The Empowerment Center

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
-C.S. Lewis

The Empowerment Center is proud to partner with the UNR School of Social Work's Field Education program!

Since 2022, we’ve been working with interns pursuing both Masters and Bachelors degrees. Each student is given a list of local organizations to choose from and applies for positions matching their values and interests. This past semester, we’ve been grateful for Amy Aranda’s and Brianna Bedient’s help as they’ve completed their internships with TEC.

For more about Amy and Brianna and their work with us: https://empowermentcenternv.org/our-partnership-with-university-of-reno-nevada-school-of-social-work/

Too cute 🥰

Congratulations, Roxanne!
Over the weekend The Empowerment Center attended the Recovery Gala held at The Renaissance Hotel in downtown Reno, NV. There our Director, Roxanne DeCarlo was awarded the "People's Choice Award."

This is what she had to say: "This award was meaningful because there was a time when no one talked about addiction or mental health. Now people are talking, lives are changing and this is something to celebrate."

We rise by lifting others. Read that again.

We had a great time celebrating sobriety at the Sober Gala, hosted by Dry Society Social Club.

Our Director, Roxanne DeCarlo was awarded "People's Choice".

"This award was meaningful because there was a time when no one talked about addiction or mental health. Now people are talking, lives are changing and this is something to celebrate ."

Here's to many more years of people talking about all the good The Empowerment Center is doing in Reno, NV. Please Like and Share this post to help us celebrate. 🎉 🎉

We offer Art and Crafts for our ladies on Balck out every Friday. This is what they made last week.

Always be gretaful for what you have.

Friday Prayer'
Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created. Esther 4:14

You need to stop being mad at the people sucking the life out of you if you keep giving them the straw.

SAME, Clint. Same.

Let’s talk about prevention. Our hope is that we never have to meet your children through our program.

Parents, You Make the Difference JTNN 2022 Learn more at jtnn.org.

September 09, 2022
Feet of clay
Page 263
"One of the biggest stumbling blocks to recovery seems to be placing unrealistic expectations on... others."
Basic Text, p.82
Many of us come into Narcotics Anonymous feeling pretty poorly about ourselves. By comparison, the recovering addicts we meet at meetings may seem almost superhumanly serene. These wise, loving people have many months, even years of living in accordance with spiritual principles, giving of themselves to others without expecting anything back. We trust them, allowing them to love us until we can love ourselves. We expect them to make everything alright again.
Then the glow of early recovery begins to fade, and we start to see the human side of our NA friends and sponsor. Perhaps a fellow member of our home group stands us up for a coffee date, or we see two oldtimers bickering at a committee meeting, or we realize our sponsor has a defect of character or two. We're crushed, disillusioned-these recovering addicts aren't perfect after all! How can we possibly trust them anymore?
Somewhere between "the heroes of recovery" and "the lousy NA bums" lies the truth: Our fellow addicts are neither completely bad nor completely good. After all, if they were perfect, they wouldn't need this program. Our friends and sponsor are ordinary recovering addicts, just like we are. We can relate to their ordinary recovery experience and use it in our own program.
Just for Today: My friends and my sponsor are human, just like me-and I trust their experience all the more for that.

Forgive your past self.
Believe in your current self.
Envision your future self.

Friday Prayer
Sing, all you who are upright in the heart!
Psalms 32:11

August 17, 2022
Tell the truth
Page 239
"A symptom of our disease is alienation, and honest sharing will free us to recover."
Basic Text, p. 83
Truth connects us to life while fear, isolation, and dishonesty alienate us from it. As using addicts, we hid as much of the truth about ourselves from as much of the world as we possibly could. Our fear kept us from opening ourselves up to those around us, providing protection against what others might do if we appeared vulnerable. But our fear also kept us from connecting with our world. We lived like alien beings on our own planet, always alone and getting lonelier by the minute.
The Twelve Steps and the fellowship of recovering addicts give people like us a place where we can feel safe telling the truth about ourselves. We are able to honestly admit our frustrating, humbling powerlessness over addiction because we meet many others who've been in the same situation-we're safe among them. And we keep on telling more of the truth about ourselves as we continue to work the steps. The more we do, the more truly connected we feel to the world around us.
Today, we need not hide from the reality of our relations with the people, places, and things in our lives. We accept those relationships just as they are, and we own our part in them. We take time every day to ask, "Am I telling the truth about myself?" Each time we do this, we draw that much further away from the alienation that characterizes our addiction, and that much closer to the freedom recovery can bring us.
Just for Today: Truth is my connection to reality. Today, I will take time to ask myself, "Am I telling the truth?"

August 05, 2022
The shape of our thoughts
Page 227

"By shaping our thoughts with spiritual ideals, we are freed to become who we want to be."

Basic Text, p. 105

Addiction shaped our thoughts in its own way. Whatever their shape may once have been, they became misshapen once our disease took full sway over our lives. Our obsession with drugs and self molded our moods, our actions, and the very shape of our lives.

Each of the spiritual ideals of our program serves to straighten out one or another of the kinks in our thinking that developed in our active addiction. Denial is counteracted by admission, secretiveness by honesty, isolation by fellowship, and despair by faith in a loving Higher Power. The spiritual ideals we find in recovery are restoring the shape of our thoughts and our lives to their natural condition.

And what is that "natural condition"? It is the condition we truly seek for ourselves, a reflection of our highest dreams. How do we know this? Because our thoughts are being shaped in recovery by the spiritual ideals we find in our developing relationship with the God we've come to understand in NA.

No longer does addiction shape our thoughts. Today, our lives are being shaped by our recovery and our Higher Power

Just for Today: I will allow spiritual ideals to shape my thoughts. In that design, I will find the shape of my own Higher Power.

Everything happening around us, big or little is our higher power speaking to us. The key to life is to get the message.

Miracles happen for those that believe in them.

Being an adult is like folding a fitted sheet, you have to work at it to get it right.

The Empowerment Center Reno, NV The Empowerment Center is compassionately dedicated to helping women who suffer from substance abuse

Being an adult is like folding a fitted sheet, you have to work at it to get it right.

‼️ We made a new page!
bumps in the road led to a new page having to be made! Make sure you follow The Empowerment Center Reno/Tahoe to be following our correct NEW page! 🤍