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Caring staff like Rita
Natale come alongside
people in need and help
them reach their full
potential. Our hope is that
her courageous story of
recovery will inspire those
going through one of the
toughest struggles in life.
Learn how you can help us
move more deserving
individuals towards their
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“Addiction is a cancer of the soul. Recovery came for me when the pain in my life caused by alcohol or drugs was equal or greater than the pain I was drinking over.”
Rita Natale, an Admissions Manager for The Connection’s Supportive Housing for Families program, struggled with alcoholism for over a decade, but now she is celebrating 22 years of sobriety.
Rita started drinking when she was twelve. “By the time I was 13, I was drinking half a pint to a pint of vodka before I went to school as well as smoking pot at the bus stop in the morning. I needed to have a good buzz on before I could interact with people. I was always so full of fear and the substances gave me the illusion I could fit in.”
“I was an honors student before I started drinking. And for a while it didn’t affect my ability to compete – I made the varsity softball team in my first year of high school and made the all district team – but I quit the team the next year because partying became more important”
The youngest of eight children, Rita grew up in a household where her father had to work most of the time and her mother was busy taking care of her sick brother, Peter, who suffered from a disease similar to Lou Gehrig’s.
“He was bedridden for eight years,” Rita says. “I was 10 when Peter died, and I thought I’d finally be able to get close to my mother.” But after grieving the loss of her son, she soon went to work and Rita didn’t get the relationship with her mom she had envisioned, and instead kept her feelings inside.
“I started drinking because I felt invisible and in the way,” Rita says. “Alcohol made me feel like I was bulletproof. It made me feel like I was enough.”
After finishing high school Rita worked odd jobs instead of going to college. The drinking was a priority and kept her moving from job to job.
“Most of my friends drank. I’ve lost a lot of people to the disease. I have a picture of me with two friends – Pat and Tim. Both died due to drinking and driving,” said Rita.
Her path toward recovery began when an important relationship ended. Rita decided that she needed to get away from Connecticut and all the memories that familiar places and people evoked. She learned about an animal grooming school in Massachusetts, and because she has always loved animals, decided to move there to go to grooming school. During one of the first classes, she met Lynn who saw something in Rita that troubled her. Very quickly, and very gently, Lynn confronted Rita, asking her if she had a problem with drinking. This was a wake up call for her, realizing that her drinking was so obvious to someone who hardly knew her.
“It turns out Lynn’s husband was an alcoholic,” Rita says. “She recognized all the signs.”
Because Lynn was a total stranger, it made an impact. Lynn offered Rita a room in her home, and Rita began attending AA meetings with Lynn’s husband.
“When I started going to the meetings, I found that the people in the room had something I’ve been looking for all my life – there was peace in their eyes,” Rita says.
Getting sober wasn’t as easy as she had hoped, and she struggled for more than six years with sobriety and recovery. “I didn’t want to give up the feeling of getting high. It took me six years to surrender to the fact that I can’t use alcohol like other people do.”
Then she met Ollie, the man who became her sponsor. “Ollie told me that alcoholism is a disease of perception.
“He taught me that I have to be responsible for who I am. He told me that he didn’t care who my mother is, what he cared about is what kind of daughter I wanted to be and that I needed to use that thinking in every relationship I developed; that no matter how I was treated I was responsible for showing up in the world as someone I could be proud of. Because if I was proud of how I behaved and acted then I wouldn’t want to self destruct by using substances,” she said.
Today, Rita is the primary caregiver for her mother, now 88. “We have a good relationship,” she says. I’ve discovered that I have a lot of strengths, and wisdom, because of my experience and struggles.”
Over the years, Rita has volunteered as an advocate for the recovery community, sponsoring other women in recovery, speaking at conventions, prisons and retreats.
“My perception in recovery can still create emotional struggles for me. But in recovery, I have achieved a large measure of peace. I can be comfortable in my own skin and have found a place in the world where I can fit.”
3Home
Staff Spotlight
Rita Natale: Housing specialist is also advocate for those in addiction recovery
