Ben G. successfully completed the Turnbridge Preparative Care program, and graduated in May 2015.  Ben came to Turnbridge from a primary care treatment center after he was arrested and forced into drug treatment by the court system.  At 24 years old, Ben’s road to recovery has been difficult, but his determination over the past fourteen months has helped him build a strong foundation for a sober life. 

Ben’s issues with substance abuse began in middle school.  He started with smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol with friends.  It wasn’t long before Ben was using drugs and alcohol on a daily basis.  After high school, Ben went to community college where he was introduced to drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD.  Despite his drug use, Ben graduated community college with an Associates Degree and continued at SUNY Plattsburg.  The drug use progressed.  “I was willing to use or try any drug and pretty much any drug I tried I got addicted to,” admits Ben.  

Ben left Plattsburg after he was put on academic probation and started working around home.  Around this time, Ben started using heroin.  He used these substances every day for sixteen months while holding a job and keeping up appearances, but this wouldn’t last forever.  Ben was fired from his job in early 2014 and subsequently arrested in April and May 2014.  He was facing felony charges and a judge gave his parents the option of leaving him in jail or taking him to drug treatment facility.  His parents chose the latter and he was sent to a primary treatment center in Connecticut.  In June 2014, Ben came from that facility to Turnbridge’s long term drug rehab center for young men.

Ben had gotten a taste of the joy of sobriety and was motivated to continue working on himself.   “My head was in the right spot when I got to Turnbridge.  Sobriety was something that I wanted and I was willing to work for it,” says Ben.  

While in Phase III, Ben had to serve a month-long sentence at Bridgeport Correctional Facility for his arrests in 2014.  He had been sober for nine months when he went in and celebrated ten months of sobriety while in the detention center.  “The jail experience wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be because I was prepared for it,” says Ben.  “The good things that had happened in my life over the time that I had been sober made me willing to take on something like that.  I had the attitude then, and still do today, that whatever I needed to do to stay sober I was going to do.”

When he got out, Ben picked up right where he left.  He soon got a job and continued to have an active role in the New Haven 12-step community.  After his graduation, Ben moved into a local sober house and maintains the sober network he built while at Turnbridge.  He remains grateful for the opportunities he has been given and even the consequences he has received.  

“I would have never gotten sober if I didn’t get in trouble with the law back in 2014,” says Ben.  “I’m thankful for that every day because it brought me to Turnbridge and allowed me to make sober friends and gave me another chance at life.”