Shepherds House Inc.

03/07/2025

This is Missy. She has been battling addiction for the last 35 years, living on the streets for many of them. She came into the Shepherds House Recovery Community Center daily, and staff members like Kate Holway helped her any way they could. The last time Kate saw Missy was the night before she went away to treatment; this is who walked through the door today. Missy now has 8 1/2 months sober. She’s working full-time, has her own apartment, is sponsoring someone, and will soon train to become an Adult Peer Support Specialist . Recovery is real. Don’t leave before the miracle happens. We are walking with Nicholasville one step at a time. , ,

03/07/2025

When we're in active addiction, we abandon the things we care about most: family, friends, jobs, hobbies. We also lose track of our favorite movies and sports teams; what better way to catch up than with a newfound recovery fellowship at the upcoming Shepherds House men's inpatient treatment center?

We've bounced back from the flood and are even better than before.

03/06/2025

People with substance use disorder are some of the most intelligent, imaginative, motivated and resourceful people around. We just have to learn to channel our powers in a positive way.

03/05/2025

Coming soon.

03/04/2025

In early recovery, we want to regain what we lost as quickly as possible: the job, the house, the car, the romantic partner. But those of us who have tried to shortcut the recovery process know that it often just blows up in our face more viciously than ever before. Better to remind ourselves: "Easy does it!"

02/28/2025

Back in November, Lexington radio station Hits 106.3 FM held a writing contest with the theme of "how I got saved." A graduate of the Shepherds House Maxwelton program won the grand prize: front row seats to the Jelly Roll concert at Rupp Arena. Here is that winning entry:

How do you describe drug addiction to someone who has never experienced it? I could say that the highs are like being slingshotted straight up to the cloud base of heaven itself, and reaching your hand up so close to the whiteness that you can almost touch it, almost grab it, almost shove it in the front of your pants and steal it like shoplifting from a store. I could also say that when the fall back to earth comes–and it always comes–the smack to the ground brings a pain so hot and hateful and searing that you’re sure it’ll scorch those same clouds to ashes.

But even that doesn’t even really begin to describe it. I still don’t even completely understand it now–and I definitely didn’t when I was living in it. All I knew at the time is that I had to somehow save myself from myself. But I didn’t know how. And it turned out that the only thing that could save me was something that was not myself. Nope, I could not manipulate my way out of this one: I had to be rescued by something that was *greater* than myself.

When I washed up, shattered, onto the steps of a treatment center in Lexington (the Shepherds House), I hated everything and everyone–myself, in particular. And I really hated all the corny talk of “hope” and “spirituality” and “recovery” that everyone there was yammering about. But, not wanting to be homeless any more during the cold winter of COVID, I did what they asked me to do–which was the opposite of what I wanted to do, all day, every day. I followed the directions. I took the suggestions. I did the actions.

I was tired. I was angry. I was so incomprehensibly sad that I could hardly speak at times. But I kept going. And going.

And, in spite of myself, I was ultimately saved by a power greater than myself.

I still don’t know what to call this great power. I tend to believe that any words or concepts that my tiny brain could muster would inevitably fall short of describing it. So I don’t really call it anything at all–it’s just a nameless presence, a glowing interconnectedness that is everywhere all of the time. I see the effects of its power, though. I see it in an orange leaf falling from a tree and spinning to the ground. I see it in the acts of kindness between my brothers and sisters in recovery and beyond. I feel its warmth from my wife, who is also clean and sober now. And I hear it when my son runs up to me and says, “Hey Dad!”

Hey Dad. Bye Dad. Love you Dad. There was a time when I was certain that I would never deserve to hear those words again. I’ve been speaking this whole time about saving “myself.” But that doesn’t even begin to describe it.

02/27/2025

We can only keep it by giving it away--and sharing our stories of experience, strength and hope.

02/26/2025

"The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it" (p. 83).

02/24/2025

02/21/2025

Aim to do the right thing even when no one is looking, and you're on the right path.

02/19/2025

Addiction: the one opponent that you can only conquer by forfeiting the match. Addiction is undefeated in blow-for-blow brawls, because it feeds off our terror and frustrated rage: the harder we fight it, the harder it hits back. Its Kryptonite is when we step into the ring, stare it right in the eye… and toss our gloves at its feet. Addiction has no counterattack for this, and, deprived of its power source, it flees under the ropes and into the darkness. At the Shepherds House, we specialize in training for this very match–the championship bout of our lives.

02/17/2025