NPORTC Magazine

FREE &MOVING Nathaniel Oliver > >

N athaniel Oliver has been a client at New Place of Recovery Treatment Center for about four months and is doing so well that he was asked to be House Manager. One of the privileges is that he gets a room to himself, overseeing a house with five residents. He gets along great with his housemates. “Everybody gets along; everybody does chores or pitches in and helps clean up. We do group meetings every day.” All that is changing for him, in a good way. “I'm OP now, so my next step is independent living.” He explains, “You'll basically have your own room with your own key and join the house meetings once a month.” And his new OP status was celebrated. “We had a big party this month.” When asked if he has a favorite staff member, Nathaniel quickly shares, “All are my favorites for me, for real. Mr. Ronnie, Michelle, Nnenna… all of them are helping in

“…MY ATTITUDE HAS COME A LONG WAY….”

-Nathaniel Oliver

our progress and recovery.” He shares his story from addiction to recovery. “I was 11 or 12, and started with weed, then graduated to snorting coke. By 25, I was snorting heroin, doing burglaries, stealing, robbing—anything that would support my drug habit.” Locked up in 1999, he still had plenty of access to drugs. “In 2015, they started bringing fentanyl into the jail. Brothers started putting it into the heroin, cutting the dope with fentanyl. And I've seen in two weeks’ time; eight people died down in JCI.” From the last bag he had, Nathaniel passed out. “I went into a nod at 12:30 and didn’t wake up until 7 or 8 o'clock at night, and it scared the living crap out of me, and I ain't been high since. I haven’t had urges to get high like the average person. And I ain't had no type of drugs or

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