Birthdays in a Recovery Community

Question: How many birthday cakes does our Victory House director make each year?

We love celebrating birthdays in a recovery community!

I’m Bernadine, director of Victory House, one of Providence Network’s three sober living apartments. A big part of my role is fostering community among our residents. Preventing feelings of isolation is a key factor in addiction recovery. Through a loving and caring community, we want our residents to know that they are not walking through life alone.

One of the small ways I do this is on birthdays. Birthdays can be a painful time for many of our residents. They might remember years when they didn’t have family or friends to celebrate with, or birthdays that were forgotten or ignored when they were children. Past trauma based on feelings of neglect can feel especially near around other special occasions and holidays too.

That’s part of my personal story. Birthdays were challenging times for me as a child because my parents never remembered them. They were too busy drinking to notice that I was celebrating another year.

Thankfully, over time, God has redeemed my experience and now birthdays are something I actually look forward to! I want to be a part of redeeming birthdays for our residents too.

Our Providence Network staff recently celebrated my 60th birthday, which was more meaningful than they may have realized. I try to pass the joy along by making birthday cakes for every person at Victory House when their special day arrives. Here are a few photos of birthday cakes from our recovery community: