Phase 1- Stablization

It's nerve-wracking for a person to walk up to the door and sign up for the LifeChange Program. Imagine leaving everything you know to be familiar - even if it is familiarly bad.

It takes a valiant woman to pack up her house and move into a dorm lifestyle for an entire year. Baby steps, we tell them. But when they get that phone call, they have to get here fast! We have a very long waiting list. Our women have come from all over the province: Saskatoon, Meadow Lake, North Battleford, Manitoba. Well, so have our men, for that matter.

What do we offer that other programs do not? Consider this quote:

Just how effective "Christian recovery" can be is powerfully illustrated in an SRI Gallup study of recovery from homelessness conducted for a rescue mission in Knoxville, TN. This study, conducted by a secular research organization, had no thought of "Christian recovery" principles factored into it. They identified six critical "life themes" that were strongly present in the lives of people who were able to recover from homelessness. The following are listed according to their degree of importance:

Spirituality - as a source of personal strength and as the basis for rebuilding relationships with other people.
Self-Insight - by overcoming denial, acceptance leads to a new and accurate knowledge of oneself.
Security - feeling safe both physically and emotionally
Self-Awareness - being in touch with one's own emotions
People Support - having others who care enough to be truly involved with one's life (the total opposite of "disaffiliation")
Suppression - being reconciled with one's past and able reject negative thoughts, worries, and a poor self-concept

And so, as life would have it, over the course of the year men and women are learning to overcome life-controlling problems such as addictions, mental health issues, disabilities, etc. But that first day. How disorienting. Who can they trust? Like the first day at a new school, they wonder what the buzzer signifies. Which room are they to meet in? Their head might be aching from lack of sleep on the bus ride here. Their usual coping mechanisms of "just one drink to calm me down" are swiftly taken out from under them and so they pace, or cry, or just sit.