CLIENT TESTIMONIALS

At the end of three months, I was single, happy and had a sense of belonging. I experienced inner clarity and strength. I'm not crazy, I don't need someone to fix me, I'm not a depressive, I'm not helpless and there's nothing 'wrong' with me.
If I could sum-up the 11 months since I left Oasis in one word it would be 'joy'. I'm back at work and live in a beautiful flat on my own. I reconnected with friends and hobbies and have been on so many adventures. What Kathryn, Frank, Landi and the team did for me was indeed to bestow the 'greatest gift'; a loving relationship with myself.
The consequences of my eating disorder almost cost me everything. After an 18 year battle, I gave into it completely and nearly lost custody of my daughter, my home and landed myself in debt as a result of quitting my job. After showing signs of heart failure, my family grew desperate and sent me to Oasis.
I found my time at Oasis surprisingly comfortable and found the nurses and counsellors to be very caring. The food and grounds are beautiful. I loved my groups and the freedom we got. I am also very grateful for the life changing experience it has given me.
Fast forward 2 years, and there I was in the midst of another relationship impasse. My life was on hold, as I waited to see if my partner would take me back. He blamed me for everything that was wrong in the relationship and I intuitively knew that this wasn't true, but where to draw the line? And why was I clinging on to yet another failing relationship?
So if you're thinking of going, ask yourself this: "am I worth taking 3 months out of a lifetime to really get to know myself, and to learn how to love and approve of myself?"; then just go, you won't regret it.
Trying to encapsulate my experience of Oasis in words is hard. I came to Oasis, not just broken, but believing that was my lot in life. I had no hope for the future, I was unfixable. I’ve been to numerous different treatment centres throughout my years of attempting to be in recovery and always came out of them feeling misunderstood like they had tried to put me into a box I didn’t fit into.
A lot of sh*t happens in two months,” I joked with my counsellor. It just slipped out during a session. But it is so true! I arrived at this wonderful place in Plettenberg Bay from Spain in a bad condition. And yet I have had found a way to a sober life with the Oasis team.
Having been in and out of recovery for over 20 years and relapsing after multiple years of sobriety, I arrived at Oasis totally broken and without hope. Having done the rounds of rehabs over the years, 14 in total, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I believe Frank and Kathryn and their team at Oasis are some of the best in the business.
They pushed me to go beyond my substance abuse and address the self-narrative and underlying behaviours and self-beliefs that kept taking me back to relapse. Having been in their care, I am still going strong.I would have no problem recommending Oasis to anyone suffering with their addiction. If they can help me they can really help anyone. Signed with so much hope and gratitude.
It's so difficult to put into words what Oasis did for me. If anyone asks me how it was, I respond 'an absolute game changer'. My CoDA sponsor said to me when I was coming to the decision to go "this is the greatest gift you can give yourself", and she was right.
These questions plus three other goals made me go to Oasis for co-dependency i) to stop the story from repeating itself once and for all, ii) to have a safe place whilst my relationship was on hold and iii) to hopefully save my relationship. Having been in 12 step recovery and therapy for 5 years, I really wasn't convinced Oasis could teach me anything new, but I took my therapist and sponsor's advice and asked myself to be open-minded.
Where do I start, oasis was the greatest experience of my life. I came in thinking every excuse under the sun of why I had issues with alcohol, where I lived, Covid, job etc... and I’m so great full of the oasis team to see through everything and get the truth out of me. My life was spinning out of control and i just assumed it was life. Although I found it hard to speak and open up oasis was patient and I felt comfortable speaking with my counselor. I could see it wasn’t just a job for her, it was her passion. Eventually she broke me into a million pieces and took out all the bad parts and glued me back together. Today I feel the best I’ve felt for years and everything is falling into place. Had I kept on as I was I would of been jobless, broke, homeless and eventually on my own or dead. Thank you team oasis!
I’m a broken man” I found myself admitting to my counsellor one afternoon in London earlier this year… Finding myself in circumstances that had resulted in my feeling friendless, lifeless and directionless… Wondering how I had got to here and whether I would be able to climb out of it.
It was this crisis in my middle age that took me away from my home, my wife and my family, to find a cause… And, I hoped, a spiritual solution to my addiction which I had for so many years sought as a palliative for this disease in my life. As I’d spent a good proportion of my using years in isolation from everyone,I decided that the best form of rehabilitation for me would be in a community of similar sufferers. One that is run by those either in recovery from addiction or with clinical experience of the problems of addiction, ably supported by a pool of support staff well versed in the sensitive issues surrounding active addiction. I very quickly followed advice and the recommendation that I seek help from the team at Oasis in South Africa, whose sentiment “Alone We Can’t, Together We Can” has underpinned my recovery. To this end my weeks spent at the Plettenberg Bay practice consisted of one-to-one therapy sessions with a personal counsellor, scheduled within a structured day of group sessions with all the clients in the community, set written exercises following themes in treatment, interaction on personal experiences in addiction and detailed analysis of the Twelve Step programme. Physical and spiritual needs complimentary to formal presentational work were provided by daily walks to and along a spectacular nearby beach, regular yoga classes and mindfulness discussions, together with a full programme of carefully planned weekend activities. Every evening after dinner, in preparation for recovery after Oasis, all clients attend a local designated Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meeting organised by, and for, local people of the kind familiar around the world. In keeping with a strict policy of anonymity this review of my experience at Oasis will be not be accredited, but I do exist… And while I will always be an addict, my hope is that I am no longer a lost man.
When I came to Oasis, I was an individual who had lost all hope. The peaceful setting was very calming. All of the general staff were very helpful and friendly. I found the counsellors very professional and knowledgeable. Their pragmatic approach to structured and disciplined living was extremely well received. I left having been reintroduced to the positive individual I was prior to my using days, comfortable with the fact that I had been given all the tools I shall need in my recovery.
Here's a little background on why I went to Oasis. Two years prior, when I met my therapist, at the beginning of what was to be the end of a 13 year relationship, he said to me 'you're definitely co-dependent and if I could recommend anything, it would be for you to go to residential treatment for this'. At the time I didn't have the resources to go.
At the end of three months, I was single, happy and had a sense of belonging. I experienced inner clarity and strength. I'm not crazy, I don't need someone to fix me, I'm not a depressive, I'm not helpless and there's nothing 'wrong' with me.
If I could sum-up the 11 months since I left Oasis in one word it would be 'joy'. I'm back at work and live in a beautiful flat on my own. I reconnected with friends and hobbies and have been on so many adventures. What Kathryn, Frank, Landi and the team did for me was indeed to bestow the 'greatest gift'; a loving relationship with myself.
How to sum up my experience of Oasis... I came to Oasis desperate; having tried therapy, NHS inpatient, day patient, outpatient programmes for the last ten years and 12 step meetings for the last four. I have a mind that can scream at me, be very paranoid and think horrible things about myself and others. I had managed to get some clean time from drugs and alcohol but my binging and purging, the part of my addiction that I hated the most, was getting worse and worse. I had no idea how to handle the shame, isolation and intense emotions that came with it.
I am not sure why I decided to come to treatment now, I have been desperate and tired  of everything for a long time.  Rehab had been suggested to me before but I never followed through with it. This time, when suggested by another therapist I didn’t give myself time to think about it, I just threw myself into it.