Jacob does not talk about recovery as a victory parade. He talks about it as learning how to stay. Stay present. Stay honest. Stay alive when everything in you wants to disappear. For most of his life, Jacob learned how to survive by leaving himself. Alcohol came first. Then pills. Then harder drugs. “I didn’t think of it as addiction,” he says. “It just felt like relief.” He grew up fast, without a mother, with a father who worked constantly, and a world that taught him early that emotions were something to outrun, not sit with. He was athletic, smart, capable. On the outside, things looked fine. On the inside, he was already negotiating with pain.
When Stability Fell Apart
When Jacob moved to New York to help his grandparents, he tried to reset. For a while, he did. He set his sights on becoming a correction officer and was substance-free for six months. He studied, trained, and took the civil service exam. Then a shoulder injury, prescribed medication, and a failed drug test ended that path abruptly. “I felt like I failed,” he says. “And once I felt that, I went right back to what made me feel like I wasn’t a failure.”
The loss that broke everything open came later. A car accident. His partner, Sam, pregnant with their child, did not survive; but Jacob did. “After that,” he says, “I wanted to lose myself. I blamed myself. I didn’t want to live.” Addiction fed on that grief. Prison followed. Then homelessness. After years of living outside Jacob was disconnected from family and from stability. “I lost my house. I lost my job. I lost my life,” he says. “And I stayed out there because I thought I deserved it.” What finally interrupted that cycle was exhaustion and one person who refused to give up on him. “My aunt told me jail wasn’t going to fix this,” Jacob recalls. “She said, ‘You need treatment.’ That was the first time anyone said that to me like it was an option, not a punishment.”
Slowing Down Enough to See the Truth
When Jacob arrived at Turning Point House, he was not convinced it would be different from past rehabilitation attempts. “I came in thinking I already knew what I was doing,” he admits. “That’s addiction too. Thinking you’re the smartest person in the room.” The staff, however; showed up consistently, without judgment, without shortcuts. “They didn’t try to fix me,” Jacob says. “They helped me slow down enough to actually see what I was doing to myself.”
His counselor, Javier Pagán, BSW, CASAC-2, pushed him to sit with discomfort instead of escaping it. “He asked me questions I couldn’t dodge,” Jacob says. “He didn’t let me talk my way out of accountability.” At Turning Point House, Jacob was introduced to practices he had never tried before. Counseling that pushed him to be honest. Journaling that forced him to face his own words. Stillness that felt unbearable at first. “I had never just sat with myself in silence,” he says. “No noise. No escape. That was harder than detox.”
The nursing staff also played a critical role. Brianna Martino, LPN, in particular, encouraged Jacob to rethink his relationship with medication and supported him through the decision to fully step away from Suboxone. “She didn’t push me,” he says. “She trusted me enough to let me choose, and that mattered.” Jacob also found support through grief counseling with Eric Clark, LMSW, and encouragement from Alyssa Draudt, LMHC, both of whom helped him name losses he had spent years avoiding. Grieving properly was something Jacob had never allowed himself to do. The loss of Sam. The loss of his mother. The loss of his dog Roscoe, who had been his companion on the streets and, in Jacob’s words, “my reason to wake up.” “That dog was my crutch,” he says. “When I lost him, I almost lost myself for good.” Jacob explains that Turning Point helped him learn how to ground myself. He began doing what he calls a nightly inventory. Writing down what hurt and what he avoided. Jacob would talk it through with staff and later with Angel S., his sponsor he met at Sparks of Hope.
Giving Back as a Way Forward
What keeps Jacob grounded now is service. It keeps him connected. Jacob often checks on peers who are struggling. “Sometimes helping someone is just asking, ‘Are you okay?’” he says. “Even if they say no, they know someone sees them.”
Jacob wants to become a grief counselor, particularly for people who have experienced sudden loss and trauma and turned to substances to survive it. “I’ve lived it,” he says. “I know what it feels like to think you’re beyond saving.” When asked what he would say to someone who feels the way he once did, Jacob does not offer slogans. He is direct. “You have to do the work,” he says. “Nothing is going to fall in your lap. You have to show up. You have to listen. You have to be willing to admit you don’t know everything.” He pauses, then adds, “And you have to believe that just because you lost everything doesn’t mean you’re done.”
That is what recovery looks like for Jacob. Not a clean break from the past, but a commitment to remain present in the present. One honest day at a time.
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