Faith-based substance abuse programs offer longer treatment than standard services •
Springfield News-Leader
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.— Texan Greg Lapinski wound up in Springfield when his car broke down in 2010. Then 19 and single, he got a job at Rib Crib and started selling marijuana.
A few years later, he was using and selling meth, working odd jobs and stealing. Though he had a girlfriend and a little boy, Lapinski continued his criminal activity and was often in jail or prison.
It was a jailhouse visit from his 3-year-old son that set Lapinski on a different course.
“He was beating on the glass because he couldn’t touch me or hold me and he didn’t understand,” Lapinski said. “It just broke my heart.
“I went back to my cell and that was it. I told God that I want him in my life and I was done living my life the way I wanted to. I just wanted to do what He wanted me to do.”
Lapinski said from that moment on, God “came rushing into my life.”
The prosecutor ended up dropping the charges against him, Lapinkski said. Before he was released, Lapinski’s parole officer told him to find a recovery program.
“I didn’t want to get into just a program. I wanted to get in a program that gets you closer to God, puts you in touch with God and gets you the tools you need to live your life right,” Lapinkski said. “I heard about the Hope Home so I called and talked to the pastor. They let me in.”
Several months later, Lapinski graduated from the Hope Home for men, a faithbased, sober-living group home located a few miles northeast of Springfield.
Lapinski is now married to the mother of his son, they have a second child and he is the maintenance manager for Affordable Towing in Springfield.
The Hope Home is among several faith-based longterm recovery programs in the Ozarks. For most addicts, the faith-based programs are the only affordable and accessible treatment options available that provide housing and treatment for more than 28-30 days.
The Hope Home, for example, is an intensive nine-month program. If an addict is able to pay, Pastor John Alarid asks for $500 a month to help cover rent, utilities and program costs. But many of the residents are fresh off the streets or out of jail and have no ability to pay.
“I never want to have a place where we turn people away if they don’t have no money,” he told the Springfield News-Leader . “We will still accept them. There is a real cost attached to that. But, you know, we help cover it.”
Alarid, who is an ex-con and recovering heroin addict, said he’s been in and out of 30-day treatment facilities many times. He said that limited period is just not enough time to “rewire the addicted brain.”
He also believes that in order to break free from addiction, folks need an encounter with a higher