Intervention Canada Brings Andrew To LDR Addiction Wellness Centre

Without any exaggeration, INTERVENTION CANADA, coupled with the LDR staff and program, has been the most powerful and revolutionary experience of my life.  I can remember getting the phone call from the shows producer who asked me if I was interested in participating in a documentary.  I was in the hospital at the time; I was weak and tired.  I had collapsed on cocaine and suffered a seizure while detoxing from alcohol.  When I was asked by the produce if I wanted to participate in this documentary, my first reaction was that they were only money-hungry vultures wanting fame from my misfortune.  Was I ever wrong!  I can’t explain what I would have lost our on had I said no.

My life was like a shattered glass, I just couldn’t put it back together.  Addiction had me in its clutches worse than ever.  I had to use in order to escape the horrifying reality of who I had become.  I hurt and abandoned by my family, my passion for journalism died, and I became a monster who felt hopeless, miserable and lonely.

Intervention showed up just in time.  I couldn’t handle the physical effects of addiction any longer and I felt mentally ill.  I agreed to participate in the documentary on addiction for a few reasons.  At first I thought my family might not bother me as much about my using and secondly, the reason I became a journalist was to make a difference.  I saw this as a good opportunity to do that, plus I could be loaded to do it.  How insane my reasonings were the film crew showed up and I was very surprised at their kindness and friendliness.  I felt comfortable almost immediately.

I was nervous about showing my behaviors to strangers but the men and women of intervention were so gentle and patient.  I felt safe with them.  They could actually make me smile and laugh a bit which eased the stress of the situation.  My using helped me mask the shame of feeling like a low looser in front of such good people.  When I look back, their pleasantness was like a catalyst.  It showed me a healthy guilt and helped me say yes during the intervention.

It was in August of 2010 that I began to drink heavily in the bathroom stall of the news room at the Media Plex.  It seemed as if the perfect storm began that day.  I isolated and drank vodka as everything I worked for in sobriety fell apart.  I went from a 4.0 average to barely passing.  My passions died and my desires became alcohol and crack.  I was hurting my family deeply, hiding from my teachers, sleeping down at the river and watching my world crumble.  I am completely awe-struck at how intervention stepped in at just the right time.  If they hadn’t, I’m certain I would have lost my family support, runined any opportunity at my career, been homeless and possibly dead.  I’ve now been sober for 83 days.  I don’t believe in coincidence anymore, not after Intervention chose the LDR program for my treatment.  Let me explain.  As a child I witnessed horrible things and myself was a victim of mental, physical and sexual abuse.  I was abandoned in every form but most importantly I was abandoned emotionally.  By the age of five I was shut down emotionally and started to develop self-defeating learned behaviors to protect myself from being hurt any further.  I acted out in unhealthy ways in an attempt to

Fill these voids and the more I tried, the more empty I felt.  My entire life was a pursuit of happiness but the tool box I carried was full of unhealthy coping mechanisms.  LDR’s program is rich with the understandng that I searched for everywhere, and for all my born days.  The staff helped me understand the very roots of the most complex issues that fueled my addiction and misfit way of living life.  Intervention gave me the most valuable and satisfying gift by sending me here.  I’m blown away.  I’m so absolutely in awe that it’s shocking.  I remember waking up the day of the Intervention.  I had a half bottle of Kentucky bourbon.  I was going to go to church with the film crew and then do a final interview.  I was a bit sad that they were going to be leaving.  I had so much fear that I was going to be alone again.  When we missed going to the Windsor Christian Fellowship. I didn’t even think anything of it.  It wasn’t until we entered the hotel and I saw the room that would be used for the interview, it hit me.  This doesn’t seem right.  I had my suspicions at times through the filming but Richard was cunning enough to ease that concern.  All of a sudden I was through the doors, in the middle of the heat and the pressure was on.  I’ll never forget the look on everybody’s face.  The Intervention team looked so concerned about me.  I felt loved and by this time I knew I had no more excuses.  I could feel the power at work in the room.  I quickly realized that the whole time I was using I was desperately wanting to be rescued.  Intervention rescued me from my deteriorating life and demoralizing self-existence.  I think I was in shock for two weeks upon arriving in British Columbia at LDR’s treatment centre.  It was difficult to comprehend what had just happened.  My first two weeks were rough physically and mentally.  After about 30 days I felt like my head came out of a tight grip from a vice, that’s when the liberation began.  I started to balance out emotionally and experience some positive feelings as well as negative.  I couldn’t feel much at all for the first 30 days.  Some of deepest yearnings were met here.  All my life I was searching for people to understand me.  All of LDR’s councilors knew me better than I knew myself.  They started to point out to me the most amazing truths about how I operated mentally and emotionally.  Truths about no matter where or how I searched, I couldn’t find or understand.  I hated and resented the face of these issues because they haunted me all my life, but I was blind to what was beneath the surface of them.  I was a slave to them.  LDR’s program attacked my hidden roots and taught me how to establish a foundation for living.  Their methods amazed me and provided real evidence of success.  The oral 1 technique helped me see clearly through the foggy, haunting memories of my past.  I was able to understand the nature of the most significant behaviors in my life, how O learned those behaviors, and the reinforced negative belief systems that they affirmed which kept me in a constant pattern of self-defeat.  I came into the program with no self-esteem, hating myself and living a lie.  When using I created a false identity to mask the beliefs I had of myself.  I wore this identity for so long that I believed it and remained blind to my true self.  I’m leaving the program a changed person with so much awareness and inspiration.

LDR helped me see the truth about myself and I am so much more free than when I arrived.  These examples are only scratching the surface of what I have learned here.  I’ve found out that I cannot change my behaviors without first changing my beliefs and values.  Intervention and LDR made it possible for all of this to happen.  I am nearly 3 months sober, I’m no longer hurting the people who love me.  I am healthier mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.  I am free to the degree of truth that has been shown to me.  I am the healthiest I have ever been.  Amazingly, the treatment process has given me truth to believe in and such revelation have shown me what virture and value is all about when dealing with self.  I am happy, I have joy and I feel free.  I don’t have to live in prison any longer.

 Andrew Thomas Rittenhouse, August 23, 2011