A Forever Recovery Participates in Local Church Walk for Recovery
On October 8th, A Forever Recovery participated in Strides Breast Cancer Walk. Facility staff and clients were all part of the team, joining many others who are seeking to raise awareness along with funds for the fight against breast cancer. The event “Making Strides of Calhoun County” began with registration at 8:30 a.m. with the walk for recovery commencing at 10:30 a.m. Thirty-eight teams and 164 participants raised $8,871 for the fight against breast cancer.
Sometimes we need to look beyond ourselves to find hope. Recognizing that there are others who are suffering from challenges similar to or even vastly beyond our own, can help us find perspective and gratitude.
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks are the largest network of breast cancer awareness events in the nation, uniting communities with a shared determination to help free the world from the pain and suffering of breast cancer. Walk for recovery participants raise critical funds that enable the American Cancer Society to fund innovative research and to provide free information and support to anyone touched by breast cancer. Also, to help people reduce their breast cancer risk or find it early when it’s most treatable.
AFR: Full-Range Addiction Treatment
A Forever Recovery (AFR) seeks to provide a unique (and extremely effective) recovery environment, catering to the individual needs of its clients. To this end, AFR brings together counselors – trained, licensed professionals – from a variety of backgrounds, with experience in the addiction field, to provide the resources for all clients to find the recovery modality that works best for them. These modalities are referred to as “Tracks” and include: faith-based, self-help, cognitive, and Indigenous (Native American).
AFR describes their many different supplemental programs:
- “We offer various spiritual pathways, or ‘Tracks,’ that encompass people from all walks of faith or religious backgrounds. Christianity, Eastern Philosophy, even traditional Native American spirituality are all included in our Tracks. At A Forever Recovery, our patients discover the ways and means to create an entirely new life for themselves and their loved ones. They find different methods that they can put to use in handling negative situations and emotions positively and constructively. They locate the strength to continue working toward making today the best that they possibly can and continually striving to be a little bit better tomorrow than they were yesterday. They begin to see the rewards of optimism and the power of positive thinking. They discover that, no matter how bad things may have seemed, there is light on the other side.”
Roads to Rehabilitation – Walk for Recovery
The therapeutic value of exercise in recovery is well documented. Exercise is known to reduce depression and anxiety. Physical fitness can help purge the body of stress, tension, and illness.
Exercise has created lasting positive effects on patients’ lives during recovery. Not only is physical health enhanced during the rehabilitation stage, but psychological health, lifestyle behavior, self-perception, self-esteem, the level of stress, coping mechanisms, and social support are also improved. Such physical activity may become a viable (and healthy) replacement for substance abuse; it can reinforce the same pleasurable physical experience provided by drug use.
In exercise programs that involve a group of patients, recovering addicts may gain a sense of self-worth and better self-image that is reinforced by team-encouragement and leadership. Exercising during rehabilitation and beyond has also shown to decrease the potential for relapse significantly. These benefits, among many other positive gains from physical activity, encourage recovered addicts’ continued exercise practices and healthy mentalities after recovery.
Add to that the sense of community that comes from involvement in a higher cause, and the walk for recovery for a better world are a winning combination.
