“Hello gentlemen, welcome to Faith Today. My name is Junior, I am a Christian minister in our city and I am facilitating our session today”. So begins a Faith Today session at Quintin Warner House. The Faith Today program is the spiritual component of Quintin Warner House’s recovery program, and we believe that recovery and sobriety are three-dimensional involving mind, body, and spirit.
Quintin Warner House is based on Christian principles but welcomes men from all races, creeds, religious and non-religious affiliations, and values. As a matter of fact, Faith Today sessions are about spirituality and not about religion. My approach is to discuss the issues of faith and topics that deal with recovery and sobriety.
I personally believe that we are all spiritual beings and God is Spirit and wants us to understand Him and have a relationship with Him. In my personal life, spirituality became the major foundation and inspiration in my own journey of sobriety. My father was an alcoholic. I grew up in an alcohol environment and had my first drink when I was just 8 years old after my brother and cousin challenged me to drink a pint of rum. Later on, at a crucial stage in my life, I experienced a spiritual encounter and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. This radically changed my life and I decided to stop drinking alcohol. I was the first among my siblings to make this change and I decided to help others find sobriety and wellness in their lives as well.
In my 20 plus years of leading Faith Today, I have observed that clients who embrace the reality of seeking holistic wellness of mind, body, and spirit have had more success in recovery. I have noted that once there is openness to spirituality, along with the other aspects of the Quintin Warner House program, clients develop a more positive outlook and demeanor. I remind them that it is not about religion but a relationship with God or their “higher power” that makes the difference.
My recovery slogan is “Forward ever, backward never”. One of our graduates actually made it his recovery coin.
Written by Rev. Junior Sorzano