Julie . . .
The road to recovery has been much smoother with Vail Place in my life.  I am much further on the raod thanks to them.  I truly believe that it is a different road for everyone and Vail Place has helped me find my way.

Tom . . .
I feel it is important to focus on successes,  like when a member can get to Vail Place for a week on time or when like me holding a job for a long time.
 
The road to recovery is not easy. I feel good about recovery. but  I know there is no "cure." I know I won't become a brain surgen, but I can be the best I can be at what I do at Lund's.  I will still have periods of a few hours of a week were I feel paranoid and have uncomfortable thoughts.
 
I have accepted that I wont be working full time but I am okay with that. I won't be the richest guy on the block but money does not buy a feeling of happiness.
 
I have been ill off and on for over thirty years now. The road to recovery is at the best  its ever been. I have never felt so good. so alive.

Marty . . .
It seems to me that we all travel the "Road to Recovery" during our lives because we all confront losses of varying intensity and definition.  We recover from:  physical illness and disability through medical care; the death and loss of a significant person through grieving; the loss of a job, work family, job satisfaction and financial security though job transition counseling and networking; the loss of a dream through identifying and pursuing another dream; the loss of a job opportunity to corporate politics through counseling and networking; the loss of a child to drugs through a grief group; the loss of friend to cancer through a grief group or church support group; the loss of self-respect and dignity through heinous domestic and/or sexual abuse through intense counseling; the loss of self to mental illness through counseling and the cabin model, and many more. 
 
We all experience loss, and we all seek to recover after a loss.  The process is the same for all of us.  We struggle, we seek help to recover.  Losses from varied causes are all that differentiate us from one another.  Mental illness is one loss among many losses.  It isn't the poster child for loss.
 
We human beings are all alike, but are wired with differences.  We all have similar needs to be secure, to be part of a social structure, and to be an individual contributor.  And we all experience life's challenges, some of them different than those experienced by others.  Because of a strange ignorance in the minds of human beings in our society, we see people ranking loss and recovery.  Tangible loss, e.g., loss of a tennis match, tends to be accepted as a "normal" occurrence; intangible and invisible loss, e.g., mental illness, tends to be rejected as not-okay and ugly.  That distinction in my belief is ethically wrong.  No person is better or worse than another person because of a fabricated, false distinction made about losses.  We solve losses in different ways, not "wrong, ugly ways."
 
What to do?  Let me suggest that we all accept the self with which we were wired at birth and that was developed as we grew into adulthood AND that we accept the self in others that was wired and developed in the same manner.  No distinction in humanness.  Let me also suggest that we accept that people are unique and different by design and that they resolve challenges in different ways according to their unique and different abilities.  Uniqueness is valuable, sameness is destructive.  And let me further suggest that we cease to create and define false differences.  It seems to me that to seek to learn from each other's different perceptions is healthy, but to consider differences as divisions is destructive.
 
The basic realization that we all need to accept is that we are the same as human beings, and we have wired into us differences that enrich the social fabric.  It is necessary for all of us to learn from each other's differences to the enrichment of the whole social fabric.  Our strength as a society is built on the inclusion of sameness AND differences.  We need both.

Pat . . .
The Road to Recovery speaks in a few words what the members of Vail Place travel on every day and what has been the philosophy of Vail Place for many years.  Helping our members to have a better life is one of the cornerstones of the Vail Place tradition and the Road to Recovery is the path our members travel on .
 
Mental illness is something that affects many of our friends, family and co-workers. With the help of our clubhouse model which is a community based service organization, the multiple services offered by Vail Place does transform peoples lives and give them the help they need on their journey.
 
Basic needs/things are provided that include, peer support, respect, responsibility, hope, and friendship that are essential in the recovery process. Providing the framework and the support for our members has helped many members find jobs, places to live, new skills, a sense of community and new self esteem.
 
Recovery takes time and Vail Place takes the time to support our friends, family and community with what they need for a better life on that road.