Meet Ralphie

Ralphie is tough.  He has a shaved head, a gravelly voice and a huge gold chain around a thick neck.  He’s built like a bulldog, short and stocky.  He is affable and pleasant to talk to, but it’s not hard to picture him running with dangerous crowds in New York City. 

Ralphie has been shot and stabbed.  He is so tough that he has died three times but lives to tell the tale of three separate drug overdoses. 

Ralphie vividly described the night when everything changed for him.  Instead of using just one more time, he reached out for help and eventually entered into the Tides Program where he has successfully stayed sober for the past three years. 

After more than a decade of being an addict, homeless, incarcerated and without hope, the Tides Program is having a profoundly positive effect on Ralphie; giving him what other programs could not. 

The Tides Program treats residents like human beings. “It is a simple program for complicated people,” Ralphie said.  The desire to do something more with his life was always there, he said, but it wasn’t until he was connected with adequate resources that he made changes that stuck.   

At Tides, there are very few requirements for residency and there is no fear of eviction for having a setback.  You can’t have a bad apple infecting the rest of the house, Ralphie said, but you have to give people help when they need it most.   As part of the Tides Program he was given access to the services he needed to get clean.  He attends meetings twice a day and cherishes his role as House Manager.  The Tides Program is providing an environment that is making all the difference between three years of sobriety and relapse. 

For Ralphie, being part of the Tides Program means not being enabled anymore.  It means being responsible for his actions and putting an end to the nightmarish roller coaster ride. 

Please make a gift to MHSA today so that together, we can help more people like Ralphie begin their journeys to success.
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