Gibson Center marks 40th anniversary

Scott Moyers and Lester Gillespie are two of 50,000.

Two of the 50,000 people who, over the past 40 years, have been served by Gibson Recovery Center in Cape Girardeau and elsewhere in Southeast Missouri as they worked to overcome their alcoholism and drug dependency.

And Friday they, along with about 200 others at Cape Girardeau's Osage Center, celebrated the Gibson Center's four decades of addiction recovery services.

Members of the Gibson Recovery Center Board of Directors, Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce members and other dignitaries watch as Gibson Center chief operating officer Ryan Essex, left, and executive director John Gary cut a ribbon to commemorate the center's 40th anniversary Sept. 20, 2019, during an anniversary celebration at the Osage Center.Jay F Wolz

Both Gillespie and Moyers credit the center with saving them from their addictions and making it possible for them to restart their lives anew.

"For 40 years, the Gibson Recovery Center has been helping people like me," said Moyers who, until 2013, was a reporter at the Southeast Missourian. "And when I say people like me, I mean people who lost their way in this world because of addiction. I had lost my way, along with my family, my career and the very last shred of human dignity."

Moyers abused alcohol and experimented with a variety of illegal substances and ultimately became addicted to methamphetamine, which nearly killed him.

"I had lost everything," he told attendees at the anniversary celebration. "I didn't have a home, I didn't have a car, I didn't have a job. I was emotionally, spiritually and morally bankrupt. I had been to jails, psych wards and had come close to death more times than I care to count."

Charged with drug possession and facing a possible sentence of up to 14 years in prison, Moyers agreed in 2014 to a plea deal and probation that included regular drug testing and rehab.

"At that point in 2014, I had not drawn a sober breath in many years," he said. "Alcohol and drugs had become my master, and when you have a master, you know what that made me? A slave. I was a slave to my addiction."

Moyers remembers arriving at Gibson Center in the spring of that year.

"The staff at the Gibson Center, whose motto is 'We light the way,' certainly did that for me," he said. "They taught me the tools I would need to live a life free of alcohol and drugs. I no longer have a master. They taught me there was another way, a better way. They showed me kindness, acceptance and grace that I did not think I deserved. They taught me to love myself and that I was worthy of love."

Moyers said through counseling, peer support and constant encouragement "I began to believe in myself. My shaky suspicions that I might be able to do it became the unyielding faith that -- with the help of God a mutual support system and a solid recovery program -- I could do this, one day at a time, for the rest of my life."

Moyers became a peer support counselor at the Gibson Center in 2017 and was recently named the center's first-ever peer support supervisor.

"I am no longer broken," he told the applauding crowd. "And although I am not cured and the scars may still be there, I am healed."

Gillespie, a native of Charleston, Missouri, graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1990 with a degree in criminal justice. During his college years he worked the weekend night shift at Gibson Center so he was familiar with its services.

A few years after graduating from Southeast, Gillespie found himself addicted to alcohol and went to the center for help.

"My life was a train wreck. I was hopeless and like a broken pencil," he said "My sobriety and my recovery started at the front door."

Gillespie remembers telling John Gary, now the center's executive director he was "sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Gillespie said he also remembered a Gibson staff member telling him he needed to "get out of the driver's seat, move over to the passenger seat, let go and let God."

Through counseling and support, Gillespie said he began his daily path toward sobriety.

"I learned now to turn over my baggage to a power greater than myself. My confidence started to soar and I started holding my head high once again," he said. "Today, I have 26 years of sobriety. I stand before you today as a proud graduate of the Gibson Center, but even after that, it's still one day at a time. Today, my train is back on track, my life has meaning again, and that broken pencil is helping me write my own ending."

Gillespie worked more than 20 years as direcgtor of programs at Susanna Wesley Family Learning Center in Charleston, and in 2017 he started Stella Consulting, with a focus on leadership, collaboration and community engagement for not-for-profit orgaqnizations.

Over the years

Gibson Recovery Center began as a halfway house for people dealing with substance abuse. Beginning with a staff of five, the center added offices in Sikeston, Missouri, and Perryville, Missouri, in the late 1980s, and by 1987 it had 15 full-time and seven part-time employees, Additional facilities were added in Charleston and Marble Hill, Missouri, in the late 1990s.

Over the years, the Gibson Center developing a network of state and federal partnerships and achieved several accreditations while participating in clinical trials and research programs through the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

National Statistics

According to data provided by the Gibson Center,

• Nearly 21 millions Americans have at least one addiction, yet only 10% seek treatment.
• Opioid overdoses kill an average of 130 Americans every day.
• More than 90% of people who have an addiction started to drink alcohol before the age of 18.
• Nearly 900,000 people used heroin at least once in 2017 and almost 500,000 Americans over the age of 12 are regular heroin users.
• An average of 30 Americans die every day in alcohol-related car accidents.

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