About Vineyard House | A safe sober place to live for Islanders

Sam is now 47 years old, and has been clean for two years and 3 months, the longest period of sobriety he's known since the age of 10. Sam's parents, who were not drinkers themselves, provided a loving and stable home for him and his four siblings. Sam's grandfather, on the other hand, lived with them and loved to drink his homemade wine. He introduced Sam to this habit at an early age. Sam was always a thrill-seeker, pushing all the limits, legal and physical. By his teens, he was drinking regularly, often getting high on marijuana or speed. His neighborhood buddies came from families whose parents would frequently buy booze for the kids' parties, so his use of drugs escalated. By the age of 15, Sam had developed a painful case of pancreatitis due to his drinking, throwing up blood. He adapted by moving on to cocaine. Even with his use of drugs, he still managed to graduate from high school. Throughout school, he had always played hockey with a passion. It was an interest that he shared with his dad. His playing ability earned him a scholarship to a good college, where he continued to use drugs, including opiates. He graduated in the mid-seventies with a major in anthropology.

Upon graduation, Sam returned to the work he had always done in summers and after school, clamming and fishing. It was what he loved to do. It also allowed him to continue his old patterns of using. He married his high school sweetheart, despite her concerns about his drinking. Over the next several years, they had children. He began smuggling drugs, along with fishing. When his drinking became problematic, he would slow down and turn to other drugs, such as pharmaceuticals, for his highs. When Sam overdosed on heroin, at the age of 35, his addiction was out in the open. His wife asked him to leave, and he began a period of homelessness, moving from shelter to shelter. His brothers rescued him numerous times, taking him to detoxes. He was hospitalized for seizures. At one point, Sam weighed 95 pounds, as opposed to his current healthy 145-pound weight. While in a South Shore halfway house, he met his current sponsor, a young man from the Vineyard. They slowly sobered up together, attending lots of 12-step meetings, and after six months, moved to Martha's Vineyard to start over. Sam had been clean almost 8 months when he entered a new relationship. The woman was not in recovery, and Sam was ill prepared for the roller-coaster feelings involved with relationships. The relationship ended, as he relapsed and resumed use of heroin.

Sam's life on MV became very unstable. He was in and out of the MV Hospital detox unit, before returning to his former halfway house off-Island, where he got clean. He stayed on as a worker, running their work program. During this period, he earned certification in drug counseling at a local college. Sam seemed to be getting the hang of sobriety, and worked as a drug counselor in a prison program. When he accepted the job of running a recovery house in another town, he found that the residents were all, in fact, still using. He relapsed again, and was once more homeless, this time using street methadone. His family had all but given up on him. He felt hopelessly locked into his bad habits. The drugs literally made him crazy and he went to various psychiatric hospitals. When he saw a girl overdose and nearly die right in front of him, it scared him enough to reach out for help. He returned to the Vineyard to be near his sponsor, who helped Sam get into Vineyard House. Sam described himself, at this point, as a "95-pound emotional basket case". He credits his recovery to the dedicated staff who paid close attention to him in his early weeks, and met with him regularly to monitor his progress. Sam noted that the zero tolerance for drug use in the Vineyard House, backed up by random screening, was a major factor in his sobriety.

Sam appreciates his sobriety every day. He takes nothing for granted. He and his former wife are, once again, very close friends. He also has a terrific relationship with his children. He works full-time as a fisherman, and also works for Vineyard House. Sam recently summed up his life by saying he feels so terrific now that it must all have been worth it, to be able to get to this point. There are no fantasies of what his life was like, he tells his story with neither pride nor shame, simply like it was and is, his reality.

When a resident of Vineyard House becomes dependably sober, it impacts others in addition to the resident…his or her spouse, even a former spouse, children, siblings, parents and their companions to name a few. Here is one such story…

My oldest son was one of Vineyard House's first residents. He just celebrated his fourth anniversary of sobriety this past December. It's a tall order to recall those years when he was using. My other children and I went through 15 years of trying to help him, both on our own and through specialized programs. During all of his teenage years he was out of control. Eventually, we did an intervention and he went to his first of many formal rehabs, but these programs lasted at most a month. He always got something positive from each experience, but as soon as he returned to the real world, he relapsed. He had a business on Martha's Vineyard during the end of all this turmoil, and he wanted to stay here. When Vineyard House opened its doors, he chose to go in immediately. He knew going it alone was a recipe for another disaster. This time, sobriety stuck, and when he graduated, he was able to stay clean.

His recovery has given me, as his mother, "a new lease on life". When he was using, I was withdrawn, exhausted and had few friends. My own siblings and loving but aged mother (whom I took every precaution to protect) had a hard time understanding this disease. I found little help for myself from the few Alanon groups I attended. I couldn't speak up, I was too shy, and I didn't connect to the others. At any given moment, I would dissolve into tears. I felt constantly afraid for his life, embarrassed and fearful about what was happening to our family and I was consequently secretive with the world about our reality. I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility in the pursuit of my one mission - to help this kid find himself as the wonderful person I knew, deep down, he was. Now I have the time and energy to focus on the rest of the world. Inch by inch, in the last few years, I have become a full human being again, no longer tip-toeing on eggshells. I no longer feel this disease was my fault, I am not to blame, I was not an inadequate mother. It was a disease, and my son is recovering beautifully.

My other two children, younger than their troubled brother, suffered as well. I focused all my attention on the sick one, to the exclusion of the other two. It wasn't fair, but it was inevitable. They found ways to cope with both their troubled brother and their depressed/obsessed mother. Neither of them uses any substance themselves - they had lived through hell once and that was enough. I've heard that addicts are arrested in development during the years of their use. Looking back, I think that was true for all of us in the family, to some extent. My other children seem to hold no resentment for their recovering brother. They respect him and have a good relationship with him now.

My heart seems to have a great capacity to heal, even from this traumatic experience. In the last four years, I have watched my son thrive, give back to the community that helped him and become the person I always knew he was. His recovery has increased my own sense of wellbeing and self-worth. I never forget the past, I just keep it on the "back-burner". When I hear a siren, I no longer worry that it is for my son. It is a relief to all of us that we are each free to focus on the unfolding of our own lives now. I am very proud of all three of my children for weathering this storm and coming out of it whole. As a family we all feel grateful and blessed.

George was one of the first residents of House II. He came in with little self-esteem and today is starting to "love the man in the mirror." Through the process of recovery, he has married, is the father of a three-month-old son and has become a homeowner. He says he could never have imagined himself reaching this point on his own efforts, in fact he had no vision of life without his drugs when he entered Vineyard House.

I grew up overseas. Drugs and alcohol were cheap and easy to get. I spent summers on Martha's Vineyard where drugs were expensive. I remember looking forward to returning to the Orient where substances were cheap. Over the years, I did a lot of crazy things. Eventually, the life style that had been fun became an overwhelming full-time job. By my mid-twenties, I lived on the Island. I owned my own business, one that almost went bankrupt.

Over the next decade, I was hospitalized three times, all for pancreatitis, as a result of heavy drinking. I was advised to attend 12-step meetings. I figured I would just avoid booze and stick with all the other drugs I liked, no problem, but soon I was back to drinking, and got sick again. The Vineyard detox nurse at the second hospital told me I could not use anymore, but I knew better. The third time I was hospitalized, I was in danger of dying. They took me to court where I was placed in a six-month recovery program. I was so mad at the loss of freedom that the day I got out, I returned to drinking and drugging out of resentment. My six months of sobriety saved my physical life, but I was none the wiser. It was all, "You can't tell me…I, I, I", completely self-centered on my part. So, my life went down hill once more. I began to think I needed the help of Vineyard House.

In May of 1998, I was going to meetings on the Island, still using but beginning to hear the message of recovery. In the meetings I heard the phrase, "Keep coming back" and I did. Slowly, I started to feel a part of the groups. I would see people in public and got a feeling that I wanted what they had. They wanted to help me and I couldn't understand why. Was I worth saving? I took some directions from a recovering addict and moved into Vineyard House.

The first few months were tough. I followed the rules and took it easy. The House Manager was a great help. I had no clue of what to do. He said, "Don't use and the rest will follow." It did! Thanks. Slowly, I started to have faith. I too could live a clean life. I got a sponsor and did 90 meetings in 90 days. I started to feel good and realized I wanted this precious gift. I watched a good friend change as he worked the 12-steps. I was blown away. I started to work on myself that night. I began to feel that I was part of the program and I was grateful.

Now, over four years clean, I go to four meetings a week. I realize I need to be around the solution or life's problems might push me back into "stinking thinking". I keep it simple and continue to pray for the willingness to move forward in recovery. Today, I'm working the sixth step, reminding myself it can't be about "I, I, I," all the time. I believe that if I don't change, I will be cutting myself short of what is a full life. Recovery, for me, has been the discovery of myself. It is an on-going process, far better than drugs ever were.

Many people that I have known have died from the disease of addiction. I figure that I am a miracle. I don't know how it happened, but I am extremely grateful. Thank you, Vineyard House, for giving me a safe place to start this journey called life!

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Charlie's Story Spring 2004

Charlie is now 25 years old and was the first official graduate of Vineyard House. He has been sober for over 6 years. He is indebted to two of the other residents for his opportunity to enter the program, because there was no bed available for him when he applied to enter. The House Manager asked two resident roommates if they would consider putting a third bed in their room so that Charlie could come in and they agreed.

I was born and raised on Martha's Vineyard. I didn't discover drugs and alcohol until high school, but at 14, when I first experienced them, it was "love at first sight". I started hanging out with the older kids. Alcohol and drugs seemed to be the missing ingredient. They made me feel comfortable while I was trying to fit in with the scene. They seemed a natural part of my free-wheeling image of the good life. By my sophomore year I was using something every day, and had failed all my subjects. I moved out of my family's home when I was 15 and moved in with friends, in their basement. I had applied to a private high school off-Island in the 9th grade - my mom knew that I wasn't doing well on Martha's Vineyard - but the school hadn't offered me enough of a scholarship and we couldn't afford the tuition. Two days into my junior year, this school called to offer me a bigger scholarship. They didn't know about my sophomore year failures, fortunately. I had to double up on my English, but I was so determined not to return to the Vineyard for high school that I was able to make the grades to stay there. I kept on partying, but kept it under control. I even spent part of my senior year in France, where I drank wine with abandon, but my grades were adequate enough to get me into a college the following fall. There I continued to drink, and it eventually got the better of me. I got arrested for a fraternity prank, and was given a suspended sentence. I was teetering on the edge, precariously close to jail time, and unfortunately trouble seemed to follow me everywhere. I also wasn't getting the same enjoyment out of my drinking. I had constant cravings and I woke up after partying with the shakes. I was financially broke all the time from drinking a case of beer every day. I'd promise myself that I'd stop, and then I'd resume. I had the DTs, hallucinations, and regular vomiting. At the end of my freshman year, I called my mom and asked her for help. She got me into a well-respected 28-day treatment program, where I think I was the 5th generation family member to attend. It was hard to skip my summer on the Vineyard but I knew if I went I would just drink more and feel even worse. By then, I was open to getting help because I believed that my ideas weren't working. When I left the treatment program, I returned home to the Vineyard, because my mom thought I could get into Vineyard House. However, they were full and told her I'd probably have to wait for a bed. I went to the interview thinking that I would probably end up going to live with some old friends in their summer house, and that I could stay sober on my own waiting for that bed. Vineyard House surprised me by saying they did have a bed but I would have to enter that night. They also said I had to commit to staying 6 months. I agreed, thinking that I'd break that promise to return to college in September. By then, however, I knew I needed the structure and wouldn't make it at school on my own. When I imagined school, I saw myself returning to my old ways. Instead, stayed for a full year and attended lots of 12-step meetings. I ended up liking my experience at Vineyard House. It offered a good balance of rules and support. I took the House Manager's suggestions, and things slowly got better and better. I credit Vineyard House with guiding me back to reality. I am so very grateful to those two residents who made space for me in their small bedroom.

Phyllis is a life-long Vineyard resident, now 43, who recently graduated from Vineyard House after a 15-month stay. She credits VH with saving her life.

I grew up on Martha's Vineyard, the youngest of 6 children, very protected. My dad was a successful businessman, attentive but often distant. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, idolized and loved by everyone, but she was a closet drinker. She couldn't get dinner on the table without a few highballs. As a kid, I would avoid her at night, when she could be very combative. My dad was a teetotaler, and ashamed of her drinking, but no one ever mentioned alcoholism. They'd say, "She just likes the taste of alcohol."

When I got older, my mom and I drank together regularly. She was my best friend. She died five years ago of an illness unrelated to her drinking. Her death was terribly hard for me. After she died, I took over the care of my father, whose health was going downhill. My drinking escalated, but I never drank in the daytime, so no one knew about it. I drank alone at night. After mom had died, I was given sleeping pills and became dependent on them. I would wash them down with my drinks. When I had to have my gall bladder removed, I had a seizure while in the hospital. I hadn't told anyone about the sleeping pills. The hospital figured it out and sent me to Gosnold. When I left after 14 days' stay to go home, I had a drink on the way to the ferry, but I never used sleeping pills again.

My brothers could see that I was not doing well caring for Dad, who by now had advanced Alzheimer's disease. I was depressed with my life, so I would drink, and that would make me more depressed. I stopped working. Eventually, my brothers took my father away and kicked me out of the family home - "tough love". I was ashamed to have no place to live, so I moved off-Island. I drank so much that first week that I had internal bleeding. That made me so scared that I drank more. I was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where I admitted that I had a drinking problem. They sent me to Gosnold again, this time for three days. Their social worker told me about Vineyard House. My apartment had been ransacked, so I had nothing but the shirt on my back when I entered Vineyard House. At AA that first night I admitted that I had only the clothes I was wearing. The next day, there were two bags of clothes on the porch - for me. It was a miracle. At AA meetings, I was a sponge. I went to 205 meetings in the first 90 days, I was that empty. I had no spirituality and my family wasn't speaking to me.

I didn't like living with other people at first, but I was pleased to see that the place was a real home. I felt safe. Slowly I began to bond with the women. The House Manager was always there for me. I got a therapist and medical help for my extreme depression. I found an AA sponsor and she's now my best friend. I relearned to laugh. My mother's death is part of my higher power that supports me. My health problems are much improved. If VH hadn't been there for me, I doubt I would be alive now. When I had issues, the VH House Management Committee stepped in and offered help. I have a wonderful boyfriend who is a graduate of the VH Men's House and he completely supports my recovery. I have reconnected with my brothers. Since leaving VH, I have been doing 90 and 90, or an AA meeting a day for 3 months. I cherish my recovery. I feel complete gratitude to Vineyard House for my new life.

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A Daughter's Story: Rebecca Fall 2006

I am 34 years old. Looking back, my story is not so unusual - both parents were alcoholics. They married very young. I am the middle of three kids. Mom was always a heavy scotch drinker. My dad was addicted to many things, starting with alcohol. When I was 7 years old, they divorced. I stayed with my mom. That is when life changed for all of us kids. I really don’t remember life before the divorce - it was that much of an upheaval for me. We moved to an apartment complex. My mom’s drinking got worse, and she would leave us alone at night to go to bars. I started not telling her about school events, because her coming was such an embarrassment for me. She would always come drunk and it was obvious to all. I remember once we three kids had a cold Thanksgiving dinner alone while she was passed out on the sofa, drunk yet again.

We saw our dad on weekends, before he moved away. I don’t remember him not drinking – he always had a beer in his hand and bragged about his ability to “hold it.” He did not pass out as much as my mom. I recall preferring it when he drank, because he was mellower, and that felt safer. When Dad was not drinking, he could be abusive and threatening - it was all about him. It was his way or he’d yell at us. He never hit me, but he hit the others, and it scared us. When he was drinking, he would listen to us, it seemed like he was comfortable in his own skin then. Looking back, I think that both Mom and Dad were always searching for unconditional love.

Growing up, I saw alcohol use with passing out as normal. It wasn’t until I went to other homes, and saw other parents not incapacitated that I realized my family was not normal. God placed important people in my life to give me what I needed. The family of a good friend “adopted” me when I was in middle school. By the time I was in 5th grade, mom had remarried another alcoholic. It was impossible to live there. In high school, I emancipated myself and moved in with the family of another friend. My older sister was in college, and my younger sibling went with my dad, who had remarried. I loved school, because I felt safe there. The school social worker organized COA (Child of Alcoholic) meetings, which were a big help. I also had counseling at school, from the age of 13. It saved me. I never did drugs of any kind myself.

My mom died when she was 46. She had cancer, but she died of internal bleeding because doctors couldn’t operate on her, due to complications from her long-term drinking. By then, I was engaged to be married. I knew something was seriously wrong with Dad in 1999 at his parents’ anniversary party. He was weird, skittish, “off”. He spoke ominously about his home on Martha’s Vineyard and what I should do if anything happened to him. Then he essentially disappeared from our lives. I had two children soon after that but he didn’t know it. I had no idea whether he was dead or alive. His siblings hired a detective to find him, and when they reached him, he told them he did not want to be found. One of Dad’s work colleagues contacted him and told him about my kids and Dad ignored the news. This was very hard for me. I was suffering from post-partum depression at that time. There was no one from my family to come see me in the hospital, since my siblings lived elsewhere, my mom was dead and Dad was voluntarily missing.

I am my dad’s daughter, an achiever who always wanted to please him. Dad has been sober for 4 years now, thanks to Vineyard House and his own determination to stop using. He has said he is sorry, but I admit I want more. I need to forgive him, and with time together I know I will. I never got to that point with my mother before she died. I am fortunate that with Dad, I have a second chance. Sometimes I admit I would like to see Dad in pain, because I feel I spent so many of my childhood years looking after him and walking on eggshells. It’s a lonely place, being involved with an alcoholic. Vineyard House helped Dad get and stay sober. He suggested that I do this interview. Yes, I have issues to resolve, but thankfully, I now have a Dad with whom I can talk, remember, and in time, forgive. I don’t have to be “the responsible one” anymore. My kids and I had our first visit with him this summer, it was a great beginning. I am extremely grateful for that and for all that is to come, now that I have a Dad who is present and functional!

“I don’t know if I can fit all my gratitude on one page.”
I grew up in Wellesley when the town was full of first-generation immigrants. At fifteen, I got a job working weekends and summers with some Italian masons, who would end their workday at their home, drawing off large carafes from their barrels of homemade wine. They didn’t think anything of offering me wine. I got an immediate buzz and asked for more. I thought, “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, it’s beautiful!” I do believe that I was an alcoholic from that day on. After work they would often send me home with two bottles of wine for my dad, but I’d keep one for myself. My parents were naïve about what I was doing. When I was a senior in high school, Massachusetts lowered the drinking age to 18, and that started a whole new level of drinking. We would go to a bar for school-time lunch and do shots, then go back to school drunk. I went to U Mass but scheduled my classes in the mornings so that I could drink at one of the 5 bars on campus in the afternoons after I had done my studying. Before my senior year, I decided to take a year off, to earn enough money so I could go to college without working. I bought a car, got a job as a mason, and never finished my college degree. By 1980, I was having a drink in the morning but saw no problem with that. I drank shots of good whiskey or wine, it was all the same. I got married, and over the years had three kids. We moved around but finally settled on Martha’s Vineyard in 1995 so that my wife could be near her family. A few years after the move we divorced. The marriage was just not working. My drinking wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t the only problem. When I moved out and there was no more structured home life for me to return to daily, my drinking took over. My roommates were always drinking so whenever I tried to quit, their drinking would trigger me to start up again. I always paid my child support before I set aside the money for my own needs, but eventually I was spending my own portion on booze and there was no money for rent. I became homeless and started living on Lambert’s Cove Beach. That was when I hit bottom.

I had known Hazel Teagan from a previous detox stay at the MV hospital. She told me about Vineyard House. It was a safe place to live where I could count on my roommates not drinking. I entered in July of 2002 and haven’t had a drink since then. It worked for me. Vineyard House is the most logical way to quit the habit of drinking that there is. Personally it didn’t take that long for the habit of not drinking to become routine. Once sobriety took hold, my brain cleared up, and I could see what a mess my life had become with drinking. My problems went away when I stopped drinking, and things snowballed in a positive way. Everyone who was in there with me is sober now, too. A few relapsed once but then they realized what they had lost and got back into sobriety.

Vineyard House is a practical solution to a problem that’s not so complicated if you have the right tool for it – mainly a safe and sober place to live. Alcoholism is more like an allergy than a disease, in my mind. I can’t drink. One drink leads to another and that makes my mind unable to make good decisions. My favorite quote from a fellow recovering alcoholic is, “When I got up this morning, I didn’t need a drink. That’s because I didn’t have a drink yesterday.” My dad died of cancer recently. I am extremely grateful that I was sober and able to take my children to see him before he died. I thank Hazel for that. I have a great relationship with my kids and former wife now. My kids see me as making an unbelievable comeback, as a winner. Recovery is a philosophy of life for me. I appreciate and live in the present. That is a huge gift.