Tacoma Rescue Mission guest and current member of the New Life Recovery Program, Reggie, recently sat down for an interview with the radio station, Worship 24/7. You can read their conversation below.
What did your life look like before the Tacoma Rescue Mission was in your life?
I entered the Tacoma Rescue Mission’s New Life Program at the beginning of this year, around May 5th, 2025. My life was going totally down the drain and becoming unmanageable. I had to resign from my job to come here. My life was really on a suicidal tip.
I had lost two of the best people I’d had in my life. In 2023, I lost a friend I had known for 25, 30 years. And my first cousin committed suicide in February of this year. I went down a dark, dark road. I was smoking ounces of weed, drinking heavily, doing opioids, and I was walking around my house suicidal with a 45 in my hand ready to blow my brains down.
I first came here in 2020, and I graduated from the New Life Program. Things went well for a while, but I veered off track, moved away from Jesus Christ and started living my own life. That was what was going on right before I came back into the New Life program of this year. I was suicidal and drugs and alcohol were a big part of it.
When you say you “veered off track”, what did that look like?
When I say I veered off the track, for me that means I get too wrapped into things like work or relationships. Not that those things are bad, but in my life, anything that comes before God is never going to work out for me.
I know today there’s nothing more important than having a relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s the top priority in my life. The second priority is my recovery. And my recovery is based around Jesus Christ and being around people doing the same thing I’m doing, staying clean and sober, serving God, and serving their community. Another one of my priorities is helping others and doing God’s will.
My job is to help those who are down and out, in despair or hopeless. The ones who are just like me, looking for a way out and looking for their way back into Jesus Christ.
What did your day-to-day mental and physical health look like before you found the Tacoma Rescue Mission?
If I had a good meal, I would have it at the Tacoma Rescue Mission. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t drinking any water. I wasn’t doing any spiritual prayers. I knew where to come because the Mission has always been here for people. It’s like a beacon of light.
My day to day was just getting high. That’s all I did. I woke up in the morning getting high on weed, doing opioids, drinking. I would go to sleep whenever I passed out from drinking, I didn’t go to sleep on my own. It would be a miracle if I made it to work. I finally had to resign from my job. I just told them the truth. I told them I was having some mental breakdowns and going through some substance abuse problems, and I really needed to go take care of it.
When I broke away from the alcohol, the marijuana, and opiates for a few days, a good friend who works at the Mission gave me a call and asked if I ever thought about going back to the New Life Program.
At first, I didn’t want to do it. It’s a year-long program, which now I know saves people’s lives. I believe it has saved my life. It has given me a new perspective on what life can look like. I believe in what the Mission stands for in their mission statement and how they go out of their way to help people here.
Would you come to the Mission for meals before you joined the New Life Program?
I came here maybe two or three times a week for meals. Once in the morning for breakfast, and if I would gather enough energy, once in the afternoon for dinner.
What was it about the meals and the environment that made you keep coming back to the Mission?
For me, what makes the meals so important at the Tacoma Rescue Mission is the fellowship. The fellowship of the staff and the volunteers. It is a place you can feel welcome.
You can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. They go out of their way to make sure that you get a well-balanced meal all during the year. The volunteers show up here and give their free time freely, not just time, but their free time off from work or their family.
It’s also a plus to have a well-balanced meal. I’ve never had a bad meal at the mission. This is how good the meals are for me. Don’t tell anybody I said this, but even after I leave here and get my own place and have my own food, I’ll still be coming to the mission and eat!
What eventually inspired you to join the New Life Program?
I knew I was in despair. I knew I was suicidal. I knew I was abusing drugs and alcohol. What inspired me was someone taking time to come visit me, to just sit and listen to me and let me know there was a way out. They told me I needed to get away from what I was doing, and they introduced me back to the New Life program here at the Tacoma Rescue Mission.
They didn’t push me toward going, all I had to do was just fill out the application. They told me I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to, but I took that first step. Then the program manager reached out to me. That inspired me to want to do better for my life. The people in my life who serve God inspired me to want to serve God again.
How important have the meals been since you joined the New Life Program?
The meals are important to me because I don’t have to focus on buying or cooking anything. I don’t have to worry about the nutrition of the food either. I know I’m getting a well-balanced meal. This is something that really lightens up your load. I’ve never had a meal downstairs where there hasn’t been great fellowship and great volunteers who come and help me.
You have someone giving freely from their heart and taking a burden off you. To have somebody donate their money or volunteer their time to the Tacoma Rescue Mission to make sure we can eat, I think it’s absolutely amazing. It lets me put my full focus on God and recovery.
How much better is your physical health and mental health since joining the New Life Program?
When I came into the New Life program, I probably weighed 190 pounds. Now, I’m at 235! The food is so good I think I might have to go on a diet! We also have a gym upstairs and I work out every day.
I don’t want to say my mental health is 100% where it needs to be because I still have a long way to go. My relationship with God is strong, but I want it to grow stronger. But as far as my mental state goes, I’m clear-minded and I’m clean and sober. I will be sober for six months in October. My prayer life is strong. My relationships and my conversations with people are coherent. I meet with a mental health counselor once a week and she’s absolutely fabulous.
It gets better and better every week.
What does it feel like to have hope in your life again? Do you have any specific goals you are working on?
As far as my hope is concerned, I want to live today. And not only do I want to live, but I want to live for Jesus Christ. I want God to be pleased with who I am. I want to come back to the Mission too. I want to serve in some kind of capacity here, which I know is possible.
I’ve probably got 10 goals that I want to accomplish when I leave here. I want to get my CDL, I want to continue working in the peer support specialist area. I want to try to do whatever God’s will is for me.
Do you remember the first meal you had at the Tacoma Rescue Mission?
My first meal was breakfast. Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, two sausage patties, french toast with syrup, orange juice and 2% milk. We’re not even going to discuss how the holidays look around here! You get the full thing, turkey, ham, stuffing, dressing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. And more importantly, the people who cook this stuff, they cook it with love.
They want to help you, they want you to eat, and they want you to be a part of something bigger.
