A Troubled Teen Turns His Life Around with Equine Therapy

Guy and Julie Timothy son's problems began with teenage rebelliousness and ended with a yearlong visit to Aspen Ranch where Equine Therapy and a personal trainer finally helped him make some changes. The problem behavior began with a general defiance of the family rules and progressed over a period of time to marijuana, "huffing," and heroin. "He would not come home when he was supposed to, he would not get up and go to school when he was supposed to, and any rule that we had about the house and the family he would not follow or observe," Guy recalls. This included getting up in the morning and going to school, sitting down and having dinner with the family, being home according to his curfew, and attending church on Sunday. One of the signs of his son's drug use was a surprising one - Miles became more pleasant. "When he needed drugs he was very impatient, rude, and he was actually quite mean," Guy says. "Once he went and got a fix, he was quite pleasant. I'm not making a sell for drugs, but he was a different person." The signs of drug use were typical: the smell of the marijuana, his eyes being bloodshot, sleeping all morning, and hanging out all day in the skate park instead of going to school.

The first turning point was an accident Miles had because of huffing. On the way to school one day, he stopped to get high and he passed out face first and cracked open his chin. "That scared him, and he said he needed some help. Before that, he kept denying all his drug use, so we were already looking at treatment facilities for him, and we were just going to take him if he would not admit it. But when you wake up and go to school in your pajamas, you know you've got some problems." Miles entered an outpatient drug treatment program that was a 10-week program, 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday for 3 or 4 hours a night. That's where the family found out that their son had been using different opiates, including heroin. Unfortunately, after he was discharged from the outpatient program, Miles went right back to using drugs, defying the rules, and bringing marijuana and all the paraphernalia into the house.
Finally, Guy accepted Julies advice to take more radical action. "He would not agree to go to a residential facility. I gave him fair warning that that might happen, but he never heeded the warning," Guy says. "We finally had police pick him up because he was truant. They picked him up and took him to a place called Jordan Receiving Center. That's where they put troubled youths for a day or two so the kids can calm down, and the parents can calm down, and they can come to a resolution to their issues. Then we had an escort service pick him up from the Jordan Receiving Center and take him down to the Ranch."

When they were first investigating treatment centers, they looked at three or four in Utah. "We made a list and called references and evaluated and narrowed it down to three or four," Guy remembers. "And we went and looked at Aspen Ranch, and it was the first one that we visited, and the deciding factor for us after that first visit was the equine program. None of the other facilities that we looked at offered that, and we thought that would be extremely therapeutic. I thought there were great similarities between working with horses and working with teenagers."

"What we thought would happen is that our son would get involved with working with horses and training horses and taking care of horses, and he would have the responsibility of taking care of something other than himself, and he would be thinking of something other than himself," Guy explains. "And then if he got involved in it, he would draw some parallels between getting a horse to respond to your commands and trying to get a child to follow your rules. So our hopes in his working with a horse was that he would say 'now I can understand and appreciate what my parents were going through in trying to get me to follow the rules.' We did have a great realization with my son when he said, 'I have this horse, and I can't get him to do anything that I say.' I said to him, why does that sound familiar?"

When Miles first went to the ranch, he was adamantly against the equine program. He insisted that he was not going to participate and that he hates horses. "The first problem was that he'd never been around horses, and they're big animals, so he was afraid," Guy says. "A lot of the reason why he said he hates horses is that he had to do something that he had never done before, and he had to do something that he didn't particularly want to, and he was afraid. Plus, his interest was hanging out at skate parks and doing drugs all day - not being sober and working with horses, in particular horses that aren't listening to you. But now he's a great horseman."

When they first start the program, the kids work with different horses and the staff tries to identify the horse that will help each individual based on personality. "Once a kid advances along, he gets what they call a project horse. That's a horse he can work with on training and developing," Guy explains. "The kids fill out different packets to get a higher level of privileges with the horses. It's basically homework designed to educate the student about horses, and when they complete it, they hand it off and they get a privilege." One example is the saddle packet. Each kid will work with the horses right at the beginning of the program, and they even ride them, but they cannot get a saddle until they earn one by finishing their work in the saddle packet.

Miles has been living at Aspen Ranch for close to a year, and his father reports that he's "seen a substantial difference in him, in his attitude, his countenance, and his personality. I think he has more self-confidence, and there were a couple of contributing factors to that," Guy explains. "He's developed a new skill of riding the horse, and I think he's comfortable with it and takes charge of it, so I think that's helped. I think working for ten months and clearing his mind out has helped. He also works with a personal trainer that the ranch subcontracts with has. He's not full of so much hate and anger as he was before he went to the ranch. I think the biggest change that we've seen in him besides going from hating horses to loving horses and wanting to buy a horse, is that I think there was a window that opened up, the 'Aha! I think I can understand what my parents meant or what they felt.' It was the recognition of what it's like with the shoe on the other foot."

Another factor that Guy says was a tremendous help was the personal trainer Miles works with at the Ranch. "The Ranch sub-contracts with an ex Navy Seal to give training to the boys, to help build and promote their confidence that way. I think that has had the greatest effect on his confidence. It's weightlifting and exercising. It's going through Navy Seal training without all the water. So they stretch, they lift weights, they run, they do sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups. He has increased his weight and increased his muscle mass. When these kids are on drugs and they're trying to get sober, I think health is really important. So he looks good, he feels good, and he's got more confidence."

Recently, Guy & Julie went to the Ranch for a two-day parent course where he did the rope course with his son and participated in recreational therapy. The rope course is an activity designed to teach team building. "My son and I had to climb what they called the Giant Ladder, which is a huge ladder attached to a cable at the top and it swings at the bottom. You have to try to climb it using each other and not using your harness, rope, or the side cables. It was great, and we made it to the top." On Friday, the program was Equine Therapy, and Guy and Julie had a chance to go trail riding with his son. He liked it so much, he's decided his son's desire to get his own horse is a good idea. He's been looking at horses, but in the meantime, " I have a few neighbors and friends who have horses already that Miles can work with and ride and take care of. And I have a friend who does horse trail rides in the canyon, and Miles is more than welcome to go up there and help him run tours and take care of the horses," Guy says.

Another thing that has improved is his son's grades. "He went from straight F's and failing school, to getting A's and B's, which is fantastic," Guy reports. "The only disappointing thing involving academics at the Ranch is that the kids work at their own pace. At first I thought, that's great. They can get focused, they can get motivated, they can get a lot of schooling done. They can get caught up if they're behind; they can get ahead. That's what I think I would do, so I assumed that's what he would do. But in the case of my son, he was only motivated in those classes or with those instructors that he likes. But when he doesn't care for the instructor or it's a subject he's not interested in, he's not getting much accomplished."

Miles is due for another home visit, and if it turns out to be a good visit, he will be completing the program at Aspen Ranch very soon. His father has lined up a full-time job for him, and plans for him to continue his education. However, Guy is worried because Miles has expressed his belief that he does not think he will have problems any more if he decides he wants to take up smoking marijuana and smoking cigarettes again. "It's every parent's fear that their child is going to make decisions that are going to lead to the wrong path again," Guy says. "I think that, unfortunately, there's so much widespread, casual drug use that Miles believes that if he wanted to casually use marijuana and smoke cigarettes, he'd be just fine. I hope they're working on that with him."

Guy and Julie have spoken of his fears with Miles' personal trainer, and the trainer has started addressing the issue with Miles. "We have the personal trainer working with him and telling him how counterproductive it would be to smoke," Guy says. "And the personal trainer has actually got Miles contemplating going to college because he realized that he could get a degree in physical fitness. There are two or three areas that he can go in and get a degree in the sport's medicine, physical fitness area that he's never thought of before, so now he's interested in going to college. He's thinking beyond high school."

The family is looking forward to his son returning home and working with him at his printing press as a print finisher, which he acknowledges Miles has a talent for. "I would absolutely recommend Equine Therapy for helping troubled teens," Guy declares. "I would recommend Equine Therapy and physical fitness and the personal trainer. It's one thing to get your mind straight, but it's another thing to get your body in great physical shape. You get the high of working out, you know what it's like to feel fit, and you can actually run a mile and not be winded." Everyone is hoping that Miles now realizes that being healthy is the greatest high there is.