Recovery Stories
Testimonies From the Graduates at Eagles Nest Regeneration
My Name Is Grant Hinson
"I came to Eagles Nest in June of 2013. I had spent the previous eighteen days in a hospital, bed-ridden from crippling withdrawal as I detoxed from a severe prescription painkiller and benzodiazepine habit. My life was in shambles. Months earlier, I had dropped out of graduate school, medicating my shame and guilt with ever-increasing amounts of intravenous narcotics. My family wanted nothing more to do with me.
"I remember how my arms were still bruised and scarred from the track marks that first day when I walked through the front door at Eagles Nest. I was so ashamed. I wanted to hide. And then Fern greeted me in the foyer with open arms and a bear hug that left me half-dazed. I knew instantly that these men were my brothers. They understood what I had been through.
“I knew instantly that these men were my brothers. My program was difficult, fraught with personal resistance and rebellion. Although 29-years old, I was still a child in my thinking. I wanted to do things my way — neither God nor anyone else was going to tell me what to do.
"Patiently, with more grace than I deserved, the Lord began to speak to me. He spoke to me through my journal, through staff, and through the other men around me. He showed me the fruit of my pride and arrogance. As much as I fought to look away, He never blinked.
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it,” Hebrews 7:11. Although I couldn’t see it at the time, the difficulties and trials I endured during my program were preparing me to walk in an eternal calling and receive unimaginable blessing.
"Following graduation, I committed to stay on at Eagles Nest for a year of Servant Leadership Training. I also became more involved at church, joining the worship team to play keyboards each Sunday.
"During this season, I met Amy, one of the worship leaders. We got to know each other through the worship team, and eventually, we started dating.
"I stayed at Eagles Nest for OJT (on-the-job training) and I transitioned into a new role on the clinical side of Eagles Nest. I was able to become a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist and Certified Substance Abuse Counselor in the state of Virginia.
"Today, my blessings are too many to count. I married Amy in March 2016. We bought a home and are now expecting a son. I have a purpose and calling in my life; a career doing what I love and have always wanted to do. I’ve been restored to my family. I get to worship beside my wife every Sunday at church.
"Above all, I am blessed with an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I thank Eagles Nest for giving me an opportunity to meet Him."
- Grant Hinson
My Name Is Matt Gathings
"I remember from a young age I felt a calling on my life, but there was also a deep void.
"As so many others have, I tried to fill this void with substances beginning in middle school. A bright and athletic kid, I had lots of potential but began to place more value on getting high and gaining acceptance through that.
"Jesus says in Matthew 6:21 “Where your treasure lies, there your heart will be also.” As time passed, my addiction morphed into something uncontrollable and the innocent kid I had been was no longer present. I had become a thief, a liar, and just an undesirable person to be around.
"In August of 2007, I met the woman who would become my wife. She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. It soon became apparent that we were on different trajectories in life, she moving towards a healthy, responsible life with God, but mine … well, not so much. So I did what most people in active addiction do, I lied.
"I began to lead a double life and hide my addiction. This went on for years, with me spending all of my money (and also lots of hers) on drugs. The lies were many and never-ending. The weight of guilt and shame that I carried multiplied daily. I began to feel extremely hopeless. I began to seek God, but found only condemnation, feeling that I had to be sinless to be accepted.
"Ultimately, my wife and I married in June of 2015, with me still keeping my addiction in the dark. Soon after, my wife became pregnant and on May 17th, 2016, Rileigh Mae was born. All of my lies began to unravel. My wife was devastated to find out that her husband wasn’t the man he represented himself as.
"It was over. I cried out to God. He heard me. When Rileigh was 6 months old, I checked in at Eagles Nest Regeneration. It was November 22, 2016. My marriage and my life in shambles.
"I fought tooth and nail against the love they poured on me for about two weeks, then I surrendered. I began a relationship with the one who had put that calling in my heart so long ago. Jesus. I began to get to know him through His word, through the body of Christ and through my journal. I also began to get to know myself. I began to forgive myself. I built friendships that were not based on what I could do for someone, or what they could do for me, but solely on camaraderie and love.
"Through a program within Eagles Nest called Family Recovery, my wife and I began to clear the pile of rubble that had become our marriage. With God’s grace and guidance, and with the loving help of staff and peers who truly cared for me and my family, my marriage began to heal. My wife began to trust me.
"In November of 2017, I graduated Eagles Nest Regeneration. I didn’t do it perfectly, but God's strength is perfected in my weakness. (2Cor 12:9) I now have 3 daughters and another child on the way. My wife and I have a relationship that I never dreamed possible. God has blessed me beyond measure and I have completed training and received licensure to host an intellectually/developmentally disabled individual in my home.
"I am excited to see the fullness of what Christ has in store for my family and I. All of this is thanks to God and to the others who came before me, who decided to help others lost in addiction. Recovery is possible … I am proof."
- Matt Gathings
My Name Is Ryan Brockmeyer
"I grew up in a good Christian home, was loved, and believed in God.
"To the naked eye I lived the "American Dream," but there was always a void in my life I couldn't explain. From the age of five, I began to find my place in the world through sports. While playing football for Marshall University I was hit by an SUV while riding a motorcycle and life as I knew it ended. I was informed I would never play again.
"In seconds my whole identity was lost. WHO AM I? Hopeless and lost, for years I struggled on the best way I knew how. I performed my way back into life and held an ever-growing grudge against God who had taken it all from me.
"I became addicted to the pain medication I was given for the accident, but truthfully, it kept reality away if only a little while, my escape. In and out of rehabs for years, I destroyed every relationship I had and “performed” my way into Regional Jail on a five-year sentence.
"From a cell bunk, I cried out to God for the first true time. He met me there, comforted me and led me to the Eagles Nest. Finally, I found what I had longed for my entire life. A personal relationship with the Lord. No longer did I only believe in Him, I knew Him.
"God has continued to restore all that the locust devoured and so much more. He has blessed me with a wonderful wife, Sarah, and two beautiful daughters, Selah and Josie; our first home, health, a job in ministry, and a purpose and vision. But this hasn’t come without costs.
"The last two years the Lord has walked us through have been the hardest of our lives. Minutes after Josie’s birth, Sarah had severe hemorrhaging, multiple blood transfusions, and ultimately had to have an unexpected hysterectomy to save her life.
"At the same time, Josie was fighting for her life rooms away. She was unable to breathe on her own, was given a 0.03% chance to live without complications, and was diagnosed with Coombs disease.
"Five weeks later, my father and closest friend passed away. Looking back, I realize that God was there each and every moment, even in times when the question in my heart of “why” was greater than His presence to me. Although emotionally, physically and spiritually, we are still processing the events, He has been faithful and merciful! He is the foundation we choose to stand on.
"I’m blessed to say our family is complete, healthy, growing stronger than ever and eternally grateful to God to be as blessed as we are. We are overcomers only by the grace of His faithfulness and through the ever-present loving relationships He established at the Eagles Nest.
"We will forever feel honored to help build a kingdom of believers at the Eagles Nest and beyond."
- Ryan Brockmeyer