Recently Greenville Transitions added a clinical program to provide therapy, psychiatry, medication management and other services so that we could have everything under the same roof. With that decision came not only a new office space but a lot of furniture to fill the space. While looking at properties, I was trying to envision how the office would be set up. It needed to be special. It needed to be a space that would attract people to sit and stay for a while.
For some reason I had an overwhelming urge to build a conference table that was personalized, warm and inviting for families to gather around… a table that would tell a story and offer years of use continuing to form new stories and memories as people sat around it. I’m also the kind of person that once I get an idea like this in my mind, I will obsess over it until the project is complete. This is the addict part of my brain screaming “GO ALL IN!” Fortunately, when I use that part of my brain on healthier outlets, it’s where the magic happens. This is how the journey began.
In the beginning, I thought I would create a river table. For those that are unfamiliar, it is two live edge slabs of wood with epoxy poured between the two slabs creating a river (or google river table). The original plan was to use the same color blue epoxy that is used for our logo to tie Greenville Transitions into the table. I researched what supplies I would need, purchased them and took them to a friend at a woodworking shop in Asheville.
This wasn’t just any studio or woodworking shop either. It was a home for people in recovery. People like me! A good friend of mine, Jeremy French, started this shop called “Making Whole,” which is not your average woodworking studio. It is filled with people in early recovery doing apprenticeships, preparing lunch for the community, discussing personal struggles, celebrating victories and receiving therapy from the hands-on work that forces you to be grounded in the moment. It also felt like home being surrounded with people who share similar struggles as me.
As special of a place as this is… It didn’t seem so special when Andy, a master woodworker, told me that my live edge cherry slabs were no good. “No good, what do you mean no good?” Andy replied, “this wood is green. It’s wet and it is going to take a while to dry.” I said, “Are we talking a week, or a month?” and I was not ready for the answer. Due to the slab thickness, it could take up to a year for them to dry naturally. Boom! There went a bunch of money and supplies that couldn’t be used for a while. Lucky for me, Jeremy and Andy had been looking to place an order for Cherry wood and offered to include me in their purchase.
The Cherry that was ordered was already cut to boards and couldn’t be used for a river table, so it was time to regroup. With the help of the team at Making Whole, I created a new blueprint for a table and found a new way to personalize it. When the material was laid in front of me, it didn’t seem like much… rough, raw boards, some metal and a split hickory log to name a few. Hopelessness rushed over me as I looked at my new materials, but I knew I had to try.
On the morning I started the build, I called my business partner venting about all of the timelines, frustrations and paperwork that I was drowning in with no light at the end of the tunnel. Mind you, this is a one-hour drive, and I’m pretty sure we stayed on the phone for that whole hour. When I got to Making Whole, I let my business partner know that I would be putting my phone down and trying to get as much done with the table as possible. It was starting to feel more like an inconvenience at this point with all of the other things on my to-do list.
I spent the day working, cutting the boards down, smoothing them, flattening and gluing them. I was so hypnotized by the sounds of the machines, the vibrations coursing through the wood to my hands, the smells that filled the shop and the comradery amongst fellow people in early recovery that all of the other clutter in my mind fell by the wayside. I called my business partner again on the ride home. He heard my first few sentences and said, “Man, what happened at the shop? That seemed to put you in a positive place!” That’s when it hit me… That wasn’t just woodworking, it was therapy. At one of the most stressful times of my life, that is exactly what I needed. I was able to put my stress and worries aside and stay in the moment while in that shop. And if it did that for me, A person with a few years of sobriety under his belt, what is it doing for those in the early stages of recovery who are working in that shop? What started as an inconvenience, became a passion.
The work continued and more frustrations surfaced. The initial blueprints would have to be re-drawn time and time again. I would get to a place of satisfaction just to find out that I needed to take more length off of the table because there was a split in the wood. Or we need to redesign the base because this base won’t support the tabletop. With each setback, I thought, “its ruined and now you have to scrap the whole thing.” Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. It just needed some changes and I sometimes struggle with last minute change. On my final day of the project, I noticed that something had splattered on the tabletop that didn’t want to wipe off. I had to lightly scrape the whole table with a razor blade and take it back to the sanding table.
The moment finally came that I could piece everything together! I couldn’t get the ear to ear grin to leave my face. Proud was an understatement. I knew every square inch of this table: every knot, dent and slight imperfection. I ended up embedding the Greenville Transitions challenge coins to the tabletop as well to tie in our program. There was not another table like this in the world.
Looking back on the project I thought, what a beautiful example of recovery. My early stages of recovery were full of frustrations, cracks that needed to be filled, dents that needed to be smoothed and many changes that needed to be made. There were times I didn’t want to go back to the drawing board. Somehow, I managed to find a way around those struggles with the help of a strong community that would pick me up and dust me off when needed. There are still a lot of imperfections, but the final product can remain solid if it is given proper maintenance and I keep masters of their craft close by.
On the back of our challenge coin embedded in our table is a quote by Frank A. Clark: “If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” That has proven to be true in my life. Some of the hardest things I have faced have yielded the greatest rewards. Thanks to Jeremy and the crew at Making Whole, this table is pretty high on that list. My hope is that many people that are led to this table will maintain long term sobriety and see how beautiful life can be if you surrender to the process, put in the work, overcome the obstacles and embrace the change.
David McNease
Executive Director
Greenville Transitions Recovery Center
