12 Vets Of Christmas – Day 9 – Army Veteran Monica
December 28, 2024
12 Vets Of Christmas – Day 11- Marine Veteran Alan
December 30, 202412 Vets Of Christmas – Day 10 – Navy Veteran Rosario
This year’s 12 Vets Of Christmas begins on December 20! Each day for 12 days, you will get to meet each one of these veterans and find out how your support has changed their life for the better. We hope you’ll tune in right here on our blog (and social media – @hvafofindiana) and continue to support HVAF in 2024 and beyond!
Day 10 – Rosario reclaims his life.
“Without HVAF, I don’t know where I’d be at right now. I don’t know if I’d be alive right now.”
Meet Navy veteran Rosario. Rosario spent years trying to break out of the vicious cycle of drug use and homelessness. In 2022, when doing an assessment at a partner organization, he found out he could receive life-changing and life-saving services through HVAF.
After moving into one of HVAF’s transitional houses, his case manager told him it’s a sober living environment.
“It was probably about a month in to living in transitional housing, I just woke up one day and I was like you know today’s the day, I’m going (to rehab),” Rosario said.
Rosario can now proudly say he’s been sober for 14 months! He has even reconnected with his 14-year-old son.
At HVAF, 71% of veterans served in 2022 reported a mental health diagnosis or substance use issues. Rosario said staying sober can be hard some days.
“I’m not going to say I wake up every day and say, ‘I’m so happy to be sober,’” Rosario said. “Some days I wake up and think man, ‘I wish I wasn’t sober.’ But you just got to get up and cope and work through it.”
Since May 2023, after going through recovery programs at Community North’s detox center and CleanSlate, Rosario has lived at Proctor Place – one of HVAF’s permanent housing apartments. Now, Rosario always knows he has his case manager to rely on if his sobriety feels too hard to manage or can receive help with anything else he needs.
“Believe me when I say there are a lot of people out there that care about you and they want to help,” Rosario said. “They want to see you improve your life. They want to see you in a better place.”
This holiday season, join us as we head into 2025 and help continue to empower veterans like Rosario on their path to success with one final 2024 tax-deductible donation!
