Finding Home

Book excerpt: Home... A word that can be a noun, an adjective, a verb, or an adverb, but all suggesting a sense of where one originated and where one belongs. This word can be used to describe a position in a game, instincts in the animal kingdom, a location on a computer screen, or the place where family gathers to support and celebrate one another. However, in our fractured world, filled with addiction, violence, illness, and broken relationships, too many are just wandering, lost, with no home, even when they find a roof over their heads. They look for a sense of belonging in groups and gangs where they hope for acceptance and support. Too many turn to drugs and alcohol to medicate their loneliness, some being drawn into the most sweeping opioid epidemic we have ever seen. What if we could find ways to create a stronger sense of "home" in our circles of influence? What if we learned how to open up the doors of our lives and bring people into the warmth and shelter that they have been looking for? What if we knew how to start conversations that would bring the issues of "finding home" to the forefront and help us find tools to assist those around us in building their own place of belonging? In the wake of losing her twenty-four-year-old son Nicolai to a fentanyl overdose, Tina Reiman began a journey to understand his struggle to find home. This path led her to reexamine what she believed about addiction, parenting, and love. One result was her establishment of a nonprofit dedicated to reducing addiction, homelessness, and suicide among the young men of her community through the coaching of those who understand "home."