INDIANAPOLIS — Addiction - it touches thousands of lives throughout our communities. Many groups of people are trying to tackle the problem and create solutions. One
One special group of recovering addicts has come up wih a new idea of how to stay sober for life.
This is a different kind of addiction recovery group. They choose not to be anonymous, as opposed to other twelve step programs like A.A. They say their names and go live on Facebook during meetings.
Each person in the group has a name, and they are proud to tell you they are recovering addicts.
Founded on the idea of breaking anonymity and encouraging people to share their stories openly, John Cunningham and Jason Fry created "Recover Out Loud."
"Recover Out Loud" is a support group that holds meetings in Greensburg, Columbus and Rushville once a week.
"Secrets keep you sick. And if we are going to stay behind closed doors and we are going to be secretive, I feel like you get involved in this secret sick society," Cunnigham said.
"We decided that we were going to work on self believe self-love. We are going to be proud of ourselves and we are going to try to empower the sober self or the recovered self."
They have helped people like Billy Austin:
"Show me your friends and I'm going to show you your future. If you look at my friends now, my future is just un-explainable," Austin said.
Fry, "Recover Out Lod" general manager, said Austin spent half of his life in prison.
"... if you look at him today he has transformed his life into someone that is trusted in the community."
The organization enables others to reach every single milestone of sobriety they set out to achieve.
"We didn't think this day would ever happen. But it did,"
For more information on "Recover Out Loud," visit their Facebook page "It's A We Thing."
