My name is Brian Penny. I'm 31 years old and I am a person in recovery.
Basically, I started drinking and smoking weed in high school.
I kind of started hanging out with that crowd of people.
Before I started hanging out with them, I was relatively shy and quiet.
When I started drinking and using a little bit, it made me feel like I opened up more.
Eventually, I got a job working at a bar when I turned 21,
and that's when the drinking really, really increased to a point where I was basically drinking every night,
every day, sometimes before I even got out of bed.
It's hard to admit that you have a problem with alcohol or drugs,
and that's probably one of the biggest things that kept me out of treatment.
It just kind of continued and increased, and somewhere in my late 20s,
I had a day where I was at the bar drinking by myself,
and I woke up the next morning and I kind of really realized that something needed to change.
That was when I really felt that it was something I couldn't do on my own,
and that I needed help with it.
One of the first things I did was I sent my father a text message that said,
I think I'm ready to get some treatment, and he texted me back and said,
that's great, you know, let us know what we can do for you.
My family is by far the most important people in my life.
No matter how bad things got, no matter what I did, they were always there for me,
always told me how much they loved me.
I went to treatment in October of 2012, and that really did a lot for me.
It was 30 days of inpatient treatment away from society,
going through treatment, learning about the disease that I have, learning to accept it.
Once that treatment is up, you go home, you go back to where you were before you went to treatment,
and you have to kind of deal with being back in society with a new knowledge
that you have of what you're dealing with.
But at the same time, you're not able to use the substance or the alcohol or the drug
that you've been using for so long as a means of coping with that society.
It's tough, you know, at least for me, I needed something to help me reintegrate myself into society.
My father did business with one of the ladies that had been involved with Face It Together,
so he told me about it.
I made an appointment, and I went down there and met with Shelly.
She helped me set goals, and she helped me get a job.
The people there do understand what you're going through.
They've been where you've been, oftentimes.
They have been where you are currently, and they are where you could be someday, you know,
living clean and sober.
And the inspiration, that's what it's all about, really.
That's what people need is the inspiration to find that sober life.
It makes it easier when you have somebody that understands what you're going through,
kind of right there walking beside you.
And, you know, that's what Face It Together basically has done for me,
and that's what I hope it can do for other people.
