|
If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with Janus and the work it does here in Santa Cruz County. The name Janus comes from the Roman god of transitions, often depicted with two faces looking both backward and forward. For me, Janus has come to represent something deeply personal: the gateway between the life I lived for decades and the life of promise I am finally stepping into.
My recovery journey has not been a short one. For more than 35 years, my life was marked by a constant struggle between addiction and my desire to break free from it. Along the way, I experienced prison, probation, parole, drug court, residential treatment, therapy, and thousands of recovery meetings. Each effort helped me learn something, but lasting recovery always seemed just out of reach.
I was adopted as an infant and grew up in Delaware. Looking back, I can see that many of the challenges that shaped my life began early. By adolescence, alcohol and drugs had become regular companions. At 14, I attended my first Grateful Dead concert and experimented with psychedelics. What felt like freedom at the time eventually became a decades-long cycle of addiction.
At 19, I moved to California and never looked back. Over the years, I built businesses, traveled, worked with musicians, raised a family, and experienced many extraordinary adventures. But addiction followed me wherever I went. Despite periods of success and sobriety, I repeatedly found myself returning to active use.
My thirties began in federal prison. My forties and fifties were filled with the familiar pattern of recovery and relapse. There were arrests, treatment programs, sober living environments, meetings, sponsors, and countless attempts to start over. Sometimes I managed months or even years of progress, but eventually I would find myself back where I started.
In 2025, my health finally reached a breaking point. After being hospitalized with multiple serious medical conditions, I was physically exhausted, emotionally defeated, and convinced I was running out of options. A close friend encouraged me to attend a recovery meeting and, not long afterward, I found myself sitting outside the doors of Janus asking for help.
I thought I was entering another rehab program. What I discovered instead was something entirely different.
My first days were spent in detox. I was sick, overwhelmed, and uncertain about the future. But as I moved into residential treatment, I began to experience recovery in a way I never had before.
At Janus, treatment extended far beyond simply addressing substance use. There were clinical services, peer support, therapy, medical care, recovery meetings, acupuncture, meditation, wellness activities, and opportunities to reconnect with the world around me. Staff members didn't just help me stop using drugs. They helped me begin rebuilding a life.
What impressed me most was how seamlessly everything worked together. Medical needs, mental health care, recovery support, housing, employment resources, and community connections were integrated into one continuum of care. For the first time, I wasn't being treated as a problem to solve. I was being treated as a whole person.
As my residential stay came to an end, I feared what would happen next. In the past, treatment often ended with a bus ticket, a few phone numbers, and the expectation that I would somehow figure the rest out on my own.
But Janus wasn't finished.
I transitioned into supportive recovery housing, where I could continue building stability while gradually reintegrating into everyday life. I attended intensive outpatient treatment, continued working with my recovery community, found employment opportunities, and strengthened my support network. When challenges arose, I wasn't alone.
And when I eventually relapsed, something happened that had rarely happened before in my life.
I came back.
Not punishment. Not to judgment. Not to shame.
I returned to compassion, accountability, and support.
Instead of being defined by a setback, I was welcomed back into recovery and encouraged to keep moving forward. That experience changed everything. For the first time, I understood that recovery isn't about perfection. It's about persistence, honesty, and having a community that refuses to give up on you.
Today, I live in Janus recovery housing, remain actively engaged in treatment and recovery, and continue working every day to become the person I was always meant to be. I spend my time helping others, strengthening my faith, and sharing hope with anyone who might be struggling the way I once did.
After decades of searching for answers, I have found something I never expected: a recovery community that supports every aspect of a person's journey, from crisis to stability, from addiction to purpose.
To me, Janus represents the future of recovery. It is more than a treatment program. It is a community. It is a family. It is a bridge between surviving and truly living.
And if I had to describe what Janus gives people in just one word, it would be this:
Hope.
Edward "Fatty Eddy" Strickler
Santa Cruz, California
| 
