The Lighthouse

“It was a dark and stormy night…,” was how my sister and I started all our stories when we were small. As far as we know, Edward Bulwer-Lytton was the first person to write this and now, almost two hundred years later it is a well-known cliché. My sister and I loved to make up stories and several of them were about lighthouses. We grew up in Ontario so we had never seen a lighthouse but they fascinated us. When we saw pictures of them as they shone that bright light across the dark and stormy waters, a ship could follow the light through that storm, avoiding the sandbars and rocks. If the ship didn’t follow the light, it was doomed to crash.

As I think about the wonderful men in our treatment program, they remind me of the boat in the storm of addiction. The waves of life crash around them and they appear to be headed for the rocks or a sandbar. This gives new meaning to the term “hitting rock bottom!” Unless there is a light to guide their way, there is little hope.

Our amazing staff are like the lighthouse. As staff, you cannot do the work for our clients, just like the lighthouse can’t do the work for a ship. But like the lighthouse, you can light the way. You can offer support, a listening ear, discuss strategy, recovery, and the future. You can direct a client to health care, to housing, and to a sponsor. You can go to court with a client, assist in family reunification, and assist with finding a sponsor. But like the lighthouse, you are only a guide. The boat must find its own way. If it follows the light, it can make it safely to shore.

When I was growing up, my sister and I used to sing a song that we learned in Sunday School. After forgetting about it for years, I thought of it this week which made me miss her, but also reminded me of lighthouses and the metaphor of a lighthouse and quality addiction treatment care. The chorus goes like this:

Brighten the corner where you are,
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar:
So brighten the corner where you are!

My hope is two-fold: first, I hope it becomes the passion and mission of every one of our staff to brighten their small corner of the world. And second, it is my hope that every client will follow the light through the dark and stormy night of addiction so that they find lifelong recovery and healing.

— Dr. John