When Oley describes his life before recovery, he doesn’t need many words.

“Alone. No connection with any family, friends. It’s just isolated, completely isolated in the addiction.”

His substance use began when he was young and eventually progressed to heroin. He reached recovery once before, remaining substance-free for approximately five years and becoming deeply involved in the recovery community.

Then a serious accident changed the course of his life. Oley fell nearly 30 feet from a roof, suffering significant injuries to his hip and spine. He was prescribed pain medication and began misusing it.

Oley knew what was happening. He also carried the weight of knowing that others in the recovery community looked to him for support.

“I knew I had relapsed, but I just couldn’t come clean about it.”

What followed was nearly a decade of trying to find his way back to sustained recovery.

Finding His Way to Journey House

The connection that ultimately brought Oley to Journey House came from an unexpected place: a cell at Henrico West.

Oley was incarcerated after missing a court date related to child support and faced a bond he could not afford. His cellmate kept telling him about a place called Journey House. When he mentioned Mike Tillem, Oley recognized the name and asked for his number.

That connection helped create an opportunity for Oley to come to Journey House as part of an arrangement that allowed him to work on his recovery while addressing his child support obligations.

He remembers arriving with almost nothing.

“They took me from Henrico West, dropped me off in a pair of jail pants, jail slippers, and a white T-shirt.”

Journey House gave him a place to begin again. Oley worked in maintenance, became a house manager and started putting the pieces of his life back together.

Yet one of the most important changes was happening internally.

Learning That Recovery Had to Be for Him

Looking back, Oley recognizes an important difference between his first period of recovery and the life he is building today.

“The first time I got clean it was conditional recovery.”

At the time, his recovery was closely connected to saving his marriage, caring for his children and fulfilling his responsibilities to others. When those circumstances changed, the foundation underneath his recovery changed too.

This time, Oley began working on something he had struggled with for much of his life: believing he was worthy of taking care of himself.

“My ability to love myself was always attached to what I could do for the people that I was supposed to be taking care of.”

Today, that work continues. “On a daily, I’m still learning how to love myself.” And perhaps most importantly: “I have to stay very mindful of me being worth love from me.”

Give Yourself Time

Oley now sponsors others in recovery, and one of the first lessons he shares with newcomers is patience, “Just give yourself some time.”

He remembers how overwhelming it can feel when someone enters recovery carrying what he calls a “list of catastrophes” that need to be fixed. His experience has taught him that rebuilding does not happen all at once.

His advice captures both the patience and persistence recovery can require: “Don’t give up five minutes before the miracle, and don’t expect a miracle in five minutes.”

For Oley, the starting point remains simple: “Stay clean, no matter what.”

With time and consistent effort, he found that changes began to become visible not only to him, but also to the people he loved.

A Different Measure of Success

Ask Oley how his life is different today, and his answer starts with something fundamental: “I have a life today.”

He owns a successful business that employs nine people, including his daughter and ex-wife. Yet even his definition of a successful business has changed. “I got a different set of scales to measure life by today than I had when I got here.”

Those scales are no longer defined primarily by what is in his bank account. “Whose life do I get to impact for good?”

At the end of the day, Oley looks at whether his presence in the lives of others has created more good than harm.

Recovery has also given him the opportunity to be there for others in a different way. Sometimes that means sponsoring someone. Sometimes it simply means sitting beside someone at Journey House and listening.

His life today is not about perfection. It is about continuing to do the work, caring for himself and using what he has learned to support others. Perhaps the simplest description of that transformation comes directly from Oley: “Today, I don’t feel empty. Today, I feel full.”

At Journey House, stories like Oley’s remind us that recovery takes time, connection and the opportunity to rebuild. If you are struggling, we are here to support your path to long-term recovery. Call (877) 484-576, or email us at info@journeyhouserecovery.org.

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