The Fellowship House is a not-for-profit private corporation which
provides prevention, intervention, and treatment services to persons
primarily from southern Illinois communities. Most services are
designed to assist the individual suffering from problem gambling,
substance abuse or addiction. We believe that addiction is a primary
chronic illness with its own unique symptoms, progression, and
treatment. We believe that effective treatment will lead to
improvement in the lives of these individuals and their families. We
also realize the insidious, long term effects of the problem
gambling/addictive life-style and progressive illness will produce
relapses. The Fellowship House endeavors to offer effective and
efficient services while treating patients with dignity and respect.
The Fellowship House tries to provide practical,
"down-to-earth" information and tools to patients to
improve their lives and to begin their lifetime journey in recovery.
The metaphors of "We open doors for people to assist them in
deciding to stay sober," and "We plant seeds that,
hopefully, the patients will tend to promote personal growth,"
are utilized by staff to give patients hope. We will continue to
offer encouragement, unconditional caring, "tough love,"
tools and road maps along the way. We realize that patients may
relapse into old dysfunctional behaviors and thinking and we must
confront them with "caring" honesty. This means that we
show the patients the realities of their situations because we care.
They, in turn, will feel angry, or hurt, or guilty, or other
feelings and we accept their right to have their feelings. As long
as the patients do not hurt themselves or others, abide by the
facility rules, and are physically and mentally able to participate
in The Fellowship House programming, we will continue to work with
their feelings and their dysfunctional behaviors. The reason for
this tolerance and patience is that The Fellowship House may be one
of the few places left for these very hurt human beings to begin
changing.
