Surviving Trauma, Finding Peace
Mark
Treatment began June 2018 • Dr. Wayne K. Kawalek
Mark came in carrying three decades of pain. A childhood accident at age five — a nylon shirt, a Zippo lighter, a burn unit for a year — left visible scars and an invisible rage that shaped everything that followed. By the time he discovered alcohol at eleven, it felt like relief.
By the time he arrived at our office, he had lost his daughters, his home, and his back to a twenty-foot fall off a press. Even his drug dealer was telling him to slow down.
In 2018, he began treatment with Buprenorphine/Naloxone. The first months were hard. The rawness of sobriety after years of numbing is its own challenge. But Mark pushed through: appointments, AA meetings, letting himself feel things he had buried since he was five years old.
He taught me that healing from addiction is not just about quitting drugs — it’s about confronting the scars we carry and learning to live with them.
Today Mark takes his daughters fishing. He is remodeling a house. He looks in the mirror without turning away. He is, as Dr. K put it, not just surviving anymore. He is living.
Losing and Rebuilding: Finding Stability
Amy
Treatment began late 2020 • Dr. Wayne K. Kawalek
Amy spent four years chasing pills through two divorces, her mother’s death from colon cancer, chronic hip and back pain, and financial collapse. She arrived at an outpatient clinic in late 2020 and said she was tired of the game.
She started on 8mg of Buprenorphine/Naloxone daily. Her recovery was not a straight line. In 2021 she found a job. In 2022 she faced wage garnishments and nearly lost her housing. She spent her 50th birthday with her children — choosing not to go back.
By 2023 she had a new apartment, a better-paying job, and a daughter headed to college. Their relationship, fractured by years of addiction, was finally on the mend.
In September 2024, Amy cut off all her hair. A small thing. A new beginning. That’s what recovery looks like for Amy: not a dramatic transformation, but a woman who shows up for herself every day and has found quiet, hard-won peace.
Amy’s story is a reminder that recovery doesn’t always look like a grand transformation. Sometimes it looks like a woman who has lost almost everything but manages to build a new life, one day at a time.
Owning the Past, Building the Future
Ernest
Treatment began May 2022 • Dr. Wayne K. Kawalek
Ernest was charming, manipulative, and very good at convincing himself he didn’t have a problem. He’d fathered five children across a few years, lost job after job, and isolated himself from everyone who cared about him. When he walked in in May 2022, he had one goal: be a good father.
He started Buprenorphine/Naloxone and began showing up — on time, passing every drug screen, following the plan. That summer he saved enough money to visit his daughter in Illinois. It was the first time he’d been able to do something like that.
By 2023 he had been at the same job for over a year — the longest stretch of steady employment in his adult life. He joined the YMCA. He became involved in his church. He created a bucket list: buy a house, travel, stay positive, be present.
Ernest didn’t just recover — he transformed. And in doing so, he became the father, son, and man he always wanted to be.