Paula Donaldson
Paula Donaldson is the Operations Director, and the former president of the board, for ASCENT Recovery Residences which includes both the therapeutic treatment residence for men, and the Recovery Outreach Community Center (ROCC).
She helped get The ROCC started, is a Certified Peer Specialist (CPS), and is a strong advocate for recovery. And like all of our peer specialists, she has a story to tell.
Paula’s recovery journey began in Dallas, Texas in 2002. She had tried to conquer her 30-year addiction to meth, alcohol, and ultimately, crack cocaine, with will power and better living. Instead of the freedom she desired, she was stuck and suffering, powerless and failing. It wasn’t until the Dallas County Sherriff showed up at her doorstep on January 5, 2004 that Paula fully conceded to herself that she was defeated; she couldn’t think herself better. The next days he surrendered and began her adventure in the 12 Steps. She got a sponsor. She worked the Steps (all of them) and began to help others.
Helping others became Paula’s passion and purpose. She worked tirelessly with women, going to treatment centers and carrying the message of recovery and hope. While helping others she met her husband, Terry Donaldson, originally from Joplin, Missouri, and in recovery. Eleven years into their marriage, Paula and Terry were led to Joplin, and their relationship with Joplin’s Recovery Community began.
“We have walked through some major struggles, personally and professionally,” Paula said, “but Terry and I have not waivered on our decision to be exactly where God led us. His divine guidance is the only reason why we are here.”
Paula is a proud mother and grandmother, but her passion for helping people in recovery is unchanged. She gives her evenings to helping others find a solution to their problems with drugs and alcohol. This includes facilitating meetings at Lafayette House and Jasper County Jail. She is a board member for Joplin’s Alano Club, works with the Jasper County Treatment Court as a CPS, and is very active in her home group. Together she and Terry introduced the fellowship of Drug Addicts Anonymous (DAA) to Joplin’s recovery community, and it meets at the ROCC on Tuesdays.
You can hear the confidence and joy in Paula’s voice when she talks about her life and community in Joplin. “My life, because I follow an all loving and omnipotent God, is better than I could have planned,” she said. “The people I have met, the friendships I have formed in recovery are life-long and grounded in something bigger than me. I am blessed beyond measure. Thank you all who welcomed us here. Joplin is my adopted hometown – now and forever!”
Carl Perkins
Carl Perkins is key to the organizational success of ASCENT Recovery Residences. He began as a volunteer but serves now as the program director of Ascent’s residential treatment house for men. He is fully qualified to lead men toward a life of sustainable recovery. Professionally, Carl holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees, is a licensed, clinical social worker, and a certified peer specialist. Relationally, he’s father to four grown children. And as a person with a substance use disorder, he has maintained continuous sobriety since August 28, 2000.
Carl began using substances as a young teen. He describes his life in active addiction as the pit of hell. “I was broken,” he said. “When I used, I got ease and comfort. It was the only relief I ever received, and it compelled me to continue using until it became an uncontrollable meth addiction in adulthood.”
He first crossed paths with Teddy Steen in 1996 when she was assigned to be his counselor. Although it certainly couldn’t have been foreseen then, their connection would affect the recovery community in Joplin. But when they first met Carl wasn’t ready for the counseling he was offered and ended up serving a 120-day prison sentence.“It wasn’t enough to convince me that I needed change,” he explained. He was convinced, however, after serving a second sentence for 18 months.
Carl left prison determined to find another path to confront his broken life and give him ease and comfort. That path included his Christian faith, the recovery community, and the steps to recreate his life. It wasn’t an easy road, but he was motivated. He enrolled at Missouri Southern State University at age 38 and earned his degrees while walking out life in recovery. His peer relationship with Teddy took on a new aspect as he volunteered at Ascent, and then became a house manager in 2012, and the program director in 2018.
Carl is thankful for the path he’s on and desires it for others. “I encourage people to be willing to ask for help and get involved with the recovery community,” he said. He recommends that a person desiring freedom from substance use gets a sponsor, works the steps, and gets closer to God. “Faith and spiritual experience are paramount to recreate life,” Carl said.
The life-giving faith and community that has sustained Carl’s recovery is also helping him navigate the May 2022 diagnosis of a terrible and aggressive cancer. His body is afflicted by disease, but his mind and heart are at a higher level of ease and comfort; he has soul-sustaining peace and joy possible only by his faith in God. Carl Perkins passed away April 10, 2023 after a year-long battle with cancer.
Rick Kenney
“You never know who’s going to make it—it may seem impossible, but don’t count anyone out.”~ Rick Kenney
Each Ascent board member has a “why” story—the reason why they are called to serve and help people with a substance use disorder seek recovery—and Ascent Board Member Rick Kenney’s “why” is about David, his brother, who died in 2009. Rick wrote his story this way:
My younger brother David was deceased at age 54 years old after 40 years of almost daily alcohol consumption.
He started drinking and using other drugs in his early teens. Our family’s history of depression, anxiety, and alcoholism were contributing factors but there was some other pain that was the true driver of his alcoholism. I was never sure what pain he was trying abolish.
From his 20s to his 40s David was functional enough to work at good, skilled job. He had a home and nice family, but at some pointhe lost his job due to alcoholism, and his wife of many years finally took their two children and left, and subsequently divorced from him.
He lost his home and ended living in squalor.I was sure he would soon become homeless, but before that occurredhe went into a hepatic coma and died of Alcoholic Liver Diseasewithin two weeks.
During his last few years of life he shut himself off from all family and friends. It must have been a lonely, painful life.I miss him all the time and wish I had been involved with Ascent before he passed away. Who can ever know if Ascent might have saved his life.
It’s a sad story that overwhelms the good times the brothers shared as young men. It doesn’t include the multiple times that Rick secured a place for David in a rehabilitation facility, only to have David either not show up, or leave after a few days. Neither does it include the hopes and stresses experienced by David’s wife, children, and his mother (who survived him by a year).
The story of every person who dies with a substance use disorder impacts the stories of others. Rick’s experience with his brother shaped his own decisions about drinking and inspired his interest in serving with Ascent. “I don’t know everything, but I can help lead a person to someone who knows,” he said.
He wants those in addiction to know that their lives could be better. He advises the family and friends of an addict that they participate, as well. “You can’t just tell someone to go to a meeting. You really have to take them. And be willing to help someone try again when they fail.” He also believes that each person’s recovery needs to include coming to some understanding about why they drink. “There’s more to quitting than just the decision to ‘not drink tomorrow,” he said.
Rick learned about Ascent in 2012 and has supported and volunteered since then demonstrating that he’s in it for the long haul. One friend suggested that Rick is in the “salvage business” because he believes that each person is worth saving, and because he’s willing to help people like his brother seek recovery and life-long freedom.
Whatever you want to call it, Rick’s is a hope-filled business.
David O’Neill
“Life in recovery is a lot of fun,” says David O’Neill, an Ascent Board member. It’s a truth that he wishes he’d believed earlier.
“We laugh a lot,” David says, speaking of his recovery community even as he acknowledges the hard work required in early recovery. “We work to help others, but we have a good time doing it.”
David’s recovery journey led him from St. Louis, where he struggled for many years, to Joplin and Ascent’s therapeutic residence for men in 2012. He struggled while at Ascent because he wasn’t ready to surrender and do things differently, he says. Although David didn’t graduate from the program, seeds of recovery were planted. David shares that he met some of his closest friends while there, and that he learned recovery principles from Carl [Perkins], and Teddy [Steen]and others that bore fruit by October 1, 2015—his clean date.
It’s clear that relationships are key to David’s recovery. He had a sponsor who was strong in her own recovery. He learned principles and watched how others in recovery lived and incorporated into his own life what he saw them doing.
No one could argue with the results. He says that he is now able to handle difficult situations that once would have been an excuse to drink. He is thankful that his mother was able to see him live with sustained sobriety before she passed away; other members of his family are also grateful for his recovery.
“I’m fully present in my own life,” David said. “Now I can be the brother, the friend, the employee, and fellow recovering addict I was meant to be. I’m fully present in my own life. Things are better than I could have ever imagined.”
The relationships and opportunities David now enjoys contrast starkly with the fear and hopelessness he experienced in addiction.
“Before recovery, I was afraid of everything,” he said. “When we’re fearful we make bad choices and hurt the people who love us most. And I was sad, and without hope. I was unemployable, untrustworthy, and nearly without purpose. But that despair brought me to recovery,” he adds.
Going forward David knows that it’s helping others still in the struggle that strengthens his own recovery.
“I really can’t stress it enough — the desire and action to help others to recover is the strongest foundation of sustainable recovery. That was the missing link for me for many years,” he said.
You will find David serving on the Ascent Board of Directors (since 2021), attending meetings, and volunteering. He relishes sharing with others the rich rewards of fun, laughter, and opportunity that come with a thriving life in recovery.
Cherie Bebee
“I heard about the ROCC and started coming here for recovery meetings. I also came here because it was a safe environment with like-minded people.”
The Recovery Outreach Community Center (ROCC) is a part of Cherie’s journey to sobriety, and is also a place where she serves others.
GLIMPSES OF LIGHT
Cherie lost her parents when she was young. She entered foster care and had her first child in her teen years. Motherhood helped emancipate Cherie from the foster care system—a change that pleased her. It was also in her teen years that Cherie first used marijuana, and not long after that that she moved on to harder drugs and found herself trapped in a cycle of addiction.
“My life was unmanageable,” Cherie says. “I quit drugs a lot, but every time I quit I came back to my unmanageable life and I would use again.”
Her unmanageable life included jail, multiple felony charges, and prison, but it also included glimpses of light—and Cherie was drawn to the light. She recalls being visited in jail those who came to hold 12-step meetings. Cherie longed to be someone like that—sober, helpful, and able to walk out of the jail in freedom.
While in court for her final felony Cherie was given a choice—treatment court and a program, or prison. She chose treatment court, and graduated after successful completion of the program.
RELATIONSHIP: KEY TO SUCCESSFUL RECOVERY
Relationship is significant to Cherie’s recovery. The friendship and help of Teddy Steen, the executive director of the ROCC and Ascent Recovery Residences, was vital to Cherie’s early recovery.
“I reached out to Teddy and asked her to help me at the beginning of recovery,” Cherie says. “I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Teddy assisted Cherie to find a place to live—Joplin’s Lafayette House—and also spoke truth to her. Cherie was in a place to listen, and she continues to value Teddy as a friend and mentor.
“I know that I can go to Teddy and she will be blunt and honest–and that’s what I need to keep me grounded and focused,” she said.
INSPIRED TO SERVE
The treatment process helped Cherie find the place she wanted to serve. Just as she’d been inspired by those who helped her in jail, she desired to become a Certified Peer Specialist and walk alongside others in recovery. She completed the peer specialist training, and now works at both the ROCC and in treatment court. She is a peer and encouragement to many.
Now that she has two-plus years of clean time, Cherie shared that she values the experience of people who have long-term recovery.
“One thing that I did different in my recovery this last time is that I talked to people who had multiple years of recovery. I wanted to follow the advice that worked for them,” she said.
Hearing encouragement from others is a valuable aspect of attending a 12-step meeting regularly, which Cherie does.
Recently, Cherie received permission to go with Drug Addicts Anonymous (DAA) to the jail. She will soon be a source of light to those in the dark place that she once was.
“I want to give back what I’ve been given,” she will tell you. “I am blessed to have my children, and blessed that I didn’t die in my addiction. Helping others helps my recovery. Going into jail to teach the 12 steps was a goal of mine when I was there. My heart hurt then—so much. I couldn’t wait to be the one coming into help.”
Cherie is lighting a candle bright with light for those still sitting in darkness.
Greg Morrell
GREG’S RECOVERY STORY
“I started drinking in high school because everyone was. I experimented with more substances in college, but by graduation I had settled on alcohol as my drug of choice; I was 23,” Greg said.
ADDICTION & NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Greg’s alcohol consumption increased in response to feelings of loneliness, isolation, depression, and despair. The alcohol also magnified his feelings and worsened his problems. In fact, his problems multiplied as he self-medicated with alcohol.
When he began having thoughts of suicide he sought a counselor, and it was in a counselor’s office three years later that Greg noticed a flyer advertising 12-step meetings. Noticing the flyer was a breakthrough to the denial of his alcoholism.
THE TRUTH
Initially, he tried many ways to convince himself that he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he realized the truth of his addiction when he attempted controlled drinking and failed. It took eight months of trying, but he finally achieved a full month of sobriety. The experience also gave him a greater awareness of his affliction.
Greg uses this quote to describe his affliction: “The idea that somehow, some day he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.”
RECOVERY REQUIRES RELATIONSHIP
Over the next few years Greg walked out the 12 steps with the help of a sponsor and recovery group. He also sought God and a church, and later married and had a family. Greg loves life in long-term recovery because “living happy, joyous and free is a real possibility every day.”
SERVING AT THE ROCC
Now, as a Certified Peer Specialist at the ROCC, and a frequent teacher through the 12 steps, Greg is living out the 12th step–that a person in recovery maintains their sobriety by sharing their recovery with others.
“At this stage of life, carrying the message of recovery to others is exactly where I’m supposed to be , and The ROCC provides the place to do it,” Greg said.
Ed Posey
“There is no reason why I picked up the first drink … no trauma,” Ed says. “Later, as friends moved on with their lives, I realized that I had developed an obsession with drinking and drugs.” His family tried to help him, but neither they nor Ed himself knew what was needed, and he lost everything.
He was 41-years-old when a man in a treatment center spoke the first words that made sense to him. He described what Ed had: An “obsession that overruled all sound thinking at some point.” Through the 12-steps from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ed will tell you that he was offered a spiritual solution that ultimately led him down a daily path of sobriety, to re-establishing relationships, and contributing to society.
Ed is still living out the freedom he found and he’s extending it to others every day at The ROCC. As a Peer Support Specialist he gives of himself and shares his story to those looking for life beyond addiction.
“When you’re hopeless, you assume you’re going to just stumble to the end, but a person can become honest enough with themselves to take a real stab at recovery,” Ed says. “My joy in life is watching another individual catch that glimmer of hope, and to come online and re-create their life.”
Recovery Outreach
Community Center
1402 S Main St
Joplin, MO 64801
417-553-0412
