Why CORE?
For more than 25 years, CORE has been the leader for recovery services in southwest Missouri. Thousands of our program participants have gone on to lead normal, happy, and substance free lives. Curious minds may ask “Why CORE?” The answer lies in our commitments to safety, recovery, and service.
Safety
CORE gives local residents a safe place to recover from addiction and alcoholism. We are not a halfway house, homeless shelter, or subsidized housing. CORE is a recovery program whose focus on safety is reflected throughout our entire structure.
Unlike government funded programs, CORE is completely drug and alcohol free. We maintain a zero-tolerance policy, and drug testing is mandatory. Every month our random testing reaches about half of our population, and a reasonable suspicion prompts directed testing. We simply do not allow psychoactive drugs or alcohol, period. Excluded medications include even commonly prescribed drugs like opioid analgesics (Percocet, Oxycontin, etc.), depressants (benzodiazepines), stimulants (Ritalin, etc.), and opioid replacements (methadone, Suboxone, etc.). Our policy is based on decades of experience. It necessarily excludes those persons who are bound to medications for psychiatric disorders, and those who opt for medication assisted-treatment for substance abuse. Nevertheless, in our view there is no substitute for recovery. Recovery is the only alternative offered by CORE.
Supervision is key to safety, too. Whether at our recovery centers, residential facilities, or using our transportation departments, clients are supervised by CORE staff, house managers, and transportation personnel. We even see to the safe departure of clients leaving the program. If extended travel is required, we put them on the bus and pay for it ourselves.
Without CORE in our communities, we would have hundreds of vulnerable residents without help, or hope, left to their own devices. Our program provides supervised contact with the community. We offer clients transportation for employment and shopping, for which our transportation departments run up to twenty hours per day. We also enforce morning and evening curfews. Clients are restricted from nights out on the town, too. Rather, we permit two days a month to visit family when a client is secure enough in their sobriety to do so.
In further commitment to safety, CORE does not accept those who have a criminal history of violence or sex offenses. Every client – before ever walking through our doors – already has submitted to a thorough background check.
Recovery
CORE’s proven recovery record is based on abstinence. We are not a methadone or Suboxone clinic. We do not peddle harm reduction methods as a recovery program. Substance abuse is a pressing, enduring issue in America. Client come to us looking for real answers. We admit only those who want sobriety. That’s what CORE offers. Quality is ensured by our 12 Step curriculum – long recognized as the go-to for recovery even if all medical treatments and other measures have failed.
Moreover, CORE recognizes that simply pausing on alcohol and drugs does not make one cured. Addiction is a complex issue. During their first year clients become a new person apart from drugs and alcohol. They adopt new beliefs, convictions, directions and goals. It takes time to incorporate qualities that define authentic and decent human beings. It does not happen overnight, in a matter of weeks, or even months.
CORE provides the quality environment in which these changes can happen. Clients in our residential facilities are supported by compassionate people and positive fellowship. In our residences clients feel like they can fit in, share common experiences, and be authentic without having to explain themselves. CORE has staff, housing managers, and senior program members who live on-site and oversee implementation of every client’s recovery program.
Our recovery centers are important, too. At these centers clients attend recovery classes, group meetings, spirituality classes, and church services – all of which offer important tools for recovery. Clients learn about the causes and conditions of their addictions. They are educated about its effects on themselves and their friends, families, careers, and communities. They receive personal guidance through each step of recovery. Staff members also are on-call 24/7 to respond to individual crises as they arise.
Service
A remarkable, marvelous change occurs when one works the 12 Step program. The obsession for drugs and alcohol is gone. Equally important, the client develops a positive sense of identity and self-worth, becomes productive, and begins to form healthy connections with others. Clients commencing our program go on to live normal and quiet lives. Community members may be surprised to discover that they work with our former clients, or are their neighbors, attend the same churches, and do volunteer functions together.
Recovery is a blessing. The recipient lives with hope and purpose, and feels the deepest gratitude. Our clients develop a compassion for others that is expressed by genuine desire to be of service. In fact, CORE literally has created programs that allow clients to volunteer for worthy causes. As an example, we have the Second Mile group, a benevolent organization committed to charitable works within our communities. During the pandemic our people also began a free pickup and delivery service for people wary of going out in public. And only last Christmas season, CORE and Hollister Schools completed a massive undertaking in the creation of a holiday store stocked with everything one might find at a big box retailer. Local residents “shopped” at our holiday store, for whatever they needed, for free. We have even adopted a highway (which is kept spotless!)
Beyond the foregoing, clients completing our program feel a natural obligation to share the gift of recovery. With the various different problems faced by our communities, it is altogether easy to overlook or even ignore the suffering addict and alcoholic. Hence, CORE. We have not forgotten them. Further, we are honored to perform recovery services for the benefit of our communities.
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CORE does not rely on government funding. We have seen what that leads to: compromise and the continual line-drawing of what even defines recovery. CORE is not about statistics, and we do not see methadone and Suboxone patients as favorable statistics anyway. Rather, such people need real help. Helping people recover and go on to help others is our business. With virtually all federal government dollars going to programs supporting medicated treatment, the need for CORE in our communities becomes all the greater. Our program works for anyone who wants to stop using. We do not discriminate on the basis of religion, race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.