I would seek help. I had my first appointment with a counselor and found comfort in the fact that he had been through similar problems and managed to find a way to be sober and happy. After a month of trying to continue to use I agreed to go to St. Louis and go through outpatient. I had beaten myself into such a state of willingness that I took hold of the steps and god fairly quickly. I have managed to find a way to be sober and happy with the help of crossroads. I know now the way to be and stay sober is the 12 steps and god, with that knowledge I am now approaching my first year completely sober and I have never been happier. After several years of using drugs and alcohol everyday, my relationship with my family was nearly over and most everything that had any importance in my life I had lost. My mother brought me to the Crossroads program as a last resort. I had no interest in quitting my drug use. After several months of being in the program and NOT following any of the suggestions from the Crossroads staff, my drug and alcohol use was worse than ever. Everything came to a head when I was arrested on multiple felony charges, dropped out of high school, kicked out of my house and the only people that were still willing to help me were the people at Crossroads. I had hit complete bottom and was hoping to die. I was willing to do any and everything. I attend a 45 day inpatient program followed by the Crossroads intensive outpatient program. I did the things suggested and my life changed dramatically. In a matter of months my life was tremendously better. I graduate the Crossroads program in the spring of 2002. Today I have over 5 years sober and continue to rely daily on the foundation I learned in Crossroads. I will graduate college in the next year, I have held the same job for over five years and most importantly my family life is wonderful. I am truly grateful for the people at Crossroads and everything I learned there. Thank you for everything Crossroads I first heard about Crossroads when I was in college in Kansas through a mother of a close friend of mine. She shared with me a brief version of his story which made me think. I had begun to try drinking at the age of 14 and started to actually get drunk at 16. I did not begin to use a drug until the age of 18. When I went to college I started smoking pot and over the next eight months escalated to cocaine and methamphetamines. I was a great student while in high school until the very end of my senior year. I attended KU and basically gave up after the first few weeks when I decided that partying was the best way to get the friends I always wanted and to hide the person I didn't want people to see. I passed 6 out of 16 hours my first semester and somehow was able to stay for a second. During the first semester, my connections with friends from high school were gone, my new drug friends were also beginning to no longer talk to me, and eventually my family started to treat me differently. They had every right to. I wasn't the same, sweet, loving, filled with life Tim that they were used to. The "darker" side began to come out and I changed my appearance quite drastically. During the holidays I was uninvited to Christmas and basically told not to come around if I was going to act the way I was. I'm not sure if my family new I was using, but let's face it, it was pretty obvious. Second semester of KU came to a halt when I no longer went to classes and ran out of money. Along with this, I had maybe four friends and my family barely spoke to me. I couldn't find a job, so I found methamphetamines. When I lost 20 pounds in three weeks, I realized I might have a problem. When that mother shared with me her son's story, I knew that I had a chance at getting a better life. I sit here typing my story today with truly a new outlook on life. It has been a rocky road since I first came in to Crossroads in April, 2005. Two relapses and many mistakes later, I have learned that I was the problem and drugs were a symptom. I currently have just over 13 months sober and am making some big changes in my program to progress my life. I have a 3.0 in school and will graduate with my associate's degree next summer, God willing. I have more true friends than I could ever dream of. I am closer to my family than ever. And last, but not least, I am happy and have hope for a better future. That, to me, is why I stayed here and what I hope to spread. Thank you Crossroads for giving me the benefit of the doubt when I needed it the most. I am forever grateful. As others, I have been thinking very deeply about how to sum up my crossroads experience. Let me begin briefly with what it was like before I joined. I began drinking when I was 13 shortly after my dad passed away. Before this I had an average childhood... I went to a good school, made good grades, and had a comfortable amount of friends. Looking from the outside everyone would see me as a perfectly normal child. On the inside I was screaming out, I wanted to be cooler... dress better, look better, have even more friends. Not be made fun of and be accepted by everyone... Maybe even loved by people other then my family. For the next 3 years I drank hoping that I would be cooler that people would want to hang out with me. Nothing changed... I made a fool of myself at times, and thought I was cooler. I was invincible and no one could hurt me. Yet I still got my feelings hurt when I was turned down. Then in high school, when I was 16, a friend who I used to use with started talking about the Crossroads program. At this, a friend and I made fun of him, we told him it was a cult and he was full of it. But he had planted a seed in my head, that there was something better and that I did not have to continue living the way I was. A few weeks later I went to a Crossroads hang out. I knew no one, but was welcomed with hugs and "I Love You's". I didn't even know these people and they wanted me to be there. That was a feeling I had never experienced. I was hooked... I wanted what these young people had... They were happy and not using drugs or alcohol to achieve this feeling. The next night I went to a Crossroads meeting. Once again welcomed by even more young, sober, happy, loving people. I took a wanna ball and made a commitment to stay sober 30 days. That was over 5 1/2 years ago. This program has changed my life. I have a relationship with my family that I never dreamed of having, I went to school. I am living on my own. I never expected that all this goodness would come to me. But as they say Expectations Breed Disaster. My final words to all you newcomers and parents of this Program: We Came to Live, We Stayed to Give… I entered the Crossroads Program when I was 15. I was using marijuana and alcohol on an almost daily basis. I was skeptical of anyone who tried to get me sober; even my parents' tearful pleas meant nothing to me at that point. I was so emotionally removed from all the people in my life that no amount of begging or pleading would have changed me. Nothing mattered anymore. When I first talked with the counselors at Crossroads I was immediately attracted by the happiness and fun that they obviously had. Soon I entered the intensive outpatient program and found a sober way of living far more satisfying than anything I had ever known. The staff showed me in a loving way based on true experience and a genuine desire to see me happy how I could live a happy and sober life. With the support of the program I now have over 4 years sober, was able to graduate high school as valedictorian, attend a prestigious university, and find a life that I absolutely love today. I have no doubt in my mind that none of that would have happened were it not for me getting sober, and I know that I would not be sober were it not for the Crossroads Program. I hope that all interested persons find at least a fraction of the peace and joy that I have with the help of the Crossroads Program. Thank you Crossroads and I love you all! I came into the program at 15. I had been using for about 3 years at that point. I came in because of getting arrested on the first day of school for assault and possession. I loved marijuana, alcohol, and pain pills. At 13 I had overdosed and from there I was just an angry mess. I abused my mom physically and emotionally. When I came into the program I was a hopeless case and didn’t even a have desire to get sober. Now I have 14 months in 4 days, I am actually happy and love the life I live. My relationship with my parents is unbelievable and I would do anything for them. At 16 I have received my diploma and can’t wait for all the exciting chances that are ahead of me. My life would never have turned out this way if it weren't for all the awesome people who helped me stay clean. Thanks. Love you guys! When I got into this program I was fourteen years old. I was getting drunk and using since I was nine years old. I would get drunk and use with all my family members. I grew up thinking that it was okay to get drunk everyday and use. I went through depression because of mental and physical abuse so the only thing that kept me happy was using and drinking. I was suicidal and doing things that a ten year old to a fourteen year old should not be doing. My anger would over power me and I would physically harm my family and all people who were around me. I hated myself so much that I thought that I had no purpose in life. I got in this program by getting arrested three times for possession and I got charged for grand-theft-auto. I was dealing drugs to pay for my family to live. I would often take out my anger and hate for others on myself, but what it really came down to was that I hated myself. I got sober may 1st 2006 I have been sober and free for 1 year and six months and I couldn’t be happier. This is the only place that I have found true happiness. I have a great relationship with my family, I have the most amazing friends, and I also have counselors that truly care about me and my well being. Being sober hasn’t been an easy ride. I have gone through and had to deal with really tough things since I’ve been sober. I have learned how to cope with life on life’s terms without going the easy way out. I am so grateful for all the great things that have been put in my life by God and my hard work. I have achieved more in my life in the past year and a half than I did in my whole life. To be sober the main things that I have to focus on is being honest, open-minded, and willing to become the person I am today. THANK YOU Crossroads has helped our daughter in her recovery from addiction and has helped us as a family to learn more about addiction and how to cope with it. We were once at our wits end trying to figure out what to do and now we have the tools to cope. We came to Crossroads after trying a number of other programs for our then 17-year-old daughter – all of which were unsuccessful. During her senior year in high school, she started skipping school, dropping from her extracurricular activities, and grades were slipping. At first we thought her deteriorating behavior was just ‘typical teenager’ growing pains, then we thought it could be something deeper , so we had her visit a psychiatrist, who of course diagnosed depression and started her on a series of anti-depressants. After several dissatisfying weeks of this, we discovered drug paraphernalia in her car and had her tested for drugs. She came up positive for drug use, so we checked local programs and enrolled her in a rehab group that met a couple of times a week for a couple of hours each. She was supposed to remain sober, but she came home one night very obviously high. When we checked her into the group program the next day, we explained what we suspected, they tested her for drugs, which came up positive, and we immediately admitted her to the detox ward for a week. Nothing we were trying was working – our daughter was just going through the motions, was not serious about recovering, and her behavior was getting worse. And our fear and dread was escalating. We decided a prolonged stay in an in-patient program would keep her contained so the drugs could clear her system and she could hopefully get in a frame of mind to recover from the addiction. Problem was that she turned 18 while she was in the in-patient program and she knew that she could legally check herself out at any time after that. Working with her and the in-patient facility, we were able to get her to stay for 30 days. But she told us up front that it wasn’t going to work and it wasn’t what she wanted. She said a friend of hers, who had been using with her, was now attending the Crossroads program and thought it was helping her. So we started checking on Crossroads. Friends of ours had a daughter who attended Crossroads and they gave us some initial info and a couple of other people we could call about it. We called the Crossroads office and began discussing the situation and what they could do for us. What Crossroads offered was exactly what we had been searching for and didn’t know existed – a program of young people working together in a positive way for sobriety – one that did not shut its lights out at 5pm or provide our daughter with more drugs that we were trying to get her away from. We knew our daughter needed a sober group to hang out with – having fun with ‘cool’ people, but without using. People with experiences and interests similar to hers that she couldn’t BS, but she could relate to and learn from. As soon as our daughter completed her 30-day in-patient program, she started attending Crossroads. I will tell you that, as we found out later from her, she had no intention of staying sober – she was just using Crossroads as another way to keep us pacified while she continued to use on the sly. And it worked for a while, but she eventually found herself wanting to remain sober and Crossroads has been there every step of the way to provide the tools she needed, the shoulder to cry on, the honesty to call her on her manipulation and drama queen antics – everything she needed to support her in recovery. And ‘we came for our daughter, but stayed for ourselves’ – a common Parent Group saying. We went from paralyzing fear and craziness – I still remember innumerable sleepless nights and driving around trying to find my daughter late at night when she didn’t come in when she said she would – to a serenity and strength knowing that the tools we use, the support we get from other parents facing… I had the good fortune, yet again, to be able to refer two families to Crossroads within the past few weeks. I attend Al-Anon regularly since I learned the principles of the Twelve Steps through Crossroads. My own two kids who went thru the Program have done so well that I love being able to share the Program with others. I keep coming back to it - in good times and in bad times. Without Crossroads, I don't believe my son would be alive, I don't believe my marriage would be intact, and I'm certain that I wouldn't have the warm, close relationship I have with all three of my kids. I hope I continue to have the opportunity to point needy families in the direction of Crossroads. When my two children and I entered the Crossroads program my 17 year old son was living with a cocaine dealer & using heavily. He & I were barely on speaking terms. My 16 year old daughter was in a rehab camp in Utah & waiting for a chance to return to the drug world. Both of these children had progressed from casual users to serious drug use & I can still remember how hopeless I felt, realizing as I finally did, that this problem was not going to get better on its own. My son was first persuaded/threatened/bribed to go to some Crossroads meetings. This he did & then the counselors got him to commit to joining the group for 30 days-a miracle in itself-and I must say the effect on him was immediate. The personality changes that the drugs had brought started to reverse within those 30 days. And that allowed them to convince him to go into OP. My son’s illness would persist & remerge over the next several years but I can say that after OP we never came close to returning to the nasty, hateful, deeply dysfunctional family life we had before Crossroads. My son & I had been in the group a few months when my daughter returned from Utah. She was still very ill but she had been sober for a year (involuntarily) and she desperately needed an alternative peer group where she didn’t need drugs to be cool. Without it her year of sobriety would be gone the first weekend. She was a tougher sell on the group than my son was. It was always much harder for her to make friends so the group was not immediately attractive to her. But she was faithful to her commitment to try it and that gave her the time to see what real friends-as opposed to her user friends-were like. After a couple of months of evaluation the staff recommended that she goes to Step 2 in Phoenix. It was that program that really helped her turn the corner. She came back a new girl. Now, I need to point out that a major part of the recovery in our family came from the parent group. When my son first entered the program & I was told I should come to meetings too, I was as jaded towards this idea as any parent ever. I could see no way my attending meetings could help my kids-it was THEIR problem, not mine. But I think it was the feeling of hopeless desperation that got me there week after week. I had to concede that if I was willing to try anything then I had to try this. And I had to admit a few things right away. First, all of the parents in the group had the same problem and had a wealth of experience at dealing with it. There were parents who had faced & dealt with the EXACT problems that had totally baffled me. Secondly, I noticed that my son in particular, with whom I was barely on speaking terms, was very observant of my presence at the meetings & understood that I was there supporting him. It was after the meetings at coffee that he & I got reacquainted & got our relationship on the solid footing where it will always remain. My daughter is now in her junior year of college-math major-and is a happy, functional, responsible young adult with wisdom beyond her years. My son was killed in a moped accident in Phoenix just before he turned 24, six plus years after entering Crossroads. He was sober & happy when he died. When I think about the trajectory of his life before Crossroads, and the direction it took after, I am still two years after his death overwhelmed by the debt I owe this program. Everything I tried on my own failed. Thanks to this program my son & I were completely reconciled & it is very great gift. My son is alumni. I ran across some of his things the other day. He worked so hard and had so much fun doing it. I wish that I could send you a picture of him in his Crossroads best. This picture still hangs on my living room wall. The counselors are deeply committed to the cause and that cause is to get young addicts to choose recovery and stick with it. Recovery is a life long process. I still attend meetings a few times a year, without being too much of a bother to those that are actively involved. As I said my son is alumni. I find enrichment there. Next month my aunt and I have a date to attend a meeting. I'm doing this my son's style. My aunt doesn't know it yet. Love to you all and we will hopefully see you soon, to work! Crossroads has had a phenomenal impact on our son’s life and while the counselors and parent support are great the best thing about Crossroads are the kids. Six months ago we found out our son was using pot when he was busted at school and right a way we knew this was a problem we could not handle on our own. Having a strong faith background we believe that change only occurs through God’s power but knew for our son traditional treatments or our church wouldn’t work. A friend told us about Crossroads and how his brother had experienced a major turn around through the program. So we called the office and set up a meeting with a Counselor and dragged our son to his first Crossroads meeting. Although our son did not want to attend at first it only took one meeting and one function for him to decide he wanted to stay. The reason he wanted to stay was that the kids in Crossroads reached out to him immediately and have been a constant support to him since. Outpatient was a great experience for our son and gave him a place to begin his 12 step work. He learned so much about himself and how he interacts with others. He came out of the Outpatient Program with a greater understanding of who is he and what he needs to do to work the 12 Steps. Through the friendships he made he was able to break ties with old friends. As he continues to attend meetings and functions the constant love and support he gets and gives has made all the difference in helping him to stay sober. As parents what we have gained through Crossroads are some new parenting tools to add to our arsenal. Having a drug abuser in the family required new approaches to parenting and the Crossroads Counselors and other parents have equipped us with new ideas and strategies. Most importantly we have also learned so much about what the 12 steps are all about and how they can help anyone grow in their knowledge of who they are and how they relate to God and others. We have seen some phenomenal changes in our son through Crossroads and we have all grown as a result of working this 12 step Program together. Upon learning our son was using marijuana, I called a family counselor, seeking help. He advised us that our son needed a drug program for treatment before he would counsel us. He suggested Crossroads. My husband and I faithfully attended the parent meetings. Our son loved the staff, but dug his heels in regularly not attending any functions as he continued to use for 6 months. By attending the parent meetings, my husband and I were finally on the same page with parent support. That summer our son began Outpatient, but with his low self-esteem and inability to get in touch with any other feelings other than anger, we were advised to send him to Step Two. In Phoenix, our son experienced the love of the group, a Higher Power, and opened himself up to enthusiastic sobriety. Two and a half years later, our family is changed. Our son is happy and growing in self-esteem, even taking on a leadership role with the group. My husband and I faithfully attend parent meetings because our relationship is improved and our lives in all areas are enriched. The parent meetings and the Twelve Steps we learned keep us on target. Crossroads set us free from the stereotypes of parenting and led us to enthusiastically living and loving our son, set free from the bonds of drug and alcohol. Our home is a happy home, filled with fond memories of good times and great Crossroads kids loving, laughing and helping one another live with sobriety. Life is good and we love Crossroads! “I came for my kid, but I stayed for me.” You hear this all the time at the parent meetings, and that exactly describes me. When my son came to Crossroads and began working the program, the changes in him were wonderful. The meetings helped us walk through the confusion, anger and the plain hell it can be with a teenager. After about a year of talking in the parent meetings about my son and thinking, “He’s got a problem; I don’t,” it finally sunk in that I had a few things to work on myself. That’s when I started coming to Crossroads for me. I got a sponsor and began to see how “sticking with winners” and “one day at a time” living might apply in my own life. The “Bob book” and its concepts like “walls and shots” and “logical consequences” taught me how to be a better parent to my recovering child. My son was in the program for four years and remains “sober, happy and free.” I’ll be leaving Crossroads soon, and will miss the parents, the counselors and the kids who slept on our family room floor so many times. Crossroads, in my opinion, is the best thing that could happen for the kid with the problem, and the parent looking for a better solution. Several years ago when my son was 12and he was invited to a younger group meeting by his friend. I believe he instantly took to it because of the enthusiastic sobriety that is promoted. After he became involved for a while he wanted me to attend a parent meeting. I was hesitant to do so feeling like that was his thing and I didn't see why I needed to get involved. My son had actually asked another parent to call and invite me to attend. Upon attending my first few parent meetings I could see how the common thing the parents shared among them was simple. We all had issues with the relationships with our children and that within these meetings we could talk with other parents and share our experiences. It became such a path for me personally in a positive direction that I even attended older group meetings. Part of the program included other get together besides meetings like functions of which both my son and I were very involved. It wasn't too long after that first meeting that I was extremely involved. After four or five years of participating and growth my son had stopped attending meetings and functions. His attention and goals were more towards education which required more of his time. He and I had gained so many tools and life skills from the group and are both so grateful for the program. So if you are new to this, If you are curious as we all were at first, I encourage you to continue the journey and hopefully your experiences will be as positive as my sons and mine were. God Bless The Crossroads Program has been a major part of helping our family to gain courage and wisdom dealing with the problems of substance abuse with our son and ourselves. 10 years ago this past May, our family was in great threat, pain, & fear of substance abuse taking our son from us. The Young People's Program and the Parent Program gave our family the necessary tools to deal with all issues related to substance abuse. 10 years have since passed and our family is still using the principals in which this amazing program has taught us. The 12 steps of living our lives with unconditional love and shots & walls are the glue to surviving this family disease. Learning how not to control or enable someone is just one of the keys to being successful. We live one day at a time. We have management skills today to deal with the disease of substance abuse and any of the other addictions our family has encountered along the way. It is a family disease and the whole family needs to be part of the treatment and solution. I would recommend to anyone who has a young person & family struggling with substance abuse to get help now, tomorrow may be too late. There is a better way to live life and have fun in the process. The "I LOVE YOU'S" and the" HUGS" from YOUR KID are just a phone call away. Walk thru your fears with people who understand and are trained, experienced experts in this field. You won't ever have to go thru anything alone again. You will be right in the middle of the answers to all your Prayers. Miracles do happen and our family is proof they do. God writes straight with crooked lines. I Love You.. My buddy and I stole a couple beers and a Black and Mild from my parents, and went to the woods to have a good time. Only two years later I was offered to smoke weed by a kid who was about 7 years older than I was. To seem "cool" and "fit in" I accepted the offer. From then on I started to get really messed up. When I was 12 I was smoking weed a lot and then at 13 I started dealing. I got caught at school for dealing and got sent to a juvenile detention center. I spent 100 days there, which was hard for both my parents and me. After I got out I was on probation for 6 months and the day I got off I smoked some more weed. The next day I smoked as well and my mom found out. She threatened to tell the juvenile office, but didn't. I was clean then for about 2 months but went right back to smoking weed. The next year was 9th grade and I was drinking a lot and smoking a lot of weed. This was also the year I did mushrooms for the first time. The next year I was smoking a lot of weed but not so many hallucinogens. The summer after 10th grade was when I tried coke for the first time and started to do a few pills. Mainly I was doing morphine pills and smoking and drinking, but it became a daily thing. The first day of the next school year I was driving my car while huffing air duster. I blacked out, ran off the road and hit a road sign which punctured my gas tank. I kept going, came off the other curb and went airborne coming down on another car which ignited it and my car blew up with me and 2 others in the car. After that I became really depressed and started drinking really heavily which made it even worse. The next year my family and I started to have a lot of problems and I was kicked out of my house. I went to go live with my girlfriend at the time and we weren’t going to school or doing really much of anything besides doing a lot of drugs. We ran away together after a night of coke, oxy cotton, blunts laced with PCP and cocaine. 2 days later we were picked up by the cops and they charged me with 2nd degree child endangerment because she was 14 and I was 17. A week later I was busted for 1st degree trespassing and minor in possession of alcohol. I realized that all this stuff that was happening was not what I wanted in my life. I went to a friend of mine who was in the group and told him I needed help now. This has been the best couple months I have ever had...EVER! I love the life I am living and wouldn't trade it for the world. I can't wait to see what comes next. Thanks Crossroads and all the kids that support me! When I was 12 years old, I smoked weed for the first time. I still remember every little detail of that day. I remember the alley we were in, the buildings around me, the weather, and the kind of pipe we smoked out of. But more than anything, I remember falling completely in love with getting high. From that day on, for the next 3 years, I probably had a total of about 2 months worth of sober days. Slowly, every part of my life became unmanageable. I barely ever went to school, I had absolutely no real friends, my mom wouldn't leave her purse in the same room as me, and there was nothing more important to me than dope. The sickest part of it all was that I could barely feel any of this, and I didn't see any of it as a problem. People say that you can't get sober until you "hit a bottom." Well, I had hit plenty of them and I was still getting high constantly. When I found this program, I was still completely unwilling to sober up. For a while, I tried very hard to con my way out of getting sober and I did everything I could to reserve my right to get high. It didn't take very long for my entire perspective to change. This program showed me something better than getting high ever had done. I love my life today. Before I came into this program, I barely had any life left. I have 5 1/2 years sober now and I don't need to get high anymore, I don’t even want to! I have been graduated from the program for a while now, and I still hold onto the way of living that I was shown when I was here. There is nothing that I am more grateful for than the opportunity I had to get sober in the way that I did. I love you all. Hi, I am an alcoholic/addict. I have 4 months and 12 days sober. Crossroads has showed me how to lead a 12 step based life and I now am 15 and got sober when I was 14. I love all ya’ll and yes K.C. is the best. -I LOVE YALL TO DEATH. I was trying to think how I could sum up my experience in Crossroads but was having trouble. I experienced so many positive memories, life lessons, and gained so much confidence it is hard to put into words. It is hard to even imagine that 5 years ago I was stealing cars, drinking and doing drugs, and incredibly lonely and confused. I was 15 years old and lost when I showed up for my first appointment with Crossroads. I was immediately greeted by a big group of young people who did not hold back their happiness. There were two meetings and functions a week that I started going to by choice. I started developing friendships with people who ended up being my best friends. I always looked forward to getting out of high school to go to a meeting. Now looking back it is rather unusual for a 15 year old to look forward to drug abuse meetings. I ended up staying in the program for 3 years. I can't think of a better way to grow up than in an environment full of sober fun loving people. During my involvement with the program life began to change almost with out realizing how great things were really becoming. I have gotten the chance to deal with things in sobriety that I know I wouldn't have made it through if I were getting drunk or high. My dad died from alcoholism just 1 1/2 years ago. If there was anytime that I felt that I had an excuse for drinking it was this situation. But I didn't drink, I didn't runaway, I didn't even steal anyone's car! I talked about it and learned how to deal with feeling sad. But I was okay because of the tools that I was taught through this program. Through the hard times and the good, there is nowhere else I would have rather been. I loved this program so much I decide to go work for a program similar to it in Georgia as an alcohol and drug abuse counselor. Now I am back in St.Louis still sober and coming up on 5 years. This program has changed my life in a way that is inexplicable. I can't say what would have happened if I didn't stumble upon this program but I do know that my life is better than I ever imagined when I was not sober. If you are new or are looking into being new in Crossroads, I can easily say that it was the best experience of my life and that I learned things there that I will hopefully use for the rest of my life. Along with that have gained lifelong friends that I still am very close to. This program opened to me to allow miracles happen. When I first arrived in St. Louis to start the program, I was definitely heading in the wrong direction. I had just been arrested for being drunk in public, plus I was stealing from my parents, and friends. I had restraining orders on me from at least three parents, because they didn't want me hanging around with their kids. I was failing school, had no ambitions, except to get high, and as a result, didn't like myself very much. The Crossroads Program turned all that around for me. I now have ten years sober, have a great relationship with my parents, and I am an honest person today. I look back on the time I spent in the Crossroads Program as the best two and a half years of my life. The counselors are knowledgeable and treat everyone with respect. They gave me exactly what I needed. I was 11 when I first got into drinking and drugs. Before that I had a good relationship with my family, played sports, and did very well in school. By the time I was 15 I had lost everything. I was kicked out of my mother’s house, stopped playing sports, and was failing high school with a 0.07 GPA. I would constantly get into violent fights with my father, my brother, and kids in school. I was miserable and had never felt so alone. I was arrested and facing 5 different charges. I tried to kill myself one night with my father’s shotgun but could not bring myself to do it. A few months later I was introduced to the program. I felt like the staff really related to me and cared about me and my family. I went through IOP and learned some tools to deal with life and stay sober. I had never seen kids my age have so much fun without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I also had never seen kids have real relationships with their parents based on honesty. I can't give Crossroads credit for my sobriety, but I can give them credit for opening the door and teaching me that there is a better way of life. Today I am 22 with 7 years sober. I still attend AA meetings regularly. I have a great job and I am currently in college. My relationship with my family has never been better. I promised my brother when I made my amends to him that I would never lay a hand on him again, and I never have. I could never repay Crossroads for what they have done for me and my family. THANK YOU CROSSROADS! When my two children and I entered the Crossroads program my 17 year old son was living with a cocaine dealer & using heavily. He & I were barely on speaking terms. My 16 year old daughter was in a rehab camp in Utah & waiting for a chance to return to the drug world. Both of these children had progressed from casual users to serious drug use & I can still remember how hopeless I felt, realizing as I finally did, that this problem was not going to get better on its own. My son was first persuaded/threatened/bribed to go to some Crossroads meetings. This he did & then the counselors got him to commit to joining the group for 30 days-a miracle in itself-and I must say the effect on him was immediate. The personality changes that the drugs had brought started to reverse within those 30 days. And that allowed them to convince him to go into OP. My son’s illness would persist & remerge over the next several years but I can say that after OP we never came close to returning to the nasty, hateful, deeply dysfunctional family life we had before Crossroads. My son & I had been in the group a few months when my daughter returned from Utah. She was still very ill but she had been sober for a year (involuntarily) and she desperately needed an alternative peer group where she didn’t need drugs to be cool. Without it her year of sobriety would be gone the first weekend. She was a tougher sell on the group than my son was. It was always much harder for her to make friends so the group was not immediately attractive to her. But she was faithful to her commitment to try it and that gave her the time to see what real friends-as opposed to her user friends-were like. After a couple of months of evaluation the staff recommended that she goes to Step 2 in Phoenix. It was that program that really helped her turn the corner. She came back a new girl. Now, I need to point out that a major part of the recovery in our family came from the parent group. When my son first entered the program & I was told I should come to meetings too, I was as jaded towards this idea as any parent ever. I could see no way my attending meetings could help my kids-it was THEIR problem, not mine. But I think it was the feeling of hopeless desperation that got me there week after week. I had to concede that if I was willing to try anything then I had to try this. And I had to admit a few things right away. First, all of the parents in the group had the same problem and had a wealth of experience at dealing with it. There were parents who had faced & dealt with the EXACT problems that had totally baffled me. Secondly, I noticed that my son in particular, with whom I was barely on speaking terms, was very observant of my presence at the meetings & understood that I was there supporting him. It was after the meetings at coffee that he & I got reacquainted & got our relationship on the solid footing where it will always remain. My daughter is now in her junior year of college-math major-and is a happy, functional, responsible young adult with wisdom beyond her years. My son was killed in a moped accident in Phoenix just before he turned 24, six plus years after entering Crossroads. He was sober & happy when he died. When I think about the trajectory of his life before Crossroads, and the direction it took after, I am still two years after his death overwhelmed by the debt I owe this program. Everything I tried on my own failed. Thanks to this program my son & I were completely reconciled & it is very great gift. One of the Crossroads counselor's once said that, “I meet a family on the worst day of their life.” That was so true for my family. My son had just been arrested and suspended from school for drugs. Just 8 months before, he was an honor student with a 3.6 grade point average. With the daily use of pot and experimentation with other drugs, I watched my son spiral down. I had tried sending him out-of-town to stay with his brother for a few weeks. I was in constant communication with his teachers and principal. He was even sent to an out-patient program affiliated with a local hospital. Nothing worked and I didn't know what to do. By the time he was arrested, I began searching the country for a residential program. I had heard of Crossroads, but, my son said that he would never go there because that is where the "yuppies" go. I made an appointment anyway. On a Friday, we walked thru the doors of Crossroads and I was surprised when my son went off with the "Crossroads kids" right away. He even attended the Friday night function. On Saturday morning, he said to me "mom, this is different from the hospital program. They teach you how to live and how to like yourself!" On the following Monday, he started out-patient. Crossroads has a sister program in Phoenix; however, I learned that the staff likes to give the local program a chance before sending a teenager to Phoenix. It was determined very quickly that Phoenix was needed for my son. He went off willingly to Phoenix for 45 days. This was a great relief for me to know that for 45 days he was safe! During that time, there was tremendous growth for my family. I spoke to the Phoenix and St. Louis counselor's weekly. While in Phoenix, my son learned about his addiction. He learned the importance of "sticking with winners" and he learned to love himself. I learned from the other parents at the weekly parent meeting. I listened and learned how to set boundaries in my life. I had been divorced for several years and my family was truly "broken" by the time we came to Crossroads. Thru this program, we have learned how to function as a family again. A week before my son returned from Phoenix, there was a meeting in Phoenix for the family. His brother and I attended on Friday and his dad attended on Monday. After the meeting I turned to his brother and said "wow, that was so cool all the things that he said". His brother said, "mom, I couldn't hear what he said, but that's ok, I could feel it!" If you knew all of the lies, anger and deceit that had gone in my home the previous year, you would know what it means to me to "feel it". We could feel the love at that meeting. We now operate out of honesty and love. His dad has said that it is worth 1 million dollars just to have his son share a meal with him again. After he returned from Phoenix, he attended 6 weeks of out-patient and continues to attend 2 meetings a week and the Friday and Saturday night functions. Actually, he tends to attend a meeting almost every night of the week. He has developed deep friendships with teenagers in Crossroads as they share their innermost feelings with each other at meetings, campouts, road trips and late night "hang outs". I am constantly in awe of the courage that his new friends have every day as they overcome the effects of mind-changing chemicals. He is attending the community college in the fall. Most importantly, we are all learning how to live one day at a time and I have a drug and alcohol free home. Recently, some of the "crossroads girls" were at my home and they said "it just feels happy here". I would agree. I am ever-grateful to the staff, teenagers and parents in Crossroads who have shared their experience, strength and hope to my family. Oh, and did I mention, they accomplish all of this with a lot of fun! When I found out my son was getting high before school and was going to be suspended for several days, I cried for two days. I saw the life that his father and I had planned for him just going down the toilet. Private high school education, college, and career - just gone. And then I got mad. How dare he throw away all that his dad and I had worked so hard to be able to give to him. After trying to get him to stop getting high and having no success, a friend suggested The Crossroads Program. Other than family counselors this was the first and last place we sought treatment. I asked Mike Weiland how he was going to get our son to stop getting high and he said he was going to offer him something better. I thought that sounded too simple but it wasn't. He was taught about the twelve steps and was shown that he was a wonderful human being and a miracle that God placed on this planet. That was the something better that Mike offered my son. The twelve steps were a guideline to live his sober life by and with the added self-esteem my son began to make other good choices for himself. He chose to finish high school, get part-time employment, buy a car, and go to college. Crossroads also showed him how to have fun while doing all of these things. After two years at a community college and with six years sober, my son will leave for college this fall. He has all the tools he needs to prepare himself for the career he has chosen. I am blessed to have witnessed the miracle and I hope you will experience it too. My son used his "lifetime max" for mental health treatment on our family health insurance, for his addiction. He found Crossroads through a friend & introduced us to the program. He has told me that he started experimenting with drugs when he was 10 years old! He found his way through them all until Heroin became his drug of choice. With the help of the North older parent group & counselors, we healed ourselves & gave our son two choices, leave the house or go to Phoenix. He chose the second option, with a one way ticket on a Greyhound bus. He graduated there in March 2004 & is very active in a local AA group. He hands back to the community there by attending a facility for troubled teens that are remanded on drug crimes. This month he graduates college that he has paid for himself, working part time & school full time. He has only graduated 3 times in his life: 7th grade, Crossroads & now college. WOW! He has 4 years sober on August 16 2005 WOW! Thank you Crossroads & counselors for helping my son to find himself, to like who he is & to turn a troubled life into a wonderful gift of life. If you can help my son, who used drugs, alcohol, stole, attempted suicide, into this wonderful young man I now see, you can help anyone who wants to get sober, more importantly, you can teach them how to stay sober & lead a great new life. Finding their Higher Power, self respect & knowing how much love they have to share. Thank you Crossroads for the gift of our son. Thank you Crossroads. Thank you for helping restore our lives to sanity. The tools of the program enabled our daughter to move to Phoenix and become a productive member of society (she celebrated one year sober yesterday). She is doing well, and she is happy with herself. She is a miracle. Crossroads saved her life and taught us how to live life on life's terms based on a spiritual foundation of love and compassion. We would like to thank the staff for their love and insight on how to deal with this disease. You guys rule!!!! You always had the right answer. We are blessed with great friends in the NOG parent group who are there always ready to support us in any way. We can say today we have true friends. Crossroads, again we say thank you, without you, I don't know where we would be. WE LOVE YOU. Crossroads brought sanity and happiness back into our lives after more than 5 years of chaos in our home. Our daughter had struggled with depression since she was the victim of unrelenting harassment in junior high and high school. We sent her to a string of counselors and psychiatrists and she was on multiple medications. There was no improvement. By age 16 she was using drugs to cope. She eventually fell into a group of kids who also made using drugs a part of their daily routine. Within two years, she was arrested in a drug bust at a methamphetamines house. After we got her out of jail, she asked us to get her help or she would kill herself. After "shopping" for many programs, a friend suggested Crossroads. We met with a counselor at Crossroads and he was the first person in years that seemed to reach our daughter. Within Crossroads our daughter found true friends and learned about tools that would help her remain clean and sober. Although she still feels the tug to use drugs, she works her program and attends all meetings and functions. She now wants to return to college, and has hopes and dreams for a happy future. I have my daughter back after 5 years. Crossroads works because the staff understands what it means to be an addict; they show the kids a way that's fun without the use of drugs and alcohol; there's constant support from staff and the other kids; and parents are included in the healing process. I am eternally grateful to the staff. Their devotion to the kids and their parents isn't just a job, it's a life calling. Hi, My son is an addict. prior to joining the crossroads program our entire family had been wracked with a divorce that had far more reaching effects than I had ever imagined. My sons who were a constant source of pride became progressively more distant. Finally it became obvious that my son was in a lot of trouble. He hadn't spoken to me in more than a year. When we had an occasion to mend our bridges the remnants of the bridges blew up in our faces. The crossroads staff, miracle workers and awesome people, all of them are to be credited with helping my son and me come back together. It was worth every cent I invested in his recovery. My son is still recovering, and I am so proud of the progress he has made. Moreover I am so inspired by the crossroads staff that can help such obviously malfunctioning family dynamics. Thank you crossroads for helping my son to see the real happiness in life. Thank you for returning a son to his dad. love you all The first signs of my son's substance abuse appeared when he was 15. We spent the next three years in frustration, confusion, and fear, exploring the entire gamut of solutions including psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotropic drugs for depression and ADD, switching schools, virtual "house arrest," and mandatory AA meetings. When all those efforts failed, I finally accepted the suggestion of a veteran Crossroads mom who encouraged me to take a look at the program. More than two years later, I remain deeply grateful to the St. Louis staff), and the Phoenix staff, for the love, strength, and opportunity to choose happiness that they extended to my son. To all to the amazing parents in both cities who have been there along the way and who helped me remember how to breathe and laugh again, Life is Good! I love you all. I started getting high at age 13 and from there I went downhill at a steady pace. I remember going to my first rehab when I was 16 after I had gotten busted at school with drugs on me and I remember how lost and hopeless I was. I won’t bore you with the extra details of my story, but I can tell you that when I was 19, I was at a point of wanting to die, and I tried to kill myself with a handful of sleeping pills. Obviously I wasn’t good at it, I'm still here… But anyway, I remember asking God, "Anything but this.", and I was led to Crossroads and had my first appointment. I was sketchy about the whole situation at first, but when I was "in" I went into outpatient. Then I went to Step One, after a spree of unwillingness. If it wasn’t for Crossroads showing me how to work the steps the right way and learn how to be a human being, I wouldn’t be alive. (Notice, I didn’t say crossroads is the sole reason for me being alive, and I choose not to give Crossroads full credit, because it took a desire to get sober on my part and Crossroads merely opened the door for me, and for that, I am eternally grateful for.) I owe a big part of my life and who I am today to the love and support of not only the staff, but the parents and others who reached out to me and showed me that I wasn’t alone. Crossroads has sincerely helped me change my life and who I was before is just a bad dream now. I want to express my gratitude for the Crossroads program because of the positive impact it has had on our family. 4 years ago we realized that our son had a problem with drugs. We looked for help in all the conventional ways utilizing the mental health care system. We entrusted our son's welfare to psychologists and psychiatrists. Their recommendations included a 'locked' inpatient program, and a couple outpatient treatments. But, the 'suits with the degrees' couldn't reach or help our son. We spent a year dealing with a juvenile officer, the court system, several psychologists, psychiatrists, a psychiatric hospital, and several treatment centers. We were frustrated and near despair when a friend convinced us to attend a Crossroad's parent meeting. It was there that we found a renewed hope and belief that our son could be helped. The Crossroads program was unconventional. But, we heard from the other parents how their sons and daughters had gotten sober in Crossroads. It happened for us, too. Our son had finally found a group of young people who shared their experience and hope for a new way of life without using mind altering chemicals. Our son has been given an 'education' about how to accept life on life's terms. I remember being in an audience with other newcomer parents listening to the founder of the Enthusiastic Approach. We'd come to Crossroads only a few weeks earlier. The words never rang more true when he addressed the parents and told us that we'd come to Crossroads because it was an answer to our prayers. I knew that he was right. That was 3 years ago. Our son has chosen to work a 12 step program because of the support from the group and the counselors. We stayed for 'the miracle' of seeing our son and our family heal from the disease of addiction. The counselors are dedicated men and women who always 'go the extra mile' to help the parents and the young people in the group. They teach a 12 step program for adolescents and then help them 'graduate' to the A.A. fellowship. Bob Meehan also said that Crossroads is like Denny's. In that, 'you don't start out looking to go there, but that's where you end up'. I fondly remembered one Mother's Day when our group of 9 was looking for a restaurant and we hadn't made any reservations. We ended up at Denny's and had the most wonderful family meal together! Just like the day that we found Denny’s, I'm so grateful that we found Crossroads. It was an answer to our prayers! Love you! Our story is best told in reverse order. Last night, I was a participant in the Gong Show - some of the parents danced to 'Tiny Bubbles', looking like idiots in front of a couple hundred young people. My 18 year old daughter had moved to the first seat in the front row and screamed "that's my Mom!" at the top of her lungs. Her smile was a mile wide - she told me today - "That was cool!” That's where we are now. We spend time together, respectfully work out issues, actually connect and have fun. Two years ago, it was a much different story. I was unsuccessfully trying to gain control over a tornado. Psychologists, medication, doctors - all well intended, but ineffective. Our house was a battle zone - school was calling with issues - the inevitable trouble with the police. I lay awake during those nights and told myself if something very dramatic did not change, and fast, one of three things would happen to my daughter - she would be gone, in jail or dead. The counselors at Crossroads are largely responsible for the dramatic change that has kept her sober for almost 2 years. She has graduated high school, started college, is working and overall, a happy person. It is true that much credit must go to my daughter for the strength of character she has shown in turning her life around. But she could not have done it without the love, support, teaching, and discipline afforded her by the Crossroads Group. She is currently attending 2 meetings per week, 2 social events and has meetings with the counselors as needed. I attend one parent meeting per week and also attend social events. I am not paying one dime for this support. She is not getting any less care, attention or love than when she was in treatment. Every young person gets this level of support. Every one. One other change that has occurred since our beginning to work the Enthusiastic Sobriety approach to life. My life is infinitely better. I've made tremendous friends, learned how to manage my life better by applying the 12 steps to my own life. I can absorb what life has to throw at me with true serenity. It took me a long time to write this. How do you put into words the selflessness and dedication the Crossroads counselors have shown our family? It's not possible. Except to say that every night I say the following prayer: Thank you God so much. She's alive, I know where she is, and it's not jail. I started using drugs at 13 I had been drinking since 7. When my life took a turn for the worst was high school. I was a drug dealer. All I did all day was drink and use. My life was destined to become a statistic. Just another number of young kids dead because of drugs and booze. I started getting into some hard stuff at 16 and ended up living in a crack house at the age of 17. Now there are a lot of things in between this but I got in the group the day I got out of a discipline center for young kids. That day, my life was twisted but through the support and love that I got from staff and people, I knew I could have more than I ever thought possible. My life today is fantastic and I would not change it for anything. So thank you to all the people that stood by me through everything. I came into the Crossroads program in the year 2002. My main reason was I ruined my life. I dropped out of a prestigious university in Florida to bartend. One year later I wrecked my car, the big problem was the other person in the car. This person is now suing me. In my three years in Florida I managed to rack up 12 assault charges and three of them were on a police officer. Although my drug usage started early at the end it was extreme with the worst drugs possible. I considered my life to be over when I wrecker my car because I was also paralyzed for a short while. I grew up in St. Louis and when I was well I returned, a fugitive. I had a desire to change my life path but I did not know how. I found Crossroads through a relative and the program saved my life. Crossroads has had an undeniable positive effect on me. My life is back on track and I am a student again. I have almost three years sober and I am happy. This program works if you surrender. I love all of you!!! I am extremely grateful for what this program did for me. It gave me hope, something that I didn't have much of at all 4 years ago. I was introduced to Crossroads in the summer of 2000 when I was 16, thanks to my parents (although I was not saying thanks at the time). I ended up coming back because I saw no other option, and I ended up staying due to the love, fun, understanding, and hope I found there. And it was a constant party. I was in St. Charles Younger Group and North Older Group. I got some self-worth, some great memories, best friends, and most important, I was taught and shown how to live one day at a time sober. I was given the tools to be happy joyous and free. I was taught how to make the best decisions for myself, and then given the help I needed to start and keep practicing those tools. My life would not be what it is today if I never went through the Crossroads program. I have over 4 yrs sober, I still go to AA, and still work the steps, I have an amazing job I love, I have great friends and roommates that I love, and I want anyone to know that my sobriety is the greatest fact of my life today. It's the reason I'm still alive. And Crossroads helped me in ways I don't think anyone or anything could have helped me to get the tools I needed and still need to stay sober. I hope the best for anyone that relates to this or is looking for a reason to have hope. this program seriously saved my life. I am 15 years old and i am an alcoholic and an addict. I got in the crossroads program when i was 14 and have been sober for 10 months. before i got in the group i had been drinking consistently for about 5 years, i had been taking extasy for about 2. the last 2 years before getting sober i had spent 18 months in a lockdown boys home, had been to the hospital multiple times for drug related reasons, and had many stays in psych hospitals for suicide attempts. I WAS MY ONLY PROBLEM. the drugs just gave me an excuse to hide behind. Now like i said i have 10 months sober and they have been the happiest 309 days of my life. I've grown mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and in every other way of my life i am a better person than when i walked into the K.C. satellite. I have people that love me and to give that love back is great. I've come to a place where people don't judge others by their looks or likes or clothes but by the simple understanding that we can all get sober and help each other, all different kinds of people can get along and have a deeper connection to love and it's entirety. Tornado: A violent or destructive whirlwind; My 16 year old son on drugs and alcohol -- The devastation from the tornado was overwhelming. Results of the clean-up were unsuccessful. Family and friends grew tired of helping and soon fell by the way-side. Those of us caught in the storm suffered emotionally and physically. My son, caught in the eye of the storm had the worst prognosis. He was in numerous hospitals, psychiatric wards, emergency rooms, ambulances, treatment centers, and police cars. He, the doctors, nor we, could control the suicidal tendencies, chronic depression or abuse. We tried to remain hopeful after each release. However, he was even more miserable after a brief time. A friend gave me a copy of Bob Meehan's "Yellow Brick Road" several years ago. One treatment program we hadn't tried. ---- However, there was a catch. The addict would not be accepted in the program unless he or she wanted to be there, participate, work on sobriety and be a positive influence to others in the group (and still have fun?) He agreed to go to St. Louis and meet with one of the Crossroads counselors. To our disbelief, he chose to stay, telling me in the car he was sick and tired of crying himself to sleep every night. HE NOW HAS FOUR YEARS CLEAN + AND SOBER I am thankful for his health. I am grateful to the staff for not giving up. There were many bumps in the road. I often think about the amount of time they spent consoling him and using every recourse to help in his difficult fight. Their effort was relentless, always demonstrating respect , kindness and availability. He deserves the fist and I am very proud of the hard work he continues today every day in order to stay sober and lead an honest life.

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