When a Snowstorm Creates Something Meaningful

Last weekend, a massive snowstorm hit northeastern Pennsylvania. Our Executive Director, his wife, and I made the decision to stay at Woodhaven for the duration rather than ask staff to travel in dangerous conditions. We were snowed in with nine teenage boys for three days.

And honestly? It was one of the best weekends we've had.

Our Executive Director took over all the cooking. I did tons of cookie baking, with the boys rotating through the kitchen to help. Some shoveled walkways. Some played outside in the snow like the teenagers they are. We held our regular recovery groups. Our Executive Director and his wife stayed up way too late playing Dungeons & Dragons with some of the guys, laughing and connecting.

The boys were amazing. They stepped up. They helped. They showed what it looks like to be part of a community.

Monday morning rolled around, and the snow was still falling. But when you live in a residential recovery program and a teacher is snowed in with you, there's no such thing as a snow day. Woodhaven Academy was in session.

We gathered for class, and I introduced the day's lesson: service work for teens in rehabs. We started brainstorming. What did they wish someone had told them when they first arrived at treatment? Not the clinical stuff from therapists and doctors, but real talk from guys like them who had been there.

They came up with dozens of topics. Each boy chose one. The only rule was simple: no mention of Woodhaven. This had to be universal, something that could reach any teenager in any treatment program anywhere.

And then they wrote.

One tackled family dynamics, the anger that surfaces during difficult phone calls home, the temptation to shut everyone out:

"You may need to take a week and spend some time with yourself, and that's okay. I remember when my family dropped me off at rehab. Least to say, it did not go well. Once it was time for me to talk to my parents, I was still pretty angry. But thankfully, I had someone else there to help smooth things out. If you are scared to talk to your family, having someone with you can really help with the process."

Another took on the temporary nature of residential treatment and the dangerous confidence rehab can create:

"Rehab feels like it sucks while you're in it, but in retrospect, it is only one month of your life. Rehab sometimes puts you on this pink cloud that you can handle sobriety and you have it down, but really ask yourself if you can handle all of life's challenges and be responsible enough to face it sober."

One wrote about the difference between empathy and true understanding:

"The only people who truly knew what craving and obsessing over substances meant were the people in recovery themselves. I learned to rely on these people whenever things were difficult for me in that aspect. Nothing has helped me in my recovery as much as the support of another addict in recovery."

Then there was the drugs piece, written with the kind of dark humor that actually lands with teenagers. After an absurdly long list of substances, including gasoline, glue, Lysol, Febreze, and Raid bug spray, the writer did not pull punches:

"You don't want to be a derelict drug addict turned homeless drug addict turned deceased person, do you? If you don't want that future for yourself, maybe you should lock in. Maybe you should focus on the things in life that really matter, not just 'feeling good.'"

One wrote honestly about working a 12-step program. No fairy tale about immediate transformation. Just an uneven, real path:

"I didn't really start doing step work until my eighth to ninth month in sober living. I've been in sober living for almost a year and I'm only on step four, but after I started doing step work and getting a sponsor, only being on step four, I no longer want to use. I have had so many times that I could have used but I didn't think twice to put it down."

I watched them write. Heads down. Focused. Nobody complained about the assignment. Nobody asked to be done early.

These nine young men, ages sixteen to eighteen, collectively have three and a half years of sobriety. That's not decades. That's not clinical expertise. But it is something deeply valuable to a scared kid walking into treatment for the first time. It's proof that this is survivable. It's a voice that sounds like theirs. It's someone just a few steps ahead on the same path.

They created every page. Some added illustrations. One drew a recovery tree with roots deep in the ground. Another designed a triangle symbol with Unity, Service, Wisdom, Courage, and Recovery woven into it. One wrote simply, "You get out what you put in." Another ended with a question: "Ask yourself at the end of the day, am I satisfied with the amount I gave to this day?"

No fluff. No clinical language. Just real talk from kids who know.

I've worked with young people my entire life, and here's what I know: teenagers don't always listen to adults with decades of experience and clinical degrees. But they will listen to other teenagers who've been where they are.

When my loved one was cycling through treatment programs, lost in addiction, do you know what finally started to break through? Not the family therapist. Not the doctor. Not me with all my speeches about how much I loved him and my own recovery experiences. It was other people in recovery who looked at him and said, "Yeah, I tried that too. Here's what actually worked."

Peer support isn't just nice to have in adolescent recovery. It's essential.

Young people need to hear from young people. They need to see that recovery is possible not in some distant future, but right now, at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen.

We're turning their work into a small book called Been There: Perspective from Teens Who Get It. We're printing copies to send to adolescent treatment centers. Not as marketing. Not with any Woodhaven branding. Just as service work. One group of kids in recovery reaching out to help others who are where they used to be.

The boys wrote. They edited. They made choices about design and layout. And they did it knowing their words would reach kids they'll never meet, in programs they'll never visit, who might pick up this little book and think, Maybe I can do this too.

That snowstorm forced us all together. It created space for something real to happen. It reminded me, again, that recovery isn't built in clinical sessions and treatment plans alone. It's built in kitchens and cookie dough, in recovery groups, in late-night Dungeons & Dragons games, and in moments when young people realize they have wisdom worth sharing.

Every other kid in the Northeast was sleeping in that Monday morning, enjoying their snow day. But these nine were creating something that mattered. They were on the other side of their darkest days, not all the way through, but far enough along to turn around and reach back.

And that's the remarkable thing about recovery. It's never just about saving yourself. At some point, if you're doing it right, it becomes about reaching back for someone else.

These nine kids spent a snow day doing exactly that.