For someone struggling with addiction, grief, anxiety, depression or simply the weight of life, walking through the doors of a recovery meeting can sometimes be the hardest step.
There is fear.
Fear of being recognized. Fear of being judged. Fear that someone will talk.
Fear that admitting there is a problem somehow means admitting failure.
But as Celebrate Recovery prepares for a renewed launch in Scottsboro on October 15, its leaders want the community to understand something from the beginning:
There is no shame in needing help, and no one has to struggle alone.
The program will meet each Thursday, beginning with a free meal at 5:30 p.m., followed by the large-group gathering at 6 p.m. with live music, a speaker and a message centered on recovery and hope.
Participants will then have an opportunity to attend small groups addressing different struggles.
Childcare will also be available through what organizers are calling the “Celebration Station,” led by Dr. Amy Holder.
Most nights are expected to conclude by approximately 8 p.m., and organizers also plan to offer coffee, doughnuts and pastries afterward, giving participants an opportunity to fellowship and build relationships.
The goal is to create more than another weekly meeting.
Organizers hope to establish a safe, confidential place where people throughout Jackson County know they can turn when life becomes too heavy to carry alone.
“What’s said here stays here.”
Anonymity, confidentiality and safety will remain central to the program.
“We’re here to help,” the program’s incoming leader Jason Hass said. “Not here to gossip or expose.”
Celebrate Recovery in Scottsboro dates back to 2010, when the program began under the leadership of then-pastor Dr. Steve Screws and Dr. Harden Coleman.
In its earlier years, the program grew considerably, with some Thursday night gatherings drawing 150 to 200 people.
Then came COVID-19. Meetings stopped for approximately eight months, and rebuilding proved difficult.
Recovery, Hass explained, can be compared to keeping a fire burning.
“You’ve got to keep it stoked,” he said.
“You can’t stop.
It’s got to keep burning or else it’s going to burn out.”
After the pandemic, attendance dropped to roughly 40 to 50 people.
Another extended pause followed several years later as leadership circumstances changed.
Tony and Deborah Campbell, both Methodist ministers, stepped in during the past year to help keep the ministry going, always with the understanding that leadership would eventually transition again.
That transition will officially take place October 15.
Coleman will remain deeply involved and will serve in what has affectionately been described as an ambassador role, welcoming those who come through the doors and helping them feel immediately at home.
And that feeling of belonging matters, because many people arrive at recovery programs already believing they do not belong anywhere.
One of the goals of the renewed Celebrate Recovery program is to reach people even before they believe they need it.
Someone may hear about the program and dismiss it.
Someone may come for a meal but not be ready to talk.
Someone may sit through a meeting skeptical of everything being said.
Someone may hear the message repeatedly while still believing recovery is something for somebody else.
That does not mean the message is wasted.
It means a seed has been planted.
Organizers know that sometimes a person has to reach a place of brokenness before he or she is willing to ask for help.
But when that day comes, they want that person to remember there is somewhere to go.
“Even if you don’t want it, even if you’re skeptical, at least you’re hearing enough of it to know when, because it’s gonna come, as we all know, there’s gonna come a day where you’re broken, and you’re gonna know where to go,” Hass said.
“And that’s what we want to be.”
That philosophy changes what success looks like.
Success is not necessarily convincing someone to change his or her entire life during one Thursday night meeting.
Sometimes it is simply making sure that person knows there is a door that will still be open when he or she is finally ready to walk through it.
It is planting a seed of hope. It is reminding someone that recovery exists.
And it is making sure that when the moment comes that a person finally says, “I can’t do this anymore,” they know where help can be found.
One misconception organizers hope to overcome is the belief that Celebrate Recovery is only for people battling drugs or alcohol.
Addiction will certainly remain an important part of the ministry, but the program is designed to reach much further.
Small groups are expected to address struggles including addiction, grief, anxiety, depression, burnout and unhealthy behaviors.
Support will also be available for family members who love someone battling addiction, mental health struggles or other difficult circumstances.
The philosophy behind it is simple: everyone struggles with something.
“There’s nobody that has everything perfectly together,” Hass said.
Celebrate Recovery follows a 12-step recovery model while openly identifying its “higher power” as Jesus Christ.
At the same time, organizers stress that the local program is non-denominational and intended to bring churches and the community together rather than divide people along denominational lines.
Several churches and community organizations are already helping provide Thursday evening meals, including Grace Global Methodist Church, United Methodist groups and Calvary Baptist Church, among others.
That cooperation is exactly what organizers hope to expand.
They envision judges, law enforcement, churches, businesses, treatment programs, recovery ministries and other organizations throughout Jackson County working together so that when someone reaches the point of saying, “We need help,” there is somewhere to call.
The program can also sign attendance cards for participants involved in drug court, color code or family life, with attendance available for both large- and small-group meetings.
Thursday nights are only one part of what organizers hope to offer.
Celebrate Recovery also uses sponsors, people further along in recovery, who are willing and qualified to walk alongside others as they work through the process.
During meetings, those willing to serve as sponsors can be identified so participants know who is available to provide that additional accountability and support.
Organizers are also preparing to offer separate step studies, expected to begin in early November.
Tony and Deborah Campbell, who have been leading the program, are expected to transition into leading those studies on Tuesday evenings.
Final details will be announced through Celebrate Recovery.
While the Thursday large-group gatherings and small groups provide fellowship, encouragement and support, the step studies are where participants can dig much deeper into the recovery process.
For Hass , that work is essential.
“That’s the meat and potatoes of any recovery, doing a step study,” he said.
Services matter. Small groups matter.
Fellowship matters. But studying and working through the steps forces a person to look deeper at choices, relationships, hurts, behaviors and patterns that may have accumulated over years.
It also provides something equally important: a record of growth.
Workbooks and written reflections can allow someone, months or even years later, to look back at where his or her mind was at the beginning of recovery and recognize how far the journey has taken them.
Recovery is not simply about stopping a behavior.
It is about understanding what lies beneath it and learning a different way forward.
For the man preparing to lead the renewed effort, recovery is not something he learned about from a book.
He lived it. His struggle with alcohol began during an extraordinarily difficult period of his life.
His father died in 2010. Nine months later, his infant son suffered a seizure lasting approximately 45 minutes and had to be flown for emergency medical treatment.
Then came panic attacks.
At the same time, his professional responsibilities were increasing.
He moved from the classroom into administration, serving as an assistant principal and athletic director in Huntsville before eventually returning to Scottsboro.
Stress continued building. By 2015, everything had caught up with him.
“I hit the bottom,” he said.
“I was broken.
” He took a leave of absence and entered a three-month recovery program in Nashville.
At the time, he was terrified.
He worried about his career.
He worried about what people would think.
He imagined reporters waiting outside a recovery meeting to expose the school administrator who had admitted he had a problem with alcohol.
None of that happened.
Instead, he found people who understood.
He found compassion, and eventually, he found a calling.
The experience that he once feared might destroy his life became one of the experiences that changed it most profoundly.
He credits the recovery process with teaching him empathy and changing the way he viewed leadership.
Recovery helped him understand that leadership could not simply be about a title, a career or personal advancement.
It had to be about people, the students, teachers, parents and families depending on those in leadership positions.
Years later, he continues to teach principles he learned during that season, including lessons from Voice of the Heart, a book that became instrumental in his own recovery.
Now, after retiring from the school system, he believes the timing is right to return fully to work he has long felt called to do.
Perhaps one of the most important messages Celebrate Recovery hopes to carry into Jackson County is that addiction does not discriminate.
Neither do grief, depression, anxiety, family problems or emotional pain.
People from every profession, income level, neighborhood, church and family can struggle.
Yet shame often convinces people they must hide.
That shame can become one of the biggest barriers between someone who is hurting and the help that could change his or her life.
“There should not be shame,” Hass said.
He knows because shame once kept him from walking through those doors, too.
That is why confidentiality will be so heavily emphasized.
Someone should be able to walk into Celebrate Recovery without wondering whether his or her name will become tomorrow’s gossip.
Someone should be able to say, “I’m struggling,” without believing everyone else in the room has life figured out.
And families need that same grace.
Loving someone with an addiction can leave parents, spouses, siblings and grandparents caught between two painful extremes, trying to force someone into recovery or unintentionally enabling destructive behavior because they cannot bear to watch someone they love suffer.
Organizers hope family-support components of Celebrate Recovery can help people understand that difference and learn healthier ways to support their loved ones while also taking care of themselves.
Recovery ultimately has to be wanted by the person struggling, but that does not mean families have to navigate the journey alone.
Celebrate Recovery will also work alongside, rather than compete with, other recovery programs in Jackson County and surrounding communities.
Organizers hope to build relationships with existing addiction ministries, sober-living programs, family-support groups, churches, court programs and community organizations.
The reason is bigger than attendance at any one Thursday-night meeting.
Every person who finds recovery matters.
Every family that finds support matters.
Every person who walks through a door, admits they need help and discovers they are still worthy of hope matters.
Hass summed up the philosophy behind the ministry in a sentence, “My recovery depends on your recovery.”
When one person becomes passionate about recovery, he explained, it encourages someone else to remain committed.
There is accountability in walking alongside people who understand where you have been and where you are trying to go.
Recovery is rarely a straight line.
Sometimes people relapse.
Sometimes they enter treatment more than once.
Sometimes family members become exhausted.
Sometimes people who desperately want help become frightened by detox, treatment, shame or simply the uncertainty of what happens next.
But needing another chance does not mean there is no hope.
If it takes a second attempt, or a third, the important thing is continuing to reach for recovery.
That persistence is at the heart of what organizers hope Celebrate Recovery can again become for Scottsboro and Jackson County.
A place where someone can eat a meal without judgment.
A place where a grieving person can sit beside someone who understands.
A place where the family of someone battling addiction can admit they are exhausted.
A place where someone battling alcohol or drugs can say out loud that they need help.
A place where someone who isn’t ready today can hear enough hope to remember where to turn tomorrow.
A place where a person walking through the doors for the first time can discover that the people sitting inside are not there because they have perfect lives.
They are there because they don’t.
And, perhaps most importantly, it will become a place where someone who believes he or she has reached the bottom can discover that the story does not have to end there.
There is help.
There is hope.
And there is a place for you here.
Meetings will be held at 1105 S. Broad Street in Scottsboro each Thursday night. Meal starts at 5:30, and the meeting starts at 6 p.m.
by Heather Dohring
