Recovery Ministry

Recovery Ministry

Hello, my name is Carey Gorski and I am called to lead in recovery ministry. My family lives in the state of Illinois in the USA. My family consists of my wife Jessica and our three children. We live in a more rural area where Christianity is acceptable. In our exact area, many do not attend church, due to previous corruption in local churches.

When I was a child my mother took us to church weekly. We attended regularly until I began high school. Once in high school, I began to attend a youth group weekly. With this youth group, we would meet multiple times per week and we also went on mission trips every summer. This dedication to Christ only lasted through high school though. When I left for college I chose to turn away from Christ. I had nothing to do with him during this period of time in my life. I began to drink alcohol regularly while in college. The alcohol is what I slowly began to worship in college. While in school, I began to miss classes and not do well in the classes that I did attend. After my third year of school, I was kicked out of the school. Since I didn’t know what I was going to do I went into the family business.

My family owned a tavern in the town we lived in. So I proceeded to go into the bar business. While in this business, I continued to drink regularly. Then one day, I found out I was going to have a child. At first, I denied the child. Later in the pregnancy, I chose to try to have a relationship with the mother. We married a year after our daughter was born. This relationship was not healthy. I continued to drink and really did not care about her feelings at all. After a few years of marriage, she started to see someone else and decided to leave me. At this time my dependence on alcohol increased to the worse it had ever been. I was devastated to lose my daughter and wife. After a short time, I realized I needed help. I chose to attend a 12 step program. While attending this program I began to work on my alcoholism. My wife chose to give me a second chance once I was in recovery. After a period of time, we got back together, but we were already divorced at this time.

While in recovery, I started to rely on Christ to help me with my recovery. After my wife and I where back together, we moved to a small town 60 miles south of Chicago, IL. While living in this town, we started to attend church regularly. My wife and I became extremely involved in the church. My wife wanted to help with children, but the church would not let her since we were living together and not married. So we decided to get remarried. Recovery from alcohol brought me back to Christ.

My ministry dream is to help others with recovery from chemical addiction. I currently am the ministry leader for my church’s recovery ministry program. The hope is that one day this program will grow into something that could really help our community and those with addictions in our area.

This class has helped me to realize my dedication to become a ministry leader within our church. I most identify with a Pastor. The reason being is that I will be leading sermons to help those individuals in need of recovery. A Pastor is a teacher and I hope to teach others there is hope and that no matter what you have done, Christ sacrificed Himself for all of us.

The challenge in our area that we have been having is that many do not trust the church. Many in our area also feel they do not need help. They are still in denial and not willing to get help. Those who are willing to get help do not want to do it with the church’s help. They feel they do not need the church to recover.

This scholarship is important for my education since I currently have many student loans and cannot take on any more debt. Also, Christian Leaders Institute allows me to take classes on my time since I have a family and also work 50 hours per week. My church is very supportive of my ministry in recovery. They try to help in every way possible to expand the recovery ministry to everyone that needs it. This schooling will help me to be a better teacher to teach others about Christ, this education, along with my personal experience of Christ’s true love. Please pray for our current recovery ministry, since it has been a slow-moving program. My wife and I try not to get discouraged with the low attendance and continue on. We know this is a program that our church and community needs.

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