GPS RECOVERY
Find Your Way
The founders Chuck Demarion and Chris Shadek started GPS Recovery because of their own lived experience in battling addiction. Oxford University Press defines lived experience as "Knowledge about the world gained through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events rather than through representations constructed by other people." Chuck and Chris have extensive experience going to and leaving numerous treatment centers, living on the streets, and living in recovery homes. They have taken their combined, different hard lived experiences in the world of addiction to create a unique living environment to help others navigate the early stages of recovery as well as building a foundation for sustained recovery. The GPS founders have needed to find their way in challenging vulnerable unknown world and into a life they were happy to live and ultimately wanted to
share that experience with others.
Furthermore, the mission for GPS is strengthened by what GPS stands for. GPS are the initials of Chris's younger brother Gregory Paul Shadek, who lost his life to addiction in 2016, a tragic even that occurs every 10 minutes in the United States and is becoming a reality for more and more families. The driving force that emboldens GPS' mission represents both sides of addiction: Living and Dying. The painful lesson from Greg's passing that once you are gone, there are no more chances, no more hope, and thus recovery is not available or possible...the harshest of realities. Greg as well as 100,306 people (CDC) April 2020-April 2021 were never giving that opportunity, a new chance. However, if you are alive, there is always hope - hope to get better, hope to live, hope to experience all of life's ups and downs - mainly and most importantly a life to be lived and experienced. GPS created a program based on this hope of living to help.
PHILOSOPHY AT GPS
The driving force at GPS Recovery is to work in collaborative manner with incoming residents and their families to bridge the gap from residential treatment to living in a real life setting. Leaving residential treatment is a scary and vulnerable place for the person as well as their loved ones. This journey is further complicated by the fact that a clear-cut strong formula simply does not exist for those leaving residential treatment and reentering the world. GPS is grounded in the belief that an extended period of a higher level of personalized care offering support, structure, and guidance in real life settings is the best way to transition and build a life for long term recovery.
Our philosophy stems mainly from our experiences as well others who have impacted our recovery journey and have helped shape our lives today. This philosophy is best communicated by the ideas described by David Beat and Alexandre Laudat
"The essence of recovery is a lived experience of improved life quality and a sense of empowerment; those principles of recovery focus on the central ideas of hope, choice, freedom, and aspiration that are experienced rather than diagnosed and occur in real life settings rather than in the rarified atmosphere of clinical settings. Recovery is a process rather than an end state, with the goal being an ongoing quest for a better life." GPS Recovery gives residents the ability to experience recovery in a real life setting. Learning how to live and deal with the world drug free with a certain level of support, structure, and collaboration. Also providing residents the opportunity to learn and develop their own tools that will help them later on in their journey