What’s a “beer league” without the beer?
For members of Discovery House men’s recovery centre slo-pitch squad, The Pen (short for Penticton) it’s a lot of fun but for some, like pitcher Bryan Olson, it’s more, much more.
“I can’t say enough about the ball team. It’s probably like the biggest highlight of my recovery and something I look forward to every year,” said Olson, who is on his second go round of kicking an opioid addiction. “Baseball is something I’ve done my whole life and it usually came with a lot of drinking and partying. This has taught me to have fun without using drugs. I’ve learned you can still have fun without being under the influence to do it.
“So yeah, sure it’s a beer league but that was the struggle in my head just learning to have fun without using any kind of mind-altering substance.”
He first became a client of Discovery House in September of 2015 and now he is on the straight and narrow path, this time he says for good.
“I’m having the best year of my life and I’ve decided to do whatever it takes to stay clean,” he said.
And part of that is playing his favourite sport.
“I don’t know, I think it’s just one of the things I’ve been able to make a commitment to,” said Olson, who turns 38 next month. “I’m committed to the baseball team and I’m committed to staying clean and having those commitments keeps me accountable.”
For many, having a beer afterwards is part of the game but not for members of The Pen.
“Actually the players on the other teams are very supportive when they find out,” said Olson. “There’s the odd few who are just a little too off the wall to understand it but for the most part whether it’s the other teams or umpires they’re super supportive and very nice about it.”
He added with a laugh: “And you definitely get some looks when they find out they’re getting their asses kicked by a bunch of addicts.”
Executive director Jerome Abraham of Discovery House, once a client himself, joined a fledgling, non-drinking slo-pitch team several years ago.
Related: Fathers’ Day in the sun
They didn’t do very well and were not going to enter next season.
“But a bunch of the other teams got together and said we played it so cool, ‘here’s a team that doesn’t drink, ‘we’ll put in for you guy’s registration,” recalled Abraham, who admitted he was just a little shocked at that response. “We were sort of blown away by the impact it has on the ball community because some of the people on the other teams, they’re not addicts but like to drink and go to work the next day, it seems like they really respect that.
“We’re not out there to convert people into recovery but there are some people who are in recovery because of our ball team. They realize it’s not just all about meetings and talking about all the crap but there’s also a lot of fun to be had.”
| Executive director Jerome Abraham of Discovery House in his role as slo-pictch umpire. Mark Brett/Western News |
The Pen is made up of current Discovery clients and alumni and was formed through the centre’s recreation program.
“It’s a way to get out and have fun and reconnect with the community,” said Abraham, who also umpires in the Penticton Slo-Pitch League. “A big part of our program is getting people involved in activities that replace active using. Being on this team is about being a normal member of the community and realizing you don’t have to get hammered to have fun.”
Meanwhile, Olson is chairing the committee for this weekend’s 20th annual South Okanagan Area Skaha Tournament of Narcotics Anonymous in Summerland.
Originally started in Penticton, the event has nearly 20 teams competing in a drug-free, fun, three days of competition.
Surviving from the threshold of death
Bryan Olson’s story is not much different than those of many others who have passed through the Discovery House doors.
And like many clients of the men’s addiction recovery centre, he believes; “it’s only by the grace of God” he is alive today.
First coming to the facility in the fall of 2015, Olson described himself as “broken” not knowing if he was coming or going and his life in “shambles.”
“I had lost the respect of family, friends and worst of all I had no respect for myself,” he said about that dark time.
During the course of the next year he remained sober but admitted being scared when he left Discovery even though he had a job and a place to live.
So it was shortly after leaving, and his life “spiralling out of control,” again he relapsed, overdosing on fentanyl.
“I was pretty much dead,” he recalled about that cold November day in 2016. “My roommate found me on the floor of our kitchen, I was blue, I wasn’t breathing, I was non responsive.”
He had to be given Naloxone several times to bring him back from the threshold of death.
But nearly dying wasn’t the lowest part of his relapse.
“The worst of it all was that I had made so many friends and pledged to the support group here in Penticton,” said Olson. “I’d never seen my addiction affect anybody else other than myself in the past and the affect that it had on the people around me I just… that’s just something that I don’t want to ever see in anybody else’s eyes or ever experience again in my life.”
Luckily, he got back into Discovery House in January of last year, only this time with a renewed purpose and direction, with the goal of eventually working in the health industry.
As a Discovery alumni, he is also currently volunteering to help new clients at Discovery.
“I’ve decided to do whatever it takes and to give a s—- about the person sitting next to me,” he said. “I can’t pay back or make amends to society and the different people that I’ve hurt in the past so this is my way of trying to make the world a little bit of a better place rather than worse.
“I will forever be a part of Discovery House because it is an intricate part of who I am.”