How Play Can Bring Recovery & Re-Creation
Fabio Russo is the friendly face that greets you when you arrive at The Salvation Army’s Harbour Light facility in Vancouver. He’s been working at the front desk for about five years now, but before that he was a client himself.
Fabio was born and raised in Montreal. During his younger years, he worked with his dad in the steel industry. Every summer. from the age of six, he would go to work with his dad to manufacture garage doors. He was always surrounded by older people. People who were 20, 30, 40 years older than him. Unfortunately, this led to him making some bad decisions to fit in with the people he was hanging out with, and eventually he was struggling with addiction.
When Fabio hit rock bottom in 2012, he encountered a six-foot-four man staring straight into his eyes who said, “hey bud it’s never too late”. Fabio didn’t think much about it but the next day, he bumped into Simon, an employee from Vancouver Harbour Light. He told Fabio “there are other solutions, you don’t have to live like this.” The day after Fabio decided to call detox.
He went into detox for 10 days and met Darcy McCarthy.
“She really guided me and made me stay. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have stayed, I’m pretty sure of that.”
After that, Fabio completed a full year of treatment. “I had the best counselor ever, Lida Bahrami. she is an amazing lady.”
Fabio hoped that his work ethic would get him the chance to work at Vancouver Harbour Light. Because he learned his work ethic from his father and he knew that would make him proud.
“Because everything I learned is from him—work ethics. And here I am, five years later, clean, and sober. And yeah, it’s all because of The Salvation Army, definitely. There’s no question about it.”
Vancouver Harbour Light offers a whole range of programming, a continuum of care that includes community meals, shelters, detox, residential addiction treatment, a correctional halfway house, low-income housing, and much more. As a Salvation Army facility, a key component of Habour Light’s programming is spiritual care, and one aspect of spiritual care is play. This includes physical, cultural and social activities like hiking, biking, rock climbing, museum visits, and symphony concerts.
“We don’t necessarily associate recovery with play, but it is a very crucial part of recovery,” says Cindy Cheung, Community Engagement Coordinator of Vancouver Harbour Light.
During Fabio’s years with addiction, he isolated himself a lot from other people. He was always an outgoing guy and loved people, but the addiction eliminated that from his life. This is when he was introduced to softball. This game brought unity and camaraderie back into his life.
Play shows clients like Fabio another outlet where they can de-stress. many people do not fall into addiction because they like the drug, but because it is a coping mechanism for life trauma or a difficult life situation. Play allows them to reconnect with others as part of their recovery.
At Harbour Light, we like to have a holistic approach to recovery. Not only do we have the medical part, the detox, the counseling, the treatment, and the offer of spiritual support, which are all very important, too. But we also encourage clients to grow holistically by discovering hobbies, engaging in the community and playing. Something our whole team is very supportive of.
For more information, please visit VancouverHarbourLightSA.ca/spiritual-care
