We had the good fortune of connecting with Rob Decker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rob, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?

Our primary objective is to create a shame free environment and bring awareness to addiction, recovery and mental health by creating softball teams that provide that group of individuals that supports those causes.

We have men and women that have been through some form of mental health struggles, have fought addiction themselves or have a loved one that is currently going through major traumatic obstacles in their life and need assistance or seeking recovery themselves.

We need to talk about suicide, addiction, trauma in a mindful and loving way by bringing these topics to life by having people willing to come together and to make that happen.

Our People need to know that they are not alone in what seems to be a hopeless and tragic road.

With that being said, Rise As Lions & Recovery Rebels Softball wants to be a resource for them and nothing says, ‘Hey, we are on the same team’, like being on the same team.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

This movement is a deeply connected to my personal experiences of recovery from a failed suicide attempt, drug and alcohol addiction, childhood trauma, and the love for sports and GOD. All of that has become my driving force to help others.

Through Rise As Lions and Recovery Rebels Softball, we were able to create a fun and sober environment to show people that healing is possible and there are others that support you and get you. We can at least, through other peoples variety of personal experiences, trials & triumphs, show others that there are many ways to approach healing and/or recovery. We have folks from many walks of life on our teams.

The most challenging part in the giving back process has been personally breaking free and taking ownership of my own life before having an stable life and valuable ability to help others in their journeys.

The 1st team we created was sparked by a close friend that was struggling in their own addiction and mental health. He was in a sports environment that encouraged use, so to help him, we started our 1st team. After that, others saw what were were doing and wanted to be a part of the team. We had to build more teams.

We want others to know that it’s okay to talk about the hard stuff. That healing does exist and there are people out there that care about you and have walked similar paths. Most of us have experienced it ourselves and made it out on the other side, but that still doesn’t exclude the fact that most of us are all still healing, learning and growing.

This is bigger than softball, but that is our form of community outreach.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

I would definitely treat them to Slice420 the Mountain Man pizza and lemon cheesecake. They have many amazing items on the menu, but those are my favorite.

Manitou Springs and the Incline Hike are some of my favorite spots to go walk and hike.

I would definitely invite them to one of my scheduled classes at The Phoenix, so they could meet some of the wonderful souls in recovery that I have the privilege of coaching through physical fitness.

I would also bring them to my work at EmbarkPCA so that they could see what it looks like to come out of addiction and working on recovery through transitional living.

I would invite them to my current church, Trace so they could see the spiritual side of where I get my hope.

We would have to hit up Tito’s Taco Truck so they taste the emergence of Persian and Puerto Rica delicacy.

Of course we would have to workout at my personal home business and gym, Kingdom F.I.T.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Dr. Eric Sandras of The Sanctuary Church in Colorado Springs. He is a faith based recovery pillar in our beloved community.

Website: RiseAsLions.Org RobDeckerSpeaks.Com

Instagram: Decker_Rob

Linkedin: Rob Decker

Facebook: Rob Decker

Image Credits
Bre White Phil Harding

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