For years, Elsie coasted on the edge of drinking every night and appearing sober. Until that edge became thinner and thinner and she had to reveal her secret to her loved ones.

I’m Alison B and I’m an alcoholic and addict. My sobriety date is November 18, 2020. If I could define what my recovery means to me today, I would say, […]

For National Recovery Month, we reached out to alumni to hear their inspiring recovery stories. See Aleksa's and Jean's here.

My name is Bob L. and my recovery date is May 31, 2018. My journey has unique details, but the gist of it you have heard a thousand times before. […]

Patti T. As I write this, I am coming up on one year of sobriety. Mountainside saved my life. I never felt I had hit a rock bottom, but now […]

Life without active addiction is not what I thought it would be. I had expectations of not being able to make it through life without drugs and alcohol. I thought […]

Kati L. Sobriety Date: 4/13/2021 Today I am a grateful alcoholic. I live a life of freedom. Sober freedom. When I entered Mountainside, I was scared and fragile. I was […]

Adam W. Hi. My name’s Adam and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is November 18, 2017. I was an active alcoholic for 15 years. At the end of […]

Sam C. The single most important thing that I have learned in my life is honesty. It’s the foundation of life itself. Not only in recovery, but with everything I […]

Hi, my name is Mike G. and I am a grateful recovering addict. My life of drug addiction started more than 20 years ago when I was just 13 years […]

Welcome to the February Alumni Connections Newsletter! In the video below, Director of Recovery Experience Pat McCarthy, sits down with Rachel White to discuss his new role at Mountainside and […]

I am honored to share my story with you all in this edition of the “Mountainside Connection”. I want to begin this story by admitting that when I started my […]

Hi there! My name is Alli and I am a grateful recovering addict. I knew I had a problem years before I stepped foot into Mountainside. I thought I could […]

Hi, my name is Ryan Y. and I am from Connecticut. I am pretty sure I have had an addictive personality ever since I was born. I always tried to […]

What happens now? I had no idea what would happen when I walked out the door at Mountainside after 30 days. I already missed the people I had met in […]

I was full of renewed hope the day I left Mountainside in October 2015. It was my 2nd rehab in the same year! This time felt different because, at Mountainside, […]

Hi everyone! My name is Wendy Van Buren, and I work with Kendall and Rachel in the Alumni Department. I have 28 cumulative years of sobriety, and as some of […]

I walked into Mountainside knowing I MUST get sober. I was willing, I was coachable, and I was honest. I told secrets that I had kept hidden for almost two […]

When I walked into Mountainside on July 31st, 2016, I did not know my life would change forever. I spent over four months at Mountainside from detox through inpatient and […]

Greetings! My name is Sue D. and I am a Mountainside alum.Before I went to Mountainside in the winter of 2018, most of the daily decisions I made were around […]

Dear Mountainside, As I look back to the week of May 31, 2020, I remember what it felt like to hit my “rock bottom.” I was lost, full of despair, […]

Hi Mountainside Community, I hope all of you are healthy and well as we are (HP willing) turning the corner on this pandemic. I’m excited to welcome you to this […]

Dear Mountainside Alumni, Before I became sober, I would only help others if I thought it would benefit me. As time went on, and I began to change my life […]

Happy New Year, Mountainside Community! Here we are, in 2021. Whatever your journey has been, you’ve made it this far – and Mountainside has played a role in your recovery. […]

I spent most of my youth as a people pleaser. The idea of authenticity was challenging for me. I always wondered where I fit in and what people thought of […]

My journey began on a chilly Sunday morning in the backseat of a rental car. My brother-in-law was driving. We headed into the beautiful Berkshires — a place unlike any […]

My journey to Mountainside begins much like yours. A story of trauma, agonizing guilt, fear, anxiety, and pain that was self-inflicted and from others. I say this not to compare […]

My spiritual awakening occurred in a marriage counselor’s office in Spring 2018. My husband and I were attending counseling together, and things weren’t going well. I felt like nothing was […]

After enduring a verbally abusive marriage and a murder attempt on my life, I lived on the sly, sneaking alcohol. My drinking could be compared to being on a slow, […]

One Day At A Time… five small words that mean so much to me today, yet five small words I couldn’t grasp the meaning of for so long. How was […]

Did I make the right decision? Was it best to leave people, places, and things behind? Was it a good idea to get sober? I don’t know what the outcome […]

Hey all! I have about twenty-one months of not drinking and sixteen months of solid sobriety. After I left Mountainside, my life was in turmoil. I was trying to gain […]

Just 18 months ago, I was a hopeless alcoholic and drug addict. I hit bottom so hard that I became suicidal on a day-to-day basis. I was isolated from my […]

When we first enter recovery, it’s new and exciting – unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before. Living life in sobriety after wasting years on addiction is exhilarating, and we want […]

As of January 1st, 2020, I will officially be one year sober. Thinking back on this past year, my life has changed for the better — dramatically, like I would […]

As I sat at my grandparent’s house completely stuffed after a Thanksgiving feast, I was not only stuffed with turkey and mashed potatoes, but I was filled with gratitude. I […]

Thanks for the Memories. It’s so wonderful to look back over the last 5 years and see the growth in our Alumni Program. I remember when I first began my […]

I was watching the sunset, in my beach chair, sipping on a hot cocoa in my backyard the other day. The sky was so colorful, filled with pink, purple and […]

In May 2008, I was mentally and physically defeated. Surrounded by conflict – both internal and external – I came to the realization that I no longer wanted to continue […]

Finding consistency can be difficult. It seems that once you get into the groove, something comes along to throw you off-center. Life happens, priorities shift, and some days, there just […]

There is this notion that I have been hearing repeatedly lately. It is something that I have watched people hide behind in recovery. It is the idea that we are […]

I recently made the choice to take a staycation. Typically, I don’t stop. I am on the move constantly. I haven’t taken a break from life to just “be” in […]

This month, I will be celebrating 11 years in recovery. It seems like only yesterday that I walked through the doors of Mountainside. When I arrived here, I hadn’t worked […]

I was standing in my laundry room when out of the corner of my eye I saw the most vibrant sunset. Without even thinking, I threw on my shoes and […]

Do you ever have those moments where something becomes so clear that you physically just pause, and sit with the thought for a moment? You begin reflecting on what you […]

For so many years I have said, “I hate the cold weather.” As winter approaches, the days are shorter, it’s darker and everything is void of color. For me it […]

What is a New Year’s resolution? Well, if you ask Siri, it is a tradition in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior to accomplish a […]

Mountainside family! We thought we would shake things up a little as the year ends by having Mountainside alumni take over the December newsletter. This issue was written for us, […]

At times, life seems like an endless list of responsibilities. To-do lists, schedules, obligations ⎼ it can get overwhelming. There are days when I want to cancel, avoid following through, […]

My life is crazy busy ⎼ meetings, events, family, friends, travel ⎼ sometimes it can seem overwhelming. But on the flip side, when I have free time, I don’t know […]

Anyone who knows me knows that I love recovery. I enjoy talking about my experience and am no longer afraid to let people know that I am in recovery. But […]

Being involved in things I enjoy is what keeps my life exciting. Activities like attending a concert, going to the gym, showing up to help a friend, or being active […]

For my birthday this year, I decided to buy myself a solo trip. I had never traveled alone to a distant country, so I relied on my travel agent to […]

Recently, I became so closed off to the world around me that I was missing out on all the amazing signs the universe was sending my way. I wasn’t living […]

The Alumni Trip to Mexico was a success. It was something I had been looking forward to for months. Each day would be an adventure ⎼ a chance to see […]

I can’t quite pinpoint the moment when it happened. It was a gradual progression, but slowly I began feeling whole. Something inside of me changed. Things seemed clearer. I felt […]

When I first got sober, I couldn’t have a basic conversation with people. If you said “hi” to me or even looked in my direction, I would crawl out of […]

With the freezing temperatures and snow, I tend to want to go into hibernation. If you are like me, then you understand the struggle of someone who dislikes the cold. […]

The holidays have come and gone and as life continues to happen, it is important to take a few deep breaths and re-center yourself. Leave behind the stress and chaos of last year behind, and focus on allowing goodness to flow into your life.

After last year’s trip to Costa Rica, I decided that I was going to make adventure and travel part of my life. I was going to get in touch with […]

What are you doing in your life today that is amazing? Through the #GoBeyond campaign, we will be able to recognize your achievements by celebrating your successes and the steps you take every day to reach your true potential.

What if I told you that anything was possible? That all your hopes and dreams could become a reality? Over the last year, I have made significant changes by becoming clear on what I want to achieve for myself. I began to work on my thinking, health, and the circle that I surround myself with.

Establishing a support system in my early recovery was an important – if not the most important – component of my long-term commitment to recovery. I remember being resistant to […]

Every year, from birth until I was a teen, my family and I traveled to West Virginia to visit my grandparents on their 200-acre farm, set on a dirt road […]

If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. Recently, I had to make some changes that I knew were going to be beneficial to […]

Pura Vida! Pure life – that is exactly what I experienced on my first ever alumni trip. Being immersed in Costa Rica’s culture for eight days, I began to embrace […]

Recovery for me has been a journey of self-discovery. When I put down drugs and alcohol, I had no idea who I was. I was still on a mission to […]

Spring! This time of year brings a feeling of change. Open the windows, clean out the clutter, and make everything fresh again! Winter is the longest season, or at least […]

Leaving treatment, for me, meant changing everything. I hadn’t worked in over a year. I went from being a successful business woman to being someone who was driving around with […]

Loving myself is not something that comes naturally. Each morning when I wake up, the first thought that usually comes to my mind is negative. I don’t know why this […]