National Recovery Month
Celebrate Recovery With Us
As we approach the end of September, The Next Door would like to take a moment to highlight National Recovery Month. National Recovery Month occurs every September and was created in 1989 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration. The goal when creating this new campaign was to increase awareness of mental health and addiction recovery. National Recovery Month allows those recovering from substance use disorders to celebrate their recovery, while also bringing together many treatment, prevention, and recovery programs all around the country. This September the National Recovery Month theme is, “Every Person. Every Family. Every Community.” The Next Door is excited to celebrate this month with our current clients starting their recovery journey and with our program alumni continuing their recovery in their everyday lives.
In support of National Recovery Month, we held a memorial service to remember those we have lost to overdoses. The memorial service was a time where our chaplain, Kelley Doyle, lit a candle, read a few Bible passages, prayed, and read “A Blessing for Absence” by John O’Donohue. Kelley also allowed time for all attending the memorial service to light a candle and say the name of someone they had personally lost. This was a beautiful event that allowed both The Next Door staff and clients to come together in support of one another.
The Next Door has also been putting up weekly posters in the elevator allowing clients and staff to write their answers to recovery month questions. One poster we put up this month asked, “What is your definition of recovery?” We were able to get answers from both clients and staff, and these answers were just a few that we got. One of our clients said, “I think recovery means finding healing, peace, love, happiness, and success.” Another one of our clients wrote, “Recovery is being able to get back to me!” We also got some responses from the staff here at The Next Door. One staff member said, “To me recovery means feeling at peace with yourself, knowing your self-worth, and understanding that we are always worth more than our past mistakes.” Another staff member said, “To me recovery is a whole new life and spirit. It’s all the parts, good and bad, that make just existing as I did in active addiction not an option. Recovery is the breath in my lungs and the beat of my heart guided by my higher power hands. Recovery is everything.”
The Next Door also hosted our annual Homecoming event Saturday, September 24, in celebration of National Recovery Month. This event allowed alumni to come back and celebrate their recovery with other alumni, The Next Door staff, and current clients of The Next Door. The event had food, a dunking booth, animal balloons, a DJ, and more. We are excited that it was a time where families and people of all ages could come together to celebrate the recovery journeys going on at The Next Door and going on in the lives of women who have taken the next step in their recovery journeys outside of The Next Door. We wanted to take this time to really celebrate the women who went through our program and are out living their lives in recovery and also the women who are current clients still working towards their goal of recovery.
The Next Door rounded out National Recovery Month with our annual Fall Benefit. We have hosted this event every year since our inception, and it continues to be an incredible day for connection, community, and fellowship. Our goal is that our event fosters open conversations about the disease of addiction and how we can work together to empower women for a lifetime. This year’s theme was “Beauty for Ashes,” and the event was hosted at Belmont’s new Fisher Center for Performing Arts. The theme this year came from Isaiah 61:3, “He will give you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Attendees were blessed with hearing Tiffany’s story of her journey through recovery and how The Next Door played a role in that journey, American Country Music Award winner Sara Evans sang, Dr. Ryan V. Moore prayed over The Next Door, The Next Door’s Executive Director Rachel Morris spoke, and Belmont University’s First Lady Reverend Susan Pendleton Jones spoke. The chairs of the event were Melissa Beasley and Beth Moore. The event was beautifully put together by Mary Spencer Veazey and was a truly incredible way to finish out National Recovery Month
