Hurt Habit or Hang Ups

There are three registered Celebrate Recovery meetings in Wilmington and one each in Leland and Southport. Celebrate Recovery (CR) is a 12-step Christ-centered recovery plan for those with hurt pain or addiction of any kind.

“Anything that might prevent them from filling any plan that God has for them ” says Jodie Rife whose personal recovery journey began 29 years ago with what he describes as a “struggle with drugs and alcohol a little anger and fear.”

Rife with wife Suzanne and a team of leaders from their Life Community Church (aka the former mall church) in Wilmington lead a Monday evening Celebrate Recovery now located at Cape Fear Free Will Baptist Church on Holly Tree Road at 6:15 p.m. beginning with a hot meal.

“We point people in the direction of help and hope ” Rife says.

This includes those with a wide range of behaviors and habits; high anxiety; fear; codependency; compulsive behaviors; sex addiction; financial dysfunction; drug and alcohol addictions and eating disorders.

In its seventh year Rife says the group began with two or three then four or five who were tired of being bound. During the group’s fifth anniversary gathering there were 135 to 140 in attendance. Maintaining the anonymity and confidentiality of those in attendance is key but even on a cold Monday night in March 2019 there is a large group of men and women present.

“God has continued to bless us in a very special way it’s been an amazing transformation ” says Rife.

One of the seventh largest recovery programs worldwide under its registered trademarked name Celebrate Recovery began in 1990 founded by John Baker as an alcoholic and staff member of Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. “We are all broken. We have all sinned. We have all missed the mark. We are all struggling with a hurt habit or hang up ” says Baker quoted on the global CR website from “12 Steps Christian Style; Lake Forest Ministry Has Helped Thousands in a Concept That’s Spread” Los Angeles Times p. B3 William Lobdell (24 April 1999).