ALUMNI

Ralph

A profile of recovery success…in his own words

Since completing my program at RAP, Inc. in 2000, I have become a husband, a father, and a grandfather.  I have a career that allows me to touch other people’s lives as RAP has touched mine and to give back to the community.  I am a counselor for victims of crime. 

At RAP, I found that GOD had given me the gift of writing.  I began to write poetry and by the end of my program, I had a collection of almost 30 poems. I have now published two books of poetry. In addition, I am 16 hours away from earning my B. A. in Biblical Studies and I serve as an Associate Minister for my church, the Gideon Baptist Church in N. W. 

Washington, D. C. is my home.  I was born here and grew up in Riggs Park in N. E.  Coming from a middle-class family, I was expected to do well.  But actually, I started doing pot when I was 11 years old and I abused drugs for the next 28 years of my life.  I was 39 when I quit. 

Through it all, I was an all-star quarter back at Coolidge H.S (class of ‘77) and went to Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida on a track and field scholarship. There I became the team captain before graduating and transferring to Florida A & M. I was promised a scholarship to A & M, but it did not materialize.  That’s when my troubles really started.  I had no financial aid, but managed to stay in school for a year.  I had dabbled in selling drugs since my mid-teens, but it became my occupation about a year after returning from my disappointing experience at A and M. 

At RAP, I learned how to work and found something that I was good at.  In the program, work is a part of therapy.  There, I rediscovered myself; found out who I was and who I wasn’t.  RAP put me back in an arena where I could finally see myself as being a functioning human being with something to look forward to.

Anybody who says treatment does not work needs to know there is nothing wrong with the program; the problem is that people are not applying the information they’re being given. 

Treatment works.  I want everybody to know that.

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