How are you being of service? Because there is truly nothing more important to someone’s recovery than service. Giving back. In our addictions, we took and we took and we took some more. Every 12-step program ends with helping others find their way to redemption. We are the headlights for those whose paths are still shrouded in darkness. There is a resident in our community right now who perfectly exemplifies what it means to be of service. That man is Vince P.
Encino. His older sister’s birthday party. His mom’s water broke. They told his sister, “We’re going to come back with a present for you.” They return with Vince and she has treated him like a gift ever since. The bond Vince’s family shares has always been like this. Strong, never wavering, and full of love. As much as Vince has always adored his three sisters, brother, and mother, the relationship he has with his dad is bonded by cement. Growing up, were always a big part of Vince’s life. With every game he played, came more and more support from his dad.“Any sport I wanted to play, he was my coach.” Vince was a natural-born athlete. This led Vince to be the captain of most of his teams—the leader. He was always there to help his team, and every member of it, achieve greatness. FORESHADOWING ALERT: If you can’t tell, this mentality is going to come back later.
By middle school, Vince discovered marijuana. This became a daily habit. When he was in eleventh grade, he met a new friend. Let’s just say that this kid wasn’t the best influence on Vince. “He introduced me to beer, then coke, then meth…because coke was too expensive.” Well, at least he was being fiscally responsible. So, there began his meth career. Not until deep into meth use, did he even know he was using meth. “We all called it tweak. I didn’t know tweak was crystal meth for months. I knew crystal meth was bad, but tweak? I love this stuff!” Once his dealer was busted, he started looking for meth on the streets. This led to him being jumped by a group of ten men and, on a separate occasion, having a gun put to his head. After that, he knew he had to stop. All of this happened within a year and a half. Just in time for graduation. “I fell asleep for four days and I haven’t touched it since. So, I always had it in the back of my mind that I could quit anything. Everyone says that’s the most addicting and I quit that. I’m not an addict. ”
The next year, Vince’s best friend and using buddy got accepted to USC. His best friend’s roommate was a Saudi prince who had a house off campus, but the rules at USC state that you must live on campus for your first year. So, a room in the dorm remained empty. Naturally, Vince moved into a room, in a dorm, on the campus of a college he didn’t attend.
All the college. None of the debt.
With a fake ID in hand, the booze began to flow and Vince’s life began to spiral. It started out with frat parts and then quickly became waking up at 6 AM, trying not to wake his girlfriend as he reached for the handle of liquor. Three months later, he was getting the shakes. During this time, he gained 70 pounds, lost every job he had, and could barely leave the house. “Once my girlfriend and I broke up, I stopped drinking hard liquor, I only drank beer, and I only drank it at night.”
Whiskey with milk.
Vince’s heavy drinking eventually turned to pot smoking. He would ride his bike to work, which luckily helped him shed the weight that he had gained. Knowing he needed to make a major change in his life and his dream was always to help people, he decided to move up North and become a firefighter. His dream was to fight forest fires and he did. “I went up there with $300, a sleeping bag, and a lamp.” By a miracle of modern real estate, he found an apartment within one day that only cost him $300 a month. In an attempt to get deeper into the forest of firefighting, he moved to Wyoming and became a firefighter there. He excelled at it so much, and helped so many people, he joined an elite group of firefighters known as “The Hot Shots.” They are the navy seals of firefighters.While there, he would be in the forest for 14-16 days at a time. There are no liquor stores in the woods. So, unless Vince could somehow find a way to get drunk off tree sap, he would have to stay sober. Unfortunately, during those two days they would return to civilization for of rest and recovery, he would neither rest nor live in recovery. “I would drink my brains out…but it was only two days. I couldn’t get that shaky.”
When Vince was 29, his mom was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. The doctors told his family that the prognosis was not good. Both his sisters had families, so Vince came rushing home to take care of his ailing mother..quitting his dream job in the process. While taking care of his mom, he got a job as a bartender at a Mexican restaurant. As instructed by his boss, he had to drink with the customers. So, his alcoholism came back in full force.
Once Covid hit, he went to his first rehab…and then went out…and then another rehab…and then out again…you know the story. Every time he would relapse, his dad was there for him. He would sit in a chair watching Vince all night long to make sure he survived the night of detoxing. Two years ago, his mom heard about Beit T’Shuvah from a television special. When Vince was finally ready, he made the call.
Since arriving at BTS, Vince has thrived and worked hard to make sure others do the same. He has started working the 12-steps, planted a garden on the men’s patio, takes other residents to meetings, and has an internship with the maintenance department. If something is broken, Vince probably helped fix it. Vince also takes residents hiking every week—something that is a huge passion that he has rediscovered in his time here. “Anything I can do to help someone else here, I’ll do.”
Just a few weeks ago, while on a solo twelve-mile hike, Vince realized there were cops everywhere, search and rescue helicopters, and a missing person. He spoke with the police and they told him that the man had been out there for 35 hours and no one could find him. So, Vince found out his name and went looking for him. In the middle of the woods, far from where everyone else was looking, Vince found the man. He had no food or water and did not speak any English. Vince opened his backpack, gave the man his food and water, told him not to move, and searched for cell signal to call the rescue team. With one fleeting bar, he managed to reach them. When he saw the chopper headed his way, he used mirror signaling to show them the location of the man. They airlifted the man to the hospital. He spent three and a half days in the hospital, but he survived…all thanks to Vince. When Vince finally made it down the mountain, he was met with applause. “The chief shook my hand and said, ‘How does it feel to save a life?’ God put me on that hike that day. He put everything I needed in my pack. That was my spiritual awakening.”
Giving back is so clearly an integral part of Vince’s recovery. So much so that he is participating in this year’s BTS Open Charity Golf Tournament to help raise money for Beit T’Shuvah. He credits Beit T’Shuvah with the success he has had in his recovery and knows that he wouldn’t be able to help put the oxygen mask on anyone else if Beit T’Shuvah didn’t help put the oxygen mask on him first. Along with giving back to the community that gave him his life back, he has taken this golf tournament as a chance to give back to someone else who has helped him throughout his entire life—his father. On Monday, he will be golfing alongside his dad. “As he grew older he started to fall in love with golf. He is an avid player. Anywhere he goes, he only wears golf clothes. He is always asking me to play with him. So, I picked it up to play with it. It’s a sport I can play with my dad. He’s my hero. When I was using, I would put it off or say not show up. Now, we get to play in a tournament together.”
If everything you have just read isn’t enough giving back, let me tell you that immediately following The BTS Open, Vince will be taking a test to join the Army. That’s not just being of service that’s being in the service. On top of it all off, Vince is going to be a dad. He plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and shower his child with love and support. Beit T’Shuvah helps people reconnect with their deeper selves. For Vince, that means reconnecting with his desire to be of service to his family, his country, and himself.
How are you being of service?
