Success Stories
Ossie Savaria
St. Matthew's House Facility Manager
I come from a middle class New England family, with very loving parents. I got involved in the golf profession in the early 1970's. I was in the limelight of club house and high society life for many years, until my disease of alcoholism took over. I left the state of Massachusetts and ventured to Florida. Through the early 1980's I had numerous jobs while I was still a prisoner to my addiction. Eventually I was totally on my own. That's when I moved to the woods and gave up society as most people would know it. I was completely spiritually broken, financially busted and an emotionally unstable person due to alcohol and drugs. It's harder to live in the woods than it is to hold a job. I had to carry my own drinking water. I had to wash my clothes in a five gallon bucket. I didn't really care if I ate or not. I had to work in order to drink and I had to drink in order to work. The drinking was something that robbed me spiritually, emotionally and physically, but it was a necessity to my body. My body would shake if I didn't have enough to drink. It's a horrible disease. One day the cabin I had built in the woods burned to the ground. I grabbed what was important, a case of beer, and got out just in time. Finally, I broke down, fell to my knees and asked God for help. From then on I really don't remember how I ended up in a detox in Ft. Myers, but I stayed for six days and they told me about a house in Naples that had a 12 step program and it was a homeless shelter. It was a little fire station on Airport Road called St. Matthew's House. I'll never forget that first smile, that first visit, when my family came down here from Massachusetts. They found out where I was and that I was alive and sober. It's like yesterday. ... If it weren't for St. Matthew's House, I probably would have died in the woods. I knew that I was going to 'come back here for some reason to do something; to volunteer, to show someone. It's been just amazing the number of miracles that I've seen here in 16 years. I had a spiritual awakening - I'm not so important and the most important thing I can do for God is to help somebody else. Through the Grace of God, today I'm sober and I hope to see the continual growth of St. Matthew's House. It's a day-by-day journey and if I keep myself out of the way and let God run the show, then I know I'm going to be alright.