Week 3 - The Power of Now

Carter Smith will join Noelle as the Guest Storyteller this Saturday! In Carter's early 20's his addiction took off when he discovered that his substance use subsided the pain of loss instantly, "This is the opposite of grief, this fixes everything." Within one year, Carter had lost everything: his job, the roof over his head and all support from friends and family. He wanted to control his consequences, not his cocaine use. At his bottom, Carter sat down with his parents and told them he had a problem: "They were still talking to me, but I wasn't allowed in the house without them. There were so many times I asked them to bail me out and to support my addiction, I couldn't blame them." The weekend Carter asked for help was Easter Weekend 2018.. He reached out to Step Denver, a Men's residential recovery program that helps low-income men get back on their feet and find long-term sobriety. After spending that weekend in the Denver Rescue Mission, he was accepted into Step Denver and began to rebuild his life from the ground up. Now at 4 years sober and a staff member at Step Denver, helping other men find long term recovery, Carter says, "I thought hope was gone and I was a lost cause. In reality, I just needed to adjust the lens in which I saw life --in which I saw my life."