Renew Wellness & Recovery

06/02/2023

I have been working with teenagers who have been in and out of foster care. I recently asked the girls in our group to pick a positive word that they could focus on all week. Some of their words were strong, honest, and brave. As I went around the room, one of the girls looked down when it was her turn to pick a word. I asked, “Is there a word you can think of that most embodies who you want to be?”

She said, “Good. I just want to be good.”

I told her, “You are good.” She looked away. When she looked back at me, I looked into her beautiful brown eyes and said, “You are good sweet girl. You’re so good!”

I read a fb post recently about people in prison that said, “They’re just the same as us.”

“They” and “Us” was confusing to me? I thought, “That comment would have felt better to me if it would have said, "we're all the same."

Then I realized, we’re not all the same; my sweet friend in foster care is braver than I am.

05/31/2023

One Friday in 2015, nearing the end of my shift in the ER, an EMS radio call came: cardiac arrest. We were told it was a male, approximately 30-years-old. He appeared to have overdosed and didn’t have a pulse. The day before, arguing again with my 29-year-old, he**in-using son, I had threatened to throw him out of the house. He responded that he would kill himself with an overdose. After the EMS report, I rushed to call my son—he didn’t answer. I called my wife. She hadn’t seen him.

As an emergency physician, anyone arriving in the ER is my responsibility. On that horrible Friday, I stood resolutely in the resuscitation room, trying to hold myself together. I knew that my next patient might be my son. We waited and waited. Finally, EMS called. They had gone to the other hospital. This made me almost certain the patient was my son and EMS must have realized it and tried to spare.

I tried to call my son again and he answered. For what seemed like minutes, I could not speak. All I could do was cry—sob really. With him using he**in, I had tried to prepare myself for his death; he**in overdoses are common. That night it was someone else’s son. Of course, I still had more patients, so I wiped my tears and splashed cold water in my eyes to clear the redness. Then it was back into the ER like nothing had happened. That part wasn’t too hard. After all, I did it every day as we dealt with our son’s struggles and decisions and then pretended everything was fine.

One of the great barriers to quitting for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) is terrible withdrawals. I’d held my son on multiple occasions, rubbing his legs, giving him blessings, praying with him and watching what appeared to be terrifying distress. My son describes it this way: “Physical hell, mental agony, and knowing that in 10 seconds you can make it all go away by using makes it near impossible to quit.” Facing that, is it any wonder that so few people quit cold turkey? With my son’s help I learned about medications that help minimize the misery of withdrawal. No amount of hand holding, or counseling can come close to minimizing withdrawal symptoms like appropriate medicine. Unfortunately getting through withdrawal is only the beginning.

Terrifyingly, overdose is common shortly after jail or detox, users have lost their tolerance to opioids. When released, they take their “old” dose and too often die. They are past withdrawals but haven’t lost their desire to use. I’ve had many patients that spent months and even years incarcerated, only to be released and again start using. It is a chronic disease, not cured with simple detox.

There is hope for this dreadful disease, but it requires support. Addiction is isolation. When someone goes into treatment they start connecting to others again. They learn new ways to deal with their pain. They reconect with family. Detox and treatment afterward gives a person a chance to heal and remember who they are.

05/24/2023

Sweet Chelsey moved to Utah from Iowa to change her life and get her kids back. Chelsea struggled with addiction and reached out to me on FB for help.

We made arrangements for Chelsey to come to Renew Wellness, for treatment and miracles began to happen as Chelsey walked through her pain and trauma.

One day Chelsey told me she wanted to attend a church. She thought it would be good to find a community of people that would support her in her recovery. I told her I would be happy to take her to whatever church she wanted to attend.

Chelsey said, “I want to try the LDS church. The people seem so nice.”

I asked Chelsey what she knew about the church and she said “nothing”

I told her I could ask the missionaries if they could come talk to her. I was leaving work but I told her I would get a hold of the missionaries the next day.

On my way home from work I got a call from the treatment center telling me the missionaries were at Renew Wellness. “That’s strange,” I said. ”I didn’t call them yet.”

Turns out they were in the neighborhood and decided to stop by. They said they were walking by the house in Herriman, Utah a week before and felt prompted to stop by, but they should wait a week.

Chelsey started meeting with the missionaries and gained a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and set a date to get baptized.

Two days before Chelsey’s baptism date her sister told her if she decided to get baptized she wouldn’t give her custody of her two children back.

We all felt bad for Chelsey, she had been working so hard to change her life and get custody of her children. I assumed Chelsey would call off her baptism.

But that's not what happened. Chelsey told her sister that she wouldn't call off her baptism because she knew the church was true and it was the right thing to do to be baptized.

The spirit the day Chelsey was baptized was beautiful. I spoke to the women at the Orange Street ward in SLC in the morning and took Chelsey with me. She shared some of her conversion story and you could feel her sweet spirit. Later that afternoon Chelsey was baptised and I was blessed with the honor of giving a talk about the Holy Ghost.

After her baptism Chelsey told me she felt prompted to write her sister a letter and apologize for any wrong she had done, and thank her sister for caring for her children while she was suffering in her addiction.

I was so impressed with Chelsey's response to her sister's unwillingness to give her custody of her children back. She told me, "It was the right thing to do. I wanted to be free of any bad feelings."

Watching Chelsey's humility and willingness to walk the higher road has blessed my life. She recently got custody of her children back and I was able to spend a few hours with them.

God is working in our lives sweet friends. Chelsey is sober and her choices are changing generations. Miracles still happen!

05/19/2023

I really enjoyed the sun my last few months in prison. I've always loved the sun! Every morning I left the unit as soon as the officer unlocked the door, around 5:30 a.m., and I sat on a bench outside and watched the sun come up.

One morning while I was sitting on a bench writing my goals, a young girl sat beside me and said, “Hi, my name is Rosa; what’s your name?”

“My name is Portia.”

I was a little bit irritated, because I liked to write my goals first thing in the morning before I started my day.

“I’m new,” she said. “I really love it here. I’m going to try to get a job picking up garbage, because that’s what my father does. I’m really good at putting garbage cans together; my father taught me how to do it when I was a little girl.”

I looked down at my goals, which were only halfway written, and saw the words I am a good friend and a good listener.

Here was my opportunity to practice my goals instead of just writing them out.

I put my papers down and asked my new friend how long she was going to be in prison.

“Oh, I just got here, and I’m only going to be here for a few months. I gave someone a ride who wasn’t a citizen. The judge said he didn’t want to send me to prison, but he had to; he was really nice.

“Are you sure you want to help pick up trash? The girls who work in recycling say it’s a pretty rough job.”

“I would love that job!”

“Okay, well, I’m sure they will be happy to have you,” I told her.

She said, “I’m going to call you ‘The Sunshine Girl’ because you’re beautiful, and you glow like the sun.”

I smiled. “What makes you think I glow?” I asked her.

“I saw you the first day I got here sitting on a bench, and you were glowing. I think it’s because you’re kind; that’s why you glow like the sun.”

Her words touched me.

As I felt the warmth of the sun on my face, I thought: The power that created the earth and the sun is the power that's helping me change my life. The Son of God has transformed my pain and sorrow into joy.

I thought about the words of a scripture that are very reassuring to me: "I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father."

I remembered the day that I stood in a courtroom feeling very alone. I didn't need a lawyer that day; I needed an Advocate with the Father!

As I sat in the sun next to Rosa, I thought back to the day that I walked into a prison in Dublin, California, not knowing how I would make it and not knowing how good my life would get. Now my heart was filled with gratitude. The Son of God is my light, He walked me safely home.

05/08/2023

Benjamin Lerner shares:

Recovery has taught me that being imperfect and messy sometimes is OK.

In active addiction, I used to hate myself. I thought I wasn’t any good unless I was dressed perfectly, groomed perfectly, had perfect skin, spoke perfectly, and said all the right things. Even then, I still didn’t believe I was worthy of basic human happiness.

I took the social pressure from the world around me, magnified it internally, and used substances to cope with the overwhelming anxiety that came as a result of my delusional, perfectionist thinking. At the end of my addiction, I was isolating more than ever because I hated the way I looked. It was an ever-worsening cycle, because I used drugs as a coping mechanism for my insecurities, but I despised the way that the drugs altered my appearance. I couldn’t even look in the mirror after waking up dopesick and shaking from my crack, he**in and alcohol binges.

In recovery, I’ve learned that it’s OK if I don’t present myself perfectly. I learned to love myself regardless of my external appearance - and it’s a process that is still continuing to evolve. We all have off days and days where we need to relax and not worry about presentation. It doesn’t make us weak or worthless. It makes us strong enough to know that we need time to prioritize our mental health over our appearance.

I took this photo when I was walking my son, Jude around the block. We had just woken up from taking a nap and we both have bed heads and messy hair - but that’s OK! Although discipline and hygiene is certainly important, my son is going to grow up knowing that he is beautiful and worthy of love no matter how he looks. None of us are perfect in life or recovery, but we all deserve to be happy and comfortable in our own skin.

05/05/2023

Renew Wellness is a safe space for women to heal💜

Executive director and owner of Renew Wellness and Recovery Verona Mauga, and alumni Codi couldn’t have picked a better time to share the details of this small local business doing big things…

04/25/2023

You can be the homeless addict in Parkersburg, West Virginia. You can be the absent parent that puts drugs before their children. You can be in the deepest depression or completely consumed by anxiety.

You can be all of those things and still come back from the depths to live a life beyond your wildest dreams.

You can find freedom from addiction and mental illness. You can repair the relationship with your children. You can step foot in places you never would’ve been able to when you were homeless and strung out.

I’m speaking of a transformation that I’ve experienced first hand. If you’re suffering I hope you have the courage to take the first step towards the change you deserve.

There was a time when I put drugs before every single thing in my life. My family always came last. They were often the victims of my selfishness.

When I made the choice to change my life I made an oath to myself that I would never put my family last again.

My parents will have a sober son for the rest of their lives. My children will have a sober father for the rest of my life. They deserve my recovery as much as I do. 💪🏻

04/20/2023

I love the Lord for His goodness, we were all filled with emotion when we dropped Sister Terry off at the MTC yesterday. However, upon arriving at the center, I was flooded with happy memories and excitement for her journey.

Through the years, I have been blessed with many valuable connections that have paid off immensely. One such connection, a wonderful lady who reached out to me after she met Rilan last night at the MTC, took a photo of her and her companion with Portia Wilcox Louder - a remarkable individual with an incredible story.

To give some context, Portia and I had crossed paths when I was working with the Department of Public Safety's Community Engagement and Outreach Team. At the time, Portia was working at a Recovery Home and had warmly welcomed the individual we were dropping off. I had a few other greetings with Portia Wilcox Louder over the few months of working with the Recovery Home.

I am grateful that my daughter had the opportunity, during orientation, to connect with someone like Portia and share a small portion of her own incredible life story! Mekenzi Pacheco Terry

04/06/2023

Sister Bale and Sister Tolman have been meeting with sweet Indigo at Renew Wellness and Recovery. The sisters came over for lunch last week and hula hooped with the girls. You know how I love to hula hoop😉

Last night Indigo chose to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I told Indigo that we need her and we are lucky to have her a member of the church. The spirit was beautiful. I’m grateful and honored to be part of this amazing work!

03/10/2023

"My recovery pathway...

My selfish self-centeredness had tried every way possible to function as an addict in this life.

All it did was progress me further and further into a downward spiral. More charges, more prison time, more shame, more rebellion and hate.

The last time I was locked up, there was a group that met in the corner every night to do Bible Studies. I was the guy that made fun of "these people." Don't come in here with that jailhouse religion. But it was wild though bc with all the other distracting things going on in there, I was curiously drawn to the group. I fought going over there. Even questioned why I was so curious. Eventually I sat in on a few. It felt uncomfortable but at the same time som**hing about it felt right too.

I didn't think too much of it, as well as after my release. Fast forward, I hadn't been out a month. Had already missed two parole meetings, back on m**h and he**in, and headed right back from where I came.

One morning, around 5 a.m., I'm laying in bed staring at the ceiling fan, trying to fall asleep from a 5 day binge. Worried, scared, feeling hopeless and helpless, broken and defeated. I had tried everything but this one thing. So I tried it. And with humility and all the sincerity I had in my life, I uttered the words: GOD, HELP ME....
Five minutes later a tap on my window. My buddy, who had changed his life, came to check on me. I went to the front door, opened it, we looked at one another, and I told him I needed help. He got me to a place that changed my life.

At that place, I submitted my life to Christ. (That's a whole other story!) My life hasn't been the same! I know I am redeemed, saved, and free indeed! He has placed my feet in places with people I never thought I'd meet. Today I am at peace and I live to be used by the Almighty! I counted the cost and I am willing to suffer the things of my flesh to know Him deeper!

Maybe that's why I'm financially free with no debt. Maybe that's why I have so much time to do whatever I want in my day by creating my own schedule. Maybe that's why I find myself in favorable situations in a lot of different things. I don't know but that stuff is irrelevant too.

My goal is the same as Paul's: to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death

At the end of the day, it wasn't the drugs, the money, the s*x, the p**n, the eating disorder, the shopping addiction, or even the lifestyle. All of that was a byproduct of som**hing deeper. It was me. It was my self will that had run riot. When I surrendered all of me, I was renewed and restored with a new life. A life I wouldn't trade for the world.

In a world where the enemy easily comes in like a flood to distract us, the Spirit of the Lord has set up a standard in my life today and I stand on that everlasting foundation.

I haven't really talked about it on here but this is where I stand and will continue to stand. In Jesus Name!"

02/28/2023

I met Maisie on her first day in prison. She told me, “This is my chance to learn how to live life like other people do. I want to take every class you have. I graduated high school; do you think I could take college classes?"

“Slow down, friend, you just got here,” I told her. “We probably have some time to figure things out. How long is your sentence?”

“Ten years, but I don’t want to waste my time.”

Both of Maisie’s parents were he**in addicts. The family was homeless from time to time, and Maisie and her brother spent some of their younger years in foster care. Maisie’s dad taught them how to become criminals early in life. They moved from town to town robbing pharmacies, and breaking into houses.

Maisie’s dad passed away from a drug overdose, and her brother was able to get sober after that. Maisie was so proud of him!

Maisie and I were eating in the kitchen once, and had a disagreement.

“Let’s both be right,” I told her.

We started laughing, and from that point on we were both right.

One day, Maisie and I were headed to the cafeteria and someone yelled, “They have ice cream in the chow hall.”

Maisie told me that ice cream was her favorite thing. I could see how much she liked it, so I decided to find her another ice cream. I watched the people around us, and when a girl stood up to leave without eating her ice cream, I pounced.

“If you’re going to dump your tray, can I have your ice cream?”

“I’m just moving tables,” she told me. “I want my ice cream!”

Maybe she decided to move tables because she saw me eyeing her ice cream.

Then a woman walked up to our table with a smile on her face.

She said, “It was a bold move to ask for her ice cream, you can have mine.”

I handed the treasure to Maisie, and that sealed our friendship! Maisie told me it was the most “down” thing a friend had ever done for her.

Maisie gave me a card:

I have always been at a loss for words when it comes to writing. I usually just say how I feel in person, so if you don’t know how much I adore you, then you weren’t listening. But I happen to know that you are always listening—from the first day I met you and expressed my goals for prison, to my desire for more ice cream and you almost tackling a woman so I could have it. I know I said that was the day that sealed our friendship; I mean, that was pretty down. But looking back, I’ve had a lot of down friends in my life; I don’t need another one. I do, however, need a true friend, and I realized that you were it the day we were outside on the picnic table and I said some pretty harsh things in a pretty harsh way. Once again, you heard me out with complete humility and love. I won’t ever forget that moment! You said, “Maisie, I love you and value our friendship; let’s talk about this.”
The only other person in my life who met my anger with love was my grandmother, so it’s a pretty big deal to me! You are an exceptional woman and an outstanding, true friend. May your birthday be as beautiful as you are.

Click link to hear update

Maisie shares her story and how prison changed her life

02/21/2023