Hello Friend,

When I say that Covenant Community helps people with addiction find long-term recovery, I would know. Though I’m a board member today, just a few years ago, I was a client of Covenant’s residential program. This is my story.

Growing up near Birmingham, Alabama, my life looked stable enough on the surface – a safe suburb, a roof over my head, food on the table. But beneath that, I was struggling. My father left when I was four, and addiction ran in my family, including my mom. All this took a toll on me. I had low self-worth and didn't know how to handle my emotions.

In middle school, I discovered alcohol and marijuana, and I latched on to substances to provide me with relief. By the time I graduated high school, I was deep in addiction. Over the next decade, I went back and forth between sobriety and using. By my late twenties, I was living in a house with no power or water. Things were the worst they had ever been. I felt a lot of pain and loneliness, and I didn't have any hope of life ever getting better.

Then, a friend who had gotten sober helped bring me to Griffin, Georgia, where I stayed at a detox center and a short-term recovery program. But the program was ending, and I needed somewhere to go. The program director recommended Covenant Community, and at first, I pushed back. I'd built relationships in Griffin and had gotten pre-attached to staying. But the director insisted that Covenant would be the best place for me. I’d been to rehab before, and those programs were fine. But little did I know that Covenant would surpass all of them, which is crazy because I never paid a dime.

At Covenant, I didn’t just get treatment – I got a community. I was blown away by the energy, caring, and compassion I felt from the staff. And I was brought into a brotherhood that already existed. No one recovers from addiction alone, but people in addiction have such low self-esteem you don't feel like you’re deserving of any support. But at Covenant, you’re injected into the middle of a community that's already grown and built around you.

Covenant Community also doesn’t just get you back on your feet – they give you everything you need to start the construction of a new life. With Covenant, I had a place that literally housed, fed, and took care of me for two years while I got my life together. And any help I needed, they gave. If you needed help getting your GED, they would help you get it. If you needed help rebuilding your credit, they would help you do that. I saw them help one person get caught up on child support, and another get into tech school so he could learn to weld. You just don’t get that level of support anywhere else.

Today, I’m in long-term recovery, and I’m happy. If I had written down on day one at Covenant everything I hoped to get, I would have sold myself completely short. Now I have a wife, a son, a home, and a job. Where I am now is more than I ever thought possible. It’s more than I ever thought I deserved, and Covenant was the spark, the starting point. Everything good that has come after started with Covenant Community.

When I think of Covenant, I am filled with gratitude. Covenant saved my life. Now, I’d like to give back to the place that has given so much to me by asking: will you support Covenant Community with a donation today? By giving, you would help my story become the story of so many others who are struggling with addiction.

With Graditude,

ZACK METCALF

Board Member and Man of Hope

A LIFE TRANSFORMED THROUGH RECOVERY: How Covenant Community Saved My Life