Help for addiction and stress

"Holy/Happy Hour" tonight, GW Catholic grad students.  Holy Hour from 7-8 pm, Happy Hour in Foggy Bottom afterwards.  Come join us!
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I've been working with a college student (not at GW) for a couple of years who is trying to overcome an addiction to cutting.  This student has struggled mightily to get help, even with a very strong Catholic spiritual life and seeing multiple counselors in a short amount of time.  The student just emailed me this week; hopefully there's been a breakthrough! I post the email anonymously here in case, as the student writes, it might help any of our students with addictions.  There's also a link to the program's website to check out.


"I just wanted to share with you what I'm doing right now. I saw a counselor right before finals week and he recommended that I give a 60-day online program a shot because I don't have time to go to St. Louis to the inpatient hospital for cutters. This program is through Setting Captives Free and it's called "By His Wounds." It's Scripture-based and it's incredible. It's all about changing my perspective on cutting. It's really working. It's REALLY hard, don't get me wrong. It's opened a lot of wounds that haven't healed correctly and it definitely hurts, a lot, but I know that if I get through all 60 days, I won't ever cut again.


I just finished day 12 and it's definitely getting harder as I go, but I'm determined to fix this once and for all. These lessons are completely changing my perspective on cutting. I know my cutting hurt God, but I'm seeing more how it damaged my relationship with Him because I wanted to be in control. It's all that letting go and letting God thing. I know I can't fix this myself. I've tried a billion times, as you know all too well. If I can stop cutting once and for all, I know that whatever I set my heart on, I can do. I really am all in this time. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have started this program and I sure wouldn't have continued doing it. I've only cut twice in the last 5 months, which is a HUGE improvement on what it used to be. I'm still taking life one day at a time.

I quit counting days and I'm just going with the month by month thing. It's making it a little less overwhelming and I don't think everyday about how long it's been. Like I texted you, as miserable as I am right now, something won't let me cut and something won't let me quit all together. So, here I am. I'm taking all my crap and putting it at the foot of the cross because it's too much for a 20-year-old kid to deal with. God's gotta take over.

Here's the link to the site. You should check it out. It might help any of the students you know who are struggling with addictions because there are programs dealing with stuff like sexual impurity to gambling to self-injury.

http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/his-wounds/

So if you could pray that I have the strength to get through this program, that'd be awesome."


On a topic that's not unrelated, here's a video about getting help with stress in college.  GW Catholic bloggers, let me know if you want me yo try to get this woman to speak here.