In Their Words

What Some of Our Students Say About The Arise Society

“I love Arise for the community. I love that everybody feels connected in a certain way. Not everybody has to be best friends but at the same time I haven’t known anybody here who hasn’t made a connection with somebody that I feel like will last for life. I feel like everybody here – it’s just very welcoming and even somebody like me who used to be somebody who just locked themselves in their room and never hang out with people. Now I’m somebody who is like down with everybody else, basically every day I chose Arise because I was trying to find the middle ground.

The guidance and freedom – I wanted a place that I knew that people would help me and guide me to be better but I didn’t feel like they were taking away all of my freedoms because personally I’ve been through those kind of programs. I find that I actually thrive in those conditions but then I go back to the real world where I have all of those things again and I just immediately fall back into all my old habits.

What makes Arise unique is that it feels like it is a person-by-person basis. It doesn’t feel like there are rules that everybody has to abide by. There are a lot of times I forget that I’m in a therapy program – because I’m around people that I really enjoy the company of. And then several weeks passed and I realize – oh wow, I’ve worked through so many of my problems and this whole time I feel like I’ve just been having fun.

The most fun part about Arise is definitely the activity side, which is basically the culmination of the connection that you have at Arise. We do all of these activities, some of them are more out there and some of them you just stay in – but things like it can be as insignificant as watching movies together or going to the trampoline park, throwing axes, paintball, or snowboarding. It’s something that you feel connected with – in a way that an introvert like me has not felt this connected with on an in-person basis before.”

“I picked Arise because I had just gotten out of a long-term RTC – going from living with full-time care staff members, watching me every second every day – to going home. So we agreed that a place like Arise would be the best program for me. When I took a tour of Arise, it sounded like it was just regular living.

There’s a safety net in place, which I felt it is like what I needed at the time. This is the most freedom I’ve ever seen at any sort of treatment center, or anything like that.

It’s nice to be treated like I have rights, which is a different experience that I’ve had at other places. When I came here, this was the only place where I wasn’t strip-searched. I came in when I wasn’t given an immediate drug test, despite having no drug history. It actually felt like I had some respect, which was different than what I had seen in most other places. Yeah, I feel like I’m an adult who has rights.

What I think makes Arise unique is the freedom that you have here. It’s really well balanced. And you can see why they’re in place, which is which is very unique among treatment centers.

The most fun part about being here is probably the community. There’s a lot of people here with different personalities. So you’re able to find a group that you click with. And even if you’re hanging out with someone who isn’t a part of that group, you still have some common ground, and you never really feel like an outcast. Everyone is the group is pretty inclusive and in very accepting.”

More From Our Students

“I was looking, I had options for 2 different programs. It was Arise and then a program somewhere else. And the difference between Arise and that program was the freedom and also your options like living by yourself in an apartment with a roommate instead of living in a house with a group of people – and having your individual freedom, when it comes to time and just space. And that was important to me.”

“Regarding group therapy, where I went before Arise, group was like a classroom setting and it wasn’t helpful at all. It was like the staff would stand up and talk about stuff that I didn’t understand at all. And it didn’t really make any sense. It was like, “Oh, yeah, we got to talk about this and this and this. Oh, here’s a worksheet. Fill this out.” And when I came here and sat down in group, it was like 100 times different, it was so much more personal. It felt so much more interconnected and seemed like it would actually help.”

“I didn’t transfer from anywhere – I was just at home. I need academic support more than anything else. My mom and I were set on Arise because of the more relaxed set up, more personal freedom here, because it wasn’t like I was coming from wilderness or anything. Another thing that really appealed to us is that there is a lot of general LGBTQ+ acceptance here. And that was kind of the deciding factor.”

“The staff are always available and connect very deeply with students. Group work is the best I’ve ever had, and activities are always a blast!”

“I kept hearing about Arise from my therapist, about how you have your own apartment with one roommate, you go to class, and pretty much have time to yourself. There is an office with activities and you could choose which ones you want to do. You could choose which people to hang out with. In my boarding school (before Arise) you had to hang out with people who lived with – and if you didn’t like them it was too bad.”

The set up for me is very helpful because it mimics real life - there is a lot of choice and freedom, but there is also solid support.

For me, it’s just having that community. Before coming here to Arise, I didn’t have anyone around me to really talk to, other than my direct family. So I didn’t really have any sort of community to interact with before coming to Arise.

“I can be independent when I want to be independent. And the fact that there is a community and when I want to be involved in the community, I can always come back to the community. And that’s something that I like about the program, because if I want to be alone, I can spend some alone time. If I don’t, there’s always somebody there. And I feel that’s really that support. Whether it’s through the mentors or just other students is really important.”

I really feel like you can connect with the mentors a lot, and it’s really easy to form a bond with a lot of them. And there’s enough variety in the mentors, in their interests, that it’s a good match for a lot of students. I like how mentors are like your friends here. But it’s nothing too intense. It’s good when a mentor is your friend rather than a person that’s an overseer than anything else.