7 September 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Recovery brought back everything addiction took from Dora Gear. Now, she has a full life and uses her story to pay her gifts forward.
“I didn’t have anybody. There was no family in the picture.”
In active addiction, Dora felt alone.
“No reliable friends, and it just really brought me to a place where I had absolutely nothing.”
She took several swings at sobriety.
“I’ve been to Oxford House. I’ve been to so many in-patients and outpatients, and nothing worked.”
Dora thought a change of scenery would score a win.
“I found the exact same thing there. I was an IV meth user and alcoholic addict. I was in jail over and over. I finally came back to Wichita to do a little jail time.”
She calls it the move she needed.
“I found WFC.”
The Wichita Fellowship Club is an alcohol and drug-free house for addicts wanting to change their lives.
“It was the last hope, like I didn’t have anything else. It was literally the last option I had.”
She found community, fellowship, and family.
“Those meetings saved my life.”
They helped her find and launch a new career as a massage therapist.
“The recovery community was my first client. They jump-started my business, and without them, I would not be here right now.”
People she labeled lost came back.
“I have my mom and dad here. My dad has said 15 times that he’s proud of me, and I haven’t heard that in so long.”
She remarried her husband.
“We got married in 2014. We both couldn’t get it together. He got sober. I fell off really hard for a couple of years, and we finally got back together and got our lives together, sobriety everything, and we got back together four years ago.”
She says without recovery, none of her gifts would be possible.
“Not at all, nothing was. No family, no business, no kids. Nothing.”
Now, she uses her knowledge.
“My past hasn’t changed at all, but I can change what’s going to happen in the future.”
Today, she has everything.
Her life is the opposite of being alone.
Dora credits The Wichita Fellowship Club as a key part of her road to recovery.