How do you catch a dream? Think about it. Fantastical things happen in our dreams. We fly through the air unaided by jetpacks; we swim underwater without tanks; feasts appear without the effort of cooking; houses designed by the likes of Escher expand as needed; and loved ones who are lost to us return with ease.

And then we wake up.

Sometimes we catch only the shadow of the dream in our waking life. There is an ephemeral edge we grasp to amuse and perhaps delight our reality-based lives. Sometimes those impossible dreams inspire us.

We weave dream fragments together making enough of an incomplete image to build into a tangible plan. Things as diverse as the sewing machine and Frankenstein came to be through the medium of a dream.

Imagine with me that you are a woman who was abused as a child. From an early age she learned that reality held great pain. Her dream, a child’s dream, was a life free from hurt where she would be safe. Often, as she grew older, she chased that dream down two parallel streets: men who told her she would “only” be safe with them, and through the numbing release of drugs and alcohol. That illusory dream evolved into a nightmare of quicksand from which escape seemed impossible. Where can she turn? Who can she trust?

Alcohol Drug Abuse Women’s Center, now in our 32nd year, was the dream of women in recovery and women from a faith community. This dream provides a safe place for addicted women to abandon the nightmare of abuse, and catch a new dream of life in sobriety with all the promises of health and wholeness that we offer. It is not a fantasy, but successful recovery seems to be an impossible dream for the adult woman mired in addiction, and for the small hurt child inside her, who is still yearning for a safe life free from pain.

The board of directors and the staff of the ADA Women’s Center invite you to recognize and thank Professor Kathryn Cunningham, director of the University of Texas Medical Branch Center for Addiction Research for her dedication to unlocking the mysteries of brain science as they relate to addiction. Through her scientific research and her mentoring of the next generation of brain scientists, she has made significant contributions to our understanding of the addiction-reward pathways that reinforce addictive behavior.

Not content to confine her efforts to academia alone, Dr. Cunningham has looked for ways to guide community treatment and educational programs that change the trajectory of lives trapped in addiction. ADA Women’s Center is one program that has helped over 4,000 women find a way to recapture the dream of a new life after years of addiction. Kathryn Cunningham has the vision to make a dream like that real. We honor her as an Angel Among Us.

Our Angels Among Us Luncheon and Silent Auction will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 5 at Hotel Galvez at 2024 Seawall Blvd. in Galveston. For ticket information, call 409-763-5516, Ext. 9 or email r.crockett@adawomenscenter.org.