Drawing Strength to Focus on Your Purpose

R3 Program guest Caitlin is focused on doing the next right thing in her recovery.

When Caitlin found herself on a bus from Salem to Eugene amid a drug-induced psychosis, she knew a few things were true: She felt trapped in her mind and she needed help.

After she and her husband moved to Oregon, she had 17 days clean and then developed an eye problem and convinced herself she was going to die. If she was going to die, she might as well use.

“Once I relapsed, I started going into psychosis and was detached from reality,” she said. “Instead of dying and moving on, I thought I was just going to be trapped in this hell reality.”

She felt hopeless, but something kept her moving forward. Shortly after arriving in town, Caitlin found herself at the Eugene Mission, unsure if anyone could help her and mired in a belief that God thought she deserved her pain because she had used up all her chances.

As soon as she walked into the Rescue Shelter, she felt secure. “I had this feeling like, ‘wow, I can’t even believe a place like this exists. I’m safe. I can relax.’ I couldn’t wrap my head around that.” From the Rescue Shelter, she moved into the R3 program and has been sober and growing ever since.

“It’s sometimes referred to as the gift of desperation – you reach a certain point where you’re willing to do whatever it takes to be different,” Caitlin said. “For me, I didn’t think I would die of drug use. I thought I would go crazy and be stuck in that reality forever. Because I don’t want to go back to that place, I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

Her sense of willingness is re-forged daily, and even minute by minute on the more difficult days. She listens to counselors, reads her Bible, prays twice a day and goes to church every Sunday. If her sponsor tells her she needs to act, she does it.  

Drug addiction is like living with a fierce enemy that’s inside you and which has a one-track mind – just use. Caitlin says she needed an equally strong sense of determination to grow and change, as well as a team of supporters to encourage her, tell her the truth, and lift her up.

Foundational Struggle

Caitlin knows now it was God who led her to the Eugene Mission and it is God who lends her his strength. If you want to build anything worth building, whether it’s health, a ministry of service or a family, you need rock-solid determination and a belief that God is upholding you.

The founders of the Eugene Mission knew what it meant to face resistance in their quest to establish a ministry that has now served tens of thousands of people throughout Lane County and beyond.

In the forward to the book, “Nevertheless: The Story of the Eugene Mission,” founding Executive Director Ernie Unger writes: “I can think of no challenge so great as the challenge to separate alone with God until one has a clear direction from Heaven…The Eugene Mission became a reality because we first sought and found the mind of God in the matter. Once that was settled, the path was clear even in the darkest hours of opposition.”

There was a time in Unger’s life when he thought existence on Earth was “pure misery.” After his conversion to Christianity in a tent meeting, his life changed and he found a new purpose.

 “The Lord…miraculously delivered him from old, sinful habits, had helped him settle a mountain of old debts, and had given him the grace to overcome personal loss. As he thought of these things there was born in his heart a great compassion for broken men and their many problems,” the book recounts.

Overcoming With Support

When Unger took over as the leader of a small chapel ministry in Eugene, the ministry had $5 in the bank, $1,500 in debt, no building and a city that wasn’t supportive of Christian ministry.

The story of how difficult it was to find a plot of land for a permanent home for the Mission sounds like fiction: there were roadblocks, miles of red tape, a near riot at a building inspection, and endless delays. Unger’s vision, support from the board of directors and certainty that God wanted the Eugene Mission built kept the project going to completion.

When Caitlin considers her most important priority these days, she has the same certainty and clarity as Unger: “The most important thing for me is to stay clean and sober. If I can’t do that, everything else will fall apart,” she said. “The way I do that is praying to God, asking for help, continuing to work the spiritual program, be of service, and stay connected to the recovery community in Eugene.”

And yet, Caitlin is aware of the trap of future promises, like the kind made by people who have just entered recovery when they say they will never use again. “Just live for today…if you can stay clean just for today, you’ve won,” she said.

The stuff of major victories is made day by day with your purpose in mind and joy in your heart.

“I see hope in everything now,” Caitlin said. “There’s so many opportunities that could open up to me as long as I keep doing the next right thing.”

“The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever – do not abandon the works of your hands.”

Psalm 138:8