"12 Step Ride" promotes recovery

Community Church Celebrate Recovery and Island Cycle Workz are partnering Saturday to offer the first “12 Step Ride,” an event to promote substance recovery.

Shannon Mullen, a member of Community Church Celebrate Recovery, said the hope is to make the event an annual offering.

“My husband and I own a motorcycle and we love to ride,” she said. “We wanted to break the stigma and show that people in recovery do recover, that not all people in recovery are bad people and we do get better.”

Randy Sallee, member of Community Church Celebrate Recovery, said he was an addict for 30 years.

“I’ve completely turned my life around,” he said. “I’m a pastor, I work for the City of Sacramento as the Superintendent of Water and Wastewater.”

Mullen and Sallee are two of the leaders of Celebrate Recovery program in Calhoun.

“Getting out into the community makes our program more visible to other people that don’t attend,” Sallee said.

For the event, riders will meet at Island Cycle Workz, 425 Walnut Street, at 9:30 a.m. A Blessing of the Bikes will happen at approximately 10 a.m.

Mullen said the event is not just for motorcycles.

“Anyone who wants to ride with us is more than welcome to ride with us, no matter what vehicle,” she said. “Just as long as it’s street legal.”

After the blessing, drivers will leave on a more than 80-mile ride.

“Along the way, we’ll have stops where we will read the steps of recovery,” Mullen said. “In recovery, there are 12 steps and at each stop we’ll read three of those.”

The event will end back at Island Cycle Workz where plate lunches will be sold and the Souled Out band will perform. Twelve door prizes will also be given out during that time, including gift cards totaling several hundred dollars in all.

“We’re a faith-based ministry and there’s a stigma around Celebrate Recovery — that it’s just for addicts or alcoholics — but it’s not,” Sallee said. “It’s for anyone that has hurt, habits or hang ups of any kind. Anything that burdens your life, Celebrate Recovery and its steps will help to overcome.”

Sallee said the organization is wanting to get out into the community more to break that stigma.

The $15 registration fee will go back into the group.

“My goal wasn’t to make a profit, I just wanted to provide a sober event to promote the group,” Mullen said. “It’s a fundraiser and the money we raise will go back into Celebrate Recovery.”

Sallee said the fund helps other people with addiction to attend rehab, groceries and bills.

“We help people in our program and people not in our program,” he said. “If somebody comes to us with a need, a committee will vote on it and we will help them.”

Mullen said Celebrate Recovery holds those in active recovery accountable when the organization provides assistance

“We require them to attend meetings and participate in service work,” she said. “It’s how we teach someone who used to be an irresponsible addict to be a productive member of society.”

Event sponsors include Island Cycle Workz; Owensboro Insulators, LLC; ADS; Durty Girls Tees; Rice Contracting, LLC; Douglas Seamless Gutters; TJ’s Window Tint; Green River Detailing; Texas Roadhouse; Galloway Farm & Auto Repair; Royal Electric; and Big Oak General Store.

The event is open to the public. For more information, visit the event page at facebook.com/events/s/12-step-ride-for-recovery/154152620871459 or call 270-499-3532.