Ben’s Story
“The first three mornings were the hardest,” Ben recalls. “When I’d wake up and not be able to have a cigarette and not want to get out of my sleeping bag.” He continues, “But I tried to learn from all the experiences instead of just let it sour.”
A recovering addict, Ben says Medicine Wheel helped him re-discover himself. Before Medicine Wheel, “I was very image based. Very indulgent,” he explains. “I kind of lost site of what truly made me happy.” He’d always enjoyed the outdoors but says he substituted what he loved for “urban bull crap.” “For me it came to a point where I was so hopeless I just started to not care about the consequences of my actions,” Ben says. “Apathy towards life overtook me.”
His parents got him into a detox program and then started talking about Medicine Wheel. “As soon as I figured out it wasn’t a behavior mod camp I was very excited about it. I went in with the opinion that I’m going to get something really, really good out of this. You truly get what you put into it.”
Individual counseling was helpful in breaking the drug addiction. But Ben says what he enjoyed most was the group interaction. “The most therapeutic was hiking and talking,” he says.
“The conversations that we had as a group were positive and enlightening. Because of the sense of community it gave a sense of confidence and security to everybody in the group. Everybody got a sense of true openness which led people to some breakthroughs personally.”
Two students quit the program during Ben’s stay, choosing to walk back to their addictions rather than fight them in the desert.
Watching them leave, Ben says he was never tempted to join them.
“This was the first time I actually really, really wanted to complete something from the onset,” he says. “Many, many endeavors were left unresolved in my life from a lack of commitment or fear of failure. This one was different.”
After 68 days, he graduated from the program. “I feel really proud of myself for completing it,” he says. “I was lucky enough to have a family that supported me.”
Now he’s attending AA meetings and hoping to return to the wilderness as part of a student conservation association. “That kind of positive, constructive outdoor activity will definitely put me in the right state of mind,” he says. He plans on returning to college and possibly studying psychology. Some day he’d like to return to Medicine Wheel as a member of the field staff.
“I’m most happy about being capable of enjoying myself,” Ben says. “I think I was incapable of that before. Now I have energy and a joy in me that I didn’t have before. I’m excited to be alive.”