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Here is a raw and honest look into the sober journey of our clients. We have chosen to honor and respect their anonymity throughout this learning process. We thank them for being willing to share the highs and lows of working this 12-step, adventurous program known as Back2Basics. Let their stories take you away…
Cliff Jumping at Blue Ridge Lake
The trip to Blue Ridge Lake was very good. The drive was short in comparison to the other trips, and on the way there we listened to an assortment of techno, classic rock, and a variety of rap artists. Nobody was sure what to expect from this trip, since it was our first time attending this specific location.
When we arrived we all went swimming. Some of the clients even went cliff jumping. I was scared to jump off the cliffs at this time so I just stuck to swimming in the beautiful lake. After swimming and unloading the canoes we paddled to our campsite, which was our final destination of our stay at Blue Ridge. I sat in the middle of the canoe, without a paddle, but found I could help motivate my friends to paddle their hardest. I directed the boat and said which sides to paddle on to help out as much as I possibly could.
We got to the campsite and enjoyed a smoke break, ate, and set tents up, with a rain fly included. This prep was necessary because soon after it started to downpour. My tent stayed dry. We then went cliff diving, and I had never been. I was intimidated, frightened and scared to say the least. Many of the clients had experience cliff diving. We were scared to jump from the twenty-five foot jump. All the other guys were in the lake encouraging us to jump. We sat at the top of the cliff for at least ten minutes, but after receiving some support I finally jumped. It was a great feeling to be able to overcome my fear of heights and water in sobriety.
— B2B client
Different Strokes, Different Folks
As I write this, I am on the van ride home from the Grand Canyon white water rafting trip. The trip was an amazing experience and an indescribable amount of fun, I learned a lot about the prior history of the area from one of the tour guides, Lyle. He is of Native American decent and culture, Hopi to be exact. He lived on the reservation as well as in Flagstaff. On the ride there, the other client and I were talking about how much fun our previous river trip was and how happy we all were to be going on yet another exciting adventure in unknown waters. We were so pumped. Our previous trip was a kayaking trip. We were excited for this trip — leaders and crew — that took us on the last river adventure, and we all got along so well and had an amazing time.
The van ride there went as usual, per say. We listened to an assortment of music of all the differing genres, and even listened to some sub genres within those genres. I like how everyone in the house listens to a wide variety of music because we all come from different parts of the country and are all from different walks of life. All of the clients who listen to rap music, listen to rap artists who are from their states and regions. The guys from California listen and love an artist named Mac Dre, but I think he is somewhat lack luster. I prefer Ohio and Detroit artists, but anyways, I got off topic, back to the white water rafting trip in the Grand Canyon…
The first day I went on the paddle boat that was a lot smaller than the other three boats, which made the ride much more intense. We started by practicing team paddling, which was a lot harder than you may think. We had to all time our strokes at the same time, they say different strokes for different folks, but this was simply not the case in this scenario. We eventually perfected our team paddling, which was a positive team-builder. Right off the bat we hit a very large rapid, but as I expected we killed it and nobody fell and the boat did not tip. When we got to our campsite we relaxed and played a card game called Euchure and then we all played catch with the football.
The next few days we continued camping and white-water rafting and we all had an amazing time. There were a few scares and a couple of my house mates fell out of their boat and almost got injured, and my boat nearly tipped over, but we made it and all had a great time.
— B2B client