Illustration by Ryan Spahr
The Lawrence McNeil story is a truly unique one. It is an inspirational story of transformation and triumph and perseverance.
It also is the story of the Bethesda Mission. In fact, McNeil’s story is so intertwined with the Bethesda Mission’s that his couldn’t have happened without it.
McNeil first encountered Bethesda Mission when his then-treatment center brought him there.
“When I got out of the car, I looked up the steps, and it was the Bethesda Mission,” he said. “When I walked up the steps I cried, because I didn’t think it was the place I needed to be. The whole time my mind was saying, ‘This is not the place for me.’ It looked like a place where bums go to.”
That was 24 years ago, and, today, McNeil’s part-time position as a house supervisor at the Bethesda Mission is his new “side hustle.” His full-time gig is as a certified recovery specialist, but he’s also working towards his college degree in alcohol and drug counseling.
McNeil is kind of on his own personal mission to give back the services he received at Bethesda Mission. But his motivation is more related to behavior modeling that any sense of indebtedness.
“The reason I decided to give back is that it made sense to me,” McNeil said. “This is the best lifestyle for me. It’s not about the money. For me, money was always the problem. I put money before God. Once you let God be your source, God will provide the money. I don’t make a lot of money, but I don’t need a lot of money.”
Had to Change
From Philadelphia via Williamsport, McNeil arrived on the steps of the Bethesda Mission on Reily Street in Harrisburg in 1998. At that time, he was a young man in his mid-30s—broken, lost and in denial.
Bethesda Mission opened its doors of hope and transformation, and McNeil walked through them. But not a walk—a blind leap of faith.
“At that time, I was trying to get off crack cocaine and alcohol,” said McNeil, now a 59-year-old resident of Harrisburg. “A lot of times when addicts get things, they don’t keep them. They have one high, and their only thought is about the next high.”
Bethesda Mission is a faith-based organization that aids men and women in need through counseling, social services, shelter, financial aid and employment training. In the people business since 1914, it has helped thousands of people like McNeil get back on their feet, stand tall and aim high.
“Everything in my lifestyle is about helping others and recovery, and it’s all because of the Bethesda Mission,” said McNeil. “I learned I had to change, and I learned how to change.”
He also learned that he couldn’t do it by himself.
“Once my thinking changed, my beliefs changed,” he said. “I figured out that God was the one who I needed to run my ideas by first.”
In 2010, a relapse landed McNeil in the Coal Township State Institute of Corrections. But it was a setback in the long recovery process, not a step back. Temporary, not permanent.
McNeil made the most of his prison time by earning his GED, finishing a high school education he had started some 30 years earlier.
“I had become a drug dealer, a person with no feelings,” he said. “I tried to get his money and your money. But I did my time in prison. I got right back into my recovery. I worked the whole time when I was in jail. When I left, all the guards stood up and told me I was going to be successful.”
Different Walks
McNeil grew up in north Philly in the 1970s and ‘80s, in a relatively stable, traditional, God-fearing environment. But during his adolescence, he strayed and ultimately fell in with the wrong crowd.
“Back then, all of my idols were the guys who hung out on the street corner,” he said.
Twenty-two years of wedded bliss, six children and 14 grandchildren later, McNeil has matured, and his life has stability. He’s still in recovery. He continues to attend Alcoholic Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous Meetings, and Bethesda Mission remains a large part of his life.
“You have to have a place where you can be transformed,” he said. “You have to have people around you who are like you, and you have to be structured, or restructured.”
Not everyone at Bethesda Mission shares McNeil’s life story. In fact, he wanted to clear up a misconception about the men there.
“Not everybody is there because they were on drugs or they went to prison,” he said. “Some just fell on hard times or they don’t have a place to live.”
He emphasized that men’s shelter residents all have their own unique life stories, as individual as the people themselves.
“It’s all different walks of life, and once you get in there, you can see them and choose the one you want to gravitate towards,” he said. “That’s what the Bethesda Mission does, and that’s what the Bethesda Mission continues to do.”
Bethesda Mission’s men shelter is located at 611 Reily St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.bethesdamission.org.
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