Testamonials & Stories

Testamonials

This is to put on record our gratitude to Regenesis and its staff for what seems to us to be the miracle they have worked with our son, R. R was in the grip of heroin addiction for ten years. It dominated his life, destroyed relationships with family and friends and caused us all to despair. Throughout this period we rescued him in various ways, including financially, hoping against hope that this would at least keep him alive. On three separate occasions R went through a one week institutional detoxification program. After the first, he relapsed quite quickly. After the second, we got him into an institutional rehabilitation program, which soon rejected him on the grounds of an alleged border line personality disorder. (R then underwent a rigorous psychological examination which completely repudiated this diagnosis.) Soon after this rejection, R relapsed again. During his third period of detoxification R heard about Regenesis and decided that its approach might work for him. Two features were especially important. First, it was a non-residential program which required participants to be live and work in the wider world. Second, the program aimed to deal with the whole person and not just the addiction. Both these features turned out to be vital to R’s successful rehabilitation. R was at Regenesis for more than a year. We saw him from time to time during this period and were able to witness the transformation which Regenesis was affecting in him. The depressed, furtive, self-obsessed and essentially absent individual which was the R we had known for quite some years was becoming a happy, engaged, concerned and compassionate human being who was a pleasure to be around. The transformation was astonishing – little short of miraculous from where we stood. R has now gone on to a new life, enrolled at university and is committed to and enjoying his study in a way which have been quite impossible during his years of addiction. R was an intelligent and sensitive young person when addiction took over in late teenage years. It is almost as if he is now taking up where he left off. We will never be able to express the depth of our gratitude to Regenesis for restoring him to us and giving him the opportunity to do something constructive with his life. Andrew Hopkins BSc, MA, PhD, FSIA Andrew.Hopkins@anu.edu.au September 2004

Stories from Participants

"I have struggled with various drug and alcohol addictions from an early age. Throughout these years, I've admitted myself into rehabilitation centres all across the NSW state, always to find myself coming back to the same situations that I had hoped to leave behind with my drug use. After the constant struggle to stay clean in the same unhealthy lifestyle as led before, I found myself relapsing time and time again, without being conscious of what I was doing again until it was too late, and my addiction had once again taken over from what I had been aiming to achieve. In February 2002, I was introduced to the new rehabilitation centre starting in Moss Vale named 'Regenesis'. I agreed to give it a try, finding at first that it didn't suit what I was after at that time in my life.

I then admitted myself into a long term rehab at the Central Coast, where my 3 year old daughter and I could both go and improve our relationship together, and where I could go to continue to fight my addictions. I have since come back to the Highlands with a stronger sense of who I am, and a stronger position with sobriety. Although I knew I was coming back to the same unhealthy lifestyle again, I was more confident than ever that this time I could do what I was unable to do so many other times, as now I was ready to enter the Regenesis program.

I found that while at other rehabilitation centres, I was locked away from the real world so I could concentrate on my addiction. However, upon leaving, the skills I had learnt to stay clean seemed almost impossible to maintain in the world I was coming back out to. That's where Regenesis comes in, with their program based more on the lifestyle I was leading and how to change, so that it was possible for myself to stay clean and find my place in society (as my previous drug using had left me with an undesired impression upon many peers and other society members).

I have now been at Regenesis for approximately 3 months and have since started living again. They have helped find appropriate accommodation for me and my daughter, and they are helping me achieve exactly what I want and need out of life for both my child and myself." - C.

"I was a child that had grown up with melancholia and was always wondering about my life purpose. At the time of this leave I was gambling in bouts at the pokies and constantly using alcohol to help me through. I found myself on a downward spiral with both problems. In the past few years previously I had gone through huge losses. The greatest of these was the loss of my mother and finally my brother had a fall and 10 days later he was classified as quadriplegic. I continued to sink until one night when I had seriously thought of ways of suicide. The next morning I woke up with a serrated knife and empty bottle of pills and this concerned me. A friend suggested Regenesis and during the initial interview I felt a certain connection and was intrigued. I decided to try it. I was nervous about acceptance. I was greeted very warmly which helped to settle my apprehension and gradually I gained commitment and took on Stage 2 of the program. During the early stages of the Stage 2, I became aware of belonging to a group and being part of this group. Within this group, life gifts were shared that helped me greatly. From each individual you receive different strengths and qualities as well as needing to overcome differences and tensions. There were surprising discoveries of the other participants' perception of me and their insights of one another.

I found the program to have a good breadth of activities and diversity of staff. I was challenged by my artistic side and had some very pleasing and surprising experiences. The level of creativity and talents within the group was wonderful. I appreciated the love, support and tolerance of my own difficulties and the inclusiveness of the staff and their trying hard for the best outcomes for the participants. Having left Regenesis now for 2 months, the importance of the journey has not diminished. I find I have more patience, acceptance and love for myself and others close to me. I have a sense of purpose now." - S.

" My story starts with the sorrow of my birth and my later fostering, adoption into love. Though my family loved me dearly, no amount of love could make up for the gaping wound in my heart. Consequently as a teenager, I would have terrible bouts of anger, to the point of forcing my parents hand in asking me to leave the family home. This began the deeper, darker path that I travelled through my teenage and early adult life, a path of unconsciously trying to initiate myself, trying to fill the gaping wound of birth. This led me into great darkness.

In my 21st year of life, I began the climb back toward my heart, my family. I spent three years on methadone, then two winging it alone. I began Regenesis with Karla Cryer and really struggled with my dark path and self. After completing my biography and mask work, I began to see the necessity of the darkness as teacher. I also explored many new paths that eventually led me into Eurythmy - through this work finding at last the passion that burns within me. So I have embarked on a new path.

[I will just explain briefly about Eurythmy. Eurythmy is words and music expressed through the human body. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Adam Chan for all his support.]" - E.

"Life has offered me many choices, some I have seemed to make rashly and in a sense not with my heart, but rather a knee-jerk reaction to pressures and necessities of an outside world. In my exploration in the Regenesis program, I have come to understand a few things. In my experiences as a teacher of adults, I have given the wiser things I carry. My challenge has been in the bearing a kind of 'disability' - having made choices that ultimately isolated me from my community but seeking assimilation. I now have a deeper understanding that I can accept my uniqueness, my individuation, and hold truth, knowledge and the beauty of our environment and in each moment value the gift that it is. This self-knowledge is leading me to live into a new picture still forming within me. I still have the skills in teaching, and I am exploring my joy and expression in art. These things I can see can build a bridge between me and my community. Perhaps it will be easier for them to feel the real me, and perhaps I can still be an individual while I give the things I carry. I would enjoy using fine arts in my teaching career and for my own further expression of myself." - K.

Participant's charcoal drawing of Tahu from Maori story of creation of world and the fierce Spirit of Man.