Success Stories
Living Life Fully
In the late 1960s Project Rehab offered a troubled teen an opportunity that would change his life. “It wasn’t my time, I wasn’t tired of suffering.” Roosevelt Oliver explained that he preferred to ignore this opportunity and keep using. Then 20 years later, after a night of getting high, he was leaving a house when a shotgun blast ripped through the door. After six hours in surgery, Roosevelt awoke, both physically and spiritually. “I had a spiritual awakening that this was going to cost me my life, living in this madness.” After his physical recovery, Roosevelt entered himself into the Bullock House for what was to be the third and final time. He knew firsthand what happened to people who abused drugs, but he thought it could never happen to him. It wasn’t until he entered Project Rehab that “I learned that I had a drug problem that is bigger than me.” He learned how to breakdown his previous detrimental behavior and to have the strength to cope with his urges. Since his graduation in 1991, Roosevelt has been using the approaches that Project Rehab taught him, especially for getting through hard times. Roosevelt boasts, “If I was still living how I used to live I wouldn’t have a beautiful wife, beautiful home, a respectable job, self-respect, and respect from my peers.”
Roosevelt’s story appears in 40 Stories of Courage and Hope: Celebrating 40 Years of Project Rehab, which was published in Fall 2008 in recognition of Project Rehab’s 40th anniversary. Click here to read more stories about our courageous clients and the treatment pioneers who helped make recovery possible.
This story is sponsored by Trivalent Group