Church program offers help on road to recovery

Traveling the road to recovery rarely is an easy journey.

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A program at an Evans church offers some spiritual support to those attempting the recovery process.

Mosaic United Methodist Church recently started its sixth year of the Celebrate Recovery program, a spiritual-based support group for those with addictions or other personal issues.

"It can be personal things, things that have haunted them since childhood," said Bill Reeder, the program's coordinator. "It could be personal hurts or addictions; the range of things that people deal with. Everybody is wounded in some way."

The program started in Saddleback Valley Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., in 1991. It began with a congregation member's letter to his pastor detailing his struggles with alcohol and the vision God gave him for the program.

The program melds the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with the 12 Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible's book of Matthew.

"Since they (the 12 steps of AA) were inspired by God, it wasn't hard to find the scriptural basis for them," said Mosaic Pastor Carolyn Moore.

Anyone struggling with eating disorders, abuse, grief, addictions, anger, co-dependency and other issues would benefit from participation in the roughly year-long program, Moore said. Participants meet once a week for worship, a recovery-based message and small-group discussion.

But the program is supplemental spiritual support, not a replacement for therapy or a 12-step program.

"It is supplemental to someone who has a serious addiction, because once a week is not going to be enough. But that doesn't mean it isn't serious," Moore said. "Someone with full-blown alcoholism or full-blown addiction, Celebrate Recovery is not going to be ... enough for them, certainly not when they first step out of addiction into recovery."

But Celebrate Recovery brings that issue into the church and adds a spiritual dimension, Moore said.

In 12-step programs, anonymity is paramount. Though what goes on in Celebrate Recovery is confidential, the same people might recover together on Tuesdays and worship together on Sundays.

"What is said on Tuesday nights is confidential," Moore said. "So we don't walk around slapping each other on the back asking how their addiction is going."

In the first five years of the program at Mosaic, Moore said about 100 people have made their way through it.

Moore said people with all different problems can recover and discuss issues together.

"The issue is something underneath that is much more common to all of us," Moore said. "It is the rejection in childhood or the lack of self-understanding, lack of God's understanding. Whatever that hurt was that brought (people) to the place of compensating in an unhealthy way. So CR is developed to help you talk about the underlying issue, not the habit, but the underlying issue."

Mosaic's program meets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays at the church at 478 Columbia Industrial Blvd. Participation is free and is open to anyone who is interested.

For information, call the church at (706) 650-9187 or e-mail Reeder at reeder.bill@gmail.com.