[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Five years ago, Midwest Recovery CEO and Team Recovery President and Co-Founder, Matt Bell, was contemplating suicide in his mothers’ garage. He stole a gun from someone with whom he used and broke into his mothers’ garage. For the previous nine years, Bell had been using heroin. It all began after a baseball injury, when he was prescribed Percocet for pain–both physical and emotional.
During those 9 years, Bell was arrested 13 times, overdosed frequently, attended 28 different treatment centers, was homeless during a blizzard in Toledo–and hurt his friends and family throughout.
This day was different. He did the last of his heroin and thought about the people he’d hurt, the damage he’d caused, and the trouble he was in. He didn’t pull the trigger, because he didn’t want his mother to find him lifeless in her garage. Instead he called the police. Bell was ready to go to prison, and had multiple charges against him. But when police arrived, they showed him empathy and brought him to his 28th drug treatment center.
That is when everything changed.
At the detox center, Bell met Joshua Dressel, who had been in treatment only six days more than him. They both attended group therapy, where Bell and Dressel bonded over Dressel’s backpack filled with snacks. Tired, sick, and defeated, every morning they would put their hands in and chant, “Team Recovery!” This began as a joke, a way to make it through another day, a way to feel hopeful about the future. All they knew at the time was that they never wanted to use drugs again.
After detox, they went to the same recovery center and sober home. The two didn’t know then how important it was that their paths crossed. Shortly after they were discharged from detox, Bell and Dressel began a journey together with a new goal: get Ohio pumped up for recovery and raise awareness about the opioid epidemic.
Bell created a Facebook page for their new movement, “Team Recovery.” The two held signs in downtown Toledo that said “F*ck Heroin” and “Honk if you hate heroin.” Shortly after this, their online presence and popularity in the community grew.
“I never thought I’d be opening up treatment centers, I never thought I would be where I am today,” Bell said. Matt Bell has become the CEO of four drug treatment programs, ranging from detox to outpatient, two of which are specifically for Ohio Medicaid recipients. Team Recovery has also become a nationally recognized nonprofit that Dressel and himself continue to oversee.
Bell regularly shares his story throughout the community to show anyone suffering from addiction that recovery is possible. . Bell has five years clean and sober today, and “forever to go,” according to him. “I don’t know how big of an impact I will make in the coming years, but if I can help one more person, if there is one less overdose death, if one person relates to my story and feels hopeful again, that is enough.”
Midwest Recovery Center is a subsidiary of TruHealing Centers, a division of Amatus Health, which offers treatment for drug and alcohol addiction as well as co-occurring mental health disorders in facilities across the country. From addiction treatment, to long-term after-care, Midwest Recovery Center offers individualized care for you or your loved one. No one’s story is the same; no one’s recovery will be the same either.. To find out which level of care is right for you, call an admission specialist at 410-593-0005..
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