Hi, I'm Ben B.
I came to Gray Wolf in the summer of 1999. I'd gone to a twenty-eight day primary care facility and I wasn't, I wasn't really sure that I wanted to go to a halfway house. I, I wasn't sure I had a problem and I thought I would do my twenty-eight days and get on with the rest of my life, but neither my parents nor my counselors there thought that was the best idea. So, I agreed to come here to Gray Wolf and I have to say in retrospect, it's one of the best decisions I ever made. I, I was not ready to be back in the world clean and sober. I strongly feel that I would have relapsed, had I gone right back to my life outside of primary. Gray Wolf was what I needed when I needed it. It's, it's a beautiful facility here in Port Townsend, Washington. I'd never been to the Pacific Northwest before and I have to say, it's one of the most beautiful parts of the country I've ever seen in my life and I've been, I've been pretty much all over. I lived here for about four months and then I stayed on in town, in Port Townsend, for another six months after that. It's a beautiful little town. It's very small, very quaint, but at the same time, it's not, it's not backwater at all, it's very progressive, it's very with the times. Gray Wolf, my favorite part about it was probably going on the, going on treks. That's a strong part of the program of recovery that Gray Wolf sets up, taking us out of our environments and taking us out of our comfort zones, and we do a lot of backpacking, a lot of sailing. I went on three treks, all in either the Olympic National Forest or up in the Cascade Mountain ranges. I also did a sailing trip up in the San Juan Islands, and I, I can't begin to describe how beautiful that country was up there. And I'd never done really anything like that before and I wasn't too keen on doing it at the time, but once you get out there and you're surrounded by pristine wilderness, probably some of the last pristine wilderness you'll encounter in this country, you know, all, all your longing for big city life, it all disappears. Everything becomes peaceful. I never thought I would enjoy the quiet, but I do, and now I don't like the noise. It's funny how things change like that, but I've no regrets about my decision to come to Gray Wolf and I would do it again in a second if I could go back in time and do it over.