When Timmy Dunbar arrived at the Ross County Jail, he wasn’t ready to turn his life around.
“I just wanted to get out of jail and go back on the run,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar had been struggling with addiction for years and had reached a place where it was hard to imagine the concept of hope for a better future.
“I have known Timmy for over seven years,” said Sean Cawood, a chemical dependency counselor assistant with Scioto Paint Valley Mental Health Center’s Rulon Center. “I have seen him struggle and fight the disease of addiction.”
Thanks to an SOS Innovation grant from the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health, Cawood is part of a team of counselors and social workers that SPVMHC provides to the jail to provide services to incarcerated individuals who are experiencing mental health and addiction issues.
“Sean Cawood came to see me in jail, and I seen that he was still sober and still in recovery,” Dunbar said. “I know Sean’s story, and if he can do it, I can do it.”
After their meeting in the jail, Cawood made a promise to Dunbar.
“I told him when I left that day that if he was released, I would be here waiting on him when he got out,” Cawood said. “The day he was released I kept that promise. I was waiting at the door when he walked out of jail.”
With the support of Judge Keith Washburn and probation officer Michelle Gillman, Dunbar checked into the Rulon Center — a 90-day in-patient residential treatment facility in Chillicothe.
“When I got to Rulon, my mindset didn’t change until about the 30-day mark,” Dunbar said. “My mind shifted. A counselor asked me where I wanted to be in five years, so I thought about where I see myself in five years sober. I thought, ‘I’ve got kids and I want to travel and see the world.’ And so I thought I needed to make a change.”Today, he lives a much different life.
“I have eight months clean and sober,” Dunbar said. “I have my license, a car, a job, and relationships with all my kids, my family — and that connection is great.”
“I see something different in his eyes,” added Cawood. “There was a sense of trust and faith that far superseded that hopeless doubt and defeat he once felt.”
While Dunbar’s recovery continues to be a success, he said it all started with someone showing him that they cared.
“Recovery has given me freedom, and it started when Sean came to the jail,” he said. “When they let me out of the jail door, Sean was standing beside the door waiting on me. It really made me feel that he cared and that Rulon cared about really helping me. It was really important that he was standing there waiting on me.”
Cawood praised Dunbar for the hard work he put in to stay sober and sees only great things in his future.
“Timmy came to Rulon with a changed mind and regulated heart, he worked assiduously on his recovery and continued after he graduated Rulon,” he said. “I am proud of his hard work and dedication to his recovery, and his best is still yet to come.”
“If I could say something to someone who is struggling right now,” Dunbar added, “it would be that God has so much more for you, if you give people a chance They can see God working in their life. Let God lead you.”
For more information about Scioto Paint Valley Mental Health Center’s Rulon Center, please call 740-672-2401.
This article originally appeared on Chillicothe Gazette: Ohio man’s journey from jail to sobriety began with counselor’s promise
Reporting by Provided by Lance Cranmer, Scioto Paint Valley Mental Health Center / Chillicothe Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
