Fellowship House

10/31/2025

It’s amazing what happens to the brain—and to the spirit—after 30, 60, or 90 days of sobriety.
You meet an idealist the world once ripped the heart out of.

I’m deeply proud of the men who leave Fellowship House. We’ve said goodbye this week to solid souls who’ve learned to care again. Sometimes caring hurts—it’s uncomfortable, even painful—but it’s the first sign that life has returned.

To watch these men rebuild resilience, rejoin life, and find meaning again—there’s nothing more captivating.

What a happy Halloween. The world needs the hearts of addicts, the art of idealists, and the courage of recovery returning to the game. 🎃🦉❤️

10/31/2025

🍂 Autumn at Fellowship House — Our Favorite Season! 🍁

Our third annual Roba’s Chip Trip was another beautiful reminder of what makes this community special — crisp fall air, laughter, and time to decompress together. Huge shoutout to our favorite CRS, “Papa Bear” Rich Bates, for keeping the hikes going strong all season and getting everyone out into nature. 🌲

We’re grateful every day for our incredible team — Jessica, Megan, Marissa, Kat, Amanda, Dave, Mike, Smoothie, Evan, Kevin, Dave Enslin, Dave E. Chef Russ, Nasim, Amelia, Kru Simrell— the people who show up not just to work, but to connect. Sometimes, to truly help, you have to step into someone’s pain for a moment — and our team does that with empathy, sincerity, and heart. ❤️

A special shoutout to Dave Enslin, our CFO, whose vision has given us a clear path toward better programming every year. As we grow, our outcomes continue to improve — and that’s the real reward.

Here’s to change, connection, and another season of healing done right. 🍁💪

10/23/2025

🧠✨ New Blog: “Step 10 — A New Operating System for an Old Mind.”
Recovery isn’t just about abstinence, it’s about awareness. Step 10 is where the work becomes muscle memory, where reflection turns into intuition. It’s metacognition in motion, a daily software update for the soul.

Read this week’s Mandala Room entry and explore how we practice the principles of recovery until they become who we are.

https://www.fellowshiphouses.com/staging/9983/new-os-for-an-old-mind/

Many of us arrive at Step Ten before we realize it. It is the step that begins to breathe for us, the one that quietly rewrites our operating system by integrating the humility of Step One, the faith of Step Two, the surrender of Step Three, and the moral courage of Steps Four through Nine. In early...

10/14/2025

🍂 Autumn at Fellowship House: The Season of Risk and Renewal 🍂

As the air sharpens and the leaves give up what they were—our adventures truly begin.
At Fellowship House, change isn’t a threat; it’s the heartbeat of recovery.

For those healing from substance use disorder, the maverick within never dies, it just needs new direction. If we abandon adventure, we drift back into the concrete thinking that once caged us. But when we risk change, try new things, reframe relationships, keep life novel , we find recovery isn’t about returning to who we were… it’s about becoming who we could be.

This fall, take the leap. The unknown is waiting for you to name it. 🍁

10/08/2025

☕🚬 Coffee & Ci******es — the warm Walmart speedball of America.
Our new blog’s live: a love letter to bad habits, dopamine lies, and the myth of calm.
Pull up a chair on To***co Road and take a drag on the truth.

🔥 Read it now!

There’s a peculiar grace in the pairing of coffee and ci******es — a slow, smoky liturgy that once marked the sacred spaces between meetings, detoxes, and halfway-house back steps. For many in recovery, it was the first socially acceptable ritual that didn’t lead straight to ruin. A bitter cup...

10/07/2025

🦉☕💨 “Coffee & Ci******es” — This Week in The Mandala Room

Somewhere between relapse and rebirth sits a sacred ritual: burnt coffee, cowboy killers, and conversation.

Before therapy notes and treatment plans, this was our communion , sitting in the cold, hearts cracked open, trying to feel human again.

I’ll do my best not to make light of ni****ne, the world’s #1 addiction, but for those of us who once lived on co***ne, benzos, or tranq… coffee and ci******es were civility in a strange new world.

New blog drops this week: Coffee & Ci******es: The Original Recovery Communion
(Featuring our mascot Copernicus🦉💨)

******es

10/06/2025

Big news 🦉 Family Addictus is now on Barnes & Noble shelves!

This short book breaks down addiction for what it really is a complex human disorder, not a mystery or a moral failing. It demystifies how people find themselves trapped in it… and why, at times, being high can feel more “normal” than being sober.

If you’ve ever wondered why we do what we do or love someone who struggles this book is for you.

Now available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and showing up at libraries everywhere.

A groundbreaking exploration reframing addiction from moral failing to evolutionary adaptation. Van Wie traces addiction to early trauma in the first 1,000 days, where substances feel like missing pieces finally arriving.

10/05/2025

🌟 Big Shout-Out to Coach Kev 🌟

At Fellowship House, we’re blessed to have people who don’t just show up for work — they show up for people.

Coach Kev works tirelessly to help our guys rebuild their lives:
🚗 License restoration
🎓 GED and college readiness
🤝 Building partnerships and connecting men to real local resources that change their trajectory.

This week, I asked Kevin what some of the highest highs and toughest lows of this work were. I expected stories about the job — but he never mentioned himself once.

He talked only about the clients — their breakthroughs, their struggles, their growth. That’s who Kevin is.

He doesn’t chase credit. He chases outcomes.
That’s the kind of heart this work demands.
That’s the kind of heart we’re proud to have at Fellowship House. ❤️

And as a bonus — the guys got to see Coach Kev in his other environment this week: out on the field with Lackawanna College Football, kicking some serious ass. 🏈🔥