Boulevard of new dreams

Posted by admin on May 17, 2007 under MASH Members, Pioneer Press, St. Paul | Comments are off for this article

Sourced from Faces and Voices of Recovery.

The boulevard of new dreams: Recovering alcoholics take a symbolic stroll down Grand Avenue, the street that historically offers them community and support as they pursue lives of sobriety.

Laura Yuen
Pioneer Press

May 17, 2007

When recovering alcoholics move into one of Chris Edrington’s St. Paul sober houses, he tells them not to find God, but to find coffee.

Go to Grand Avenue, Edrington instructs.

On St. Paul’s trendiest boulevard, many of the folks sipping or serving lattes have wrestled with addictions. And for the past couple of decades, they have fueled the area’s reputation as Recovery Row. “When you get out, no matter where you live, you’ve got to go where other alcoholics hang out,” said Edrington, who owns eight sober houses in St. Paul, all of them within walking distance of Grand Avenue. “There’s nothing more powerful.”

On Wednesday, Edrington and several dozen other recovering addicts ambled along the avenue’s sidewalks for their first-ever “Grand Sobriety Stroll.” They hugged, laughed and filled up on free coffee along the way. Recovery Works!, a group that aims to raise awareness of recovery, coordinated the event. The walk was a metaphor for Jo Campe, a recovering alcoholic and pastor of downtown St. Paul’s so-called “Recovery Church” at Central Park United Methodist.

“There were lots of years where we didn’t walk in public through many parts of our lives,” Campe said. “To be out in public like this is claiming back our humanity and sense of purpose.”

Many in the recovery community fondly refer to their adopted state as “The Land of 10,000 Treatment Centers.” During the past 20 years, Grand Avenue has become an unofficial hub for addicts from all over the world who are trying to stay clean.

Some of them gravitated to the neighborhood after spending time at Hazelden’s Fellowship Club on nearby West Seventh Street, one of the nation’s first halfway houses.

“The easiest place to find employment in bookstores and coffee shops was the Grand Avenue neighborhood,” said Andrew Wainwright, executive director of Addiction Intervention Resources in St. Paul. “Like all human beings, you’re going to say, ‘Where’s the nice neighborhood? Where are the outdoor cafes?’ We’re attracted to beautiful places with nice people.”

More recently, St. Paul has also seen the rise of sober houses. These arrangements represent the last tier of care – groups of recovering addicts who share privately operated rental homes. Unlike halfway houses, sober houses are not regulated by the city, and there are no clinicians on site.

“My model is single-family homes in nice neighborhoods so you feel like you’re back in a normal society and no longer in a facility,” said Edrington, a recovering heroin addict who owns St. Paul Sober Living facilities.

But some neighbors have complained about the proliferation of sober houses, which offer an estimated 400 beds in the city. And even within the recovery community, not everyone is happy with the model. Sober houses don’t account for relapses, which are often part of the recovery process, said Ashley Stanley, a spokeswoman for St. Paul-based Addiction Recovery Professionals who used to help run sober houses. While she supports the concept, Stanley also advocates more structured support and protocol if someone has a lapse in judgment.

“What’s happening is someone relapses, and the locks are changed on them, and they have to pack their bags and leave at that moment,” she said.

Edrington, though, says the model has evolved over the past few years. He and other sober-house landlords are forming a new statewide group, the Minnesota Association of Sober Homes. The group will demand that its members promote sobriety and make sure the living spaces they provide are clean and safe, he said. On Wednesday, Courtney Lubrant and friend Matthew Frost walked side by side from Snelling Avenue to Grotto Street. Lubrant, 21, has been sober for just over a year. The Crystal native said she never met as many sober people in the community until she settled into St. Paul after treatment. At the Caribou Coffee on Grand and Grotto, she draws inspiration from an older generation of recovering alcoholics who remind her to take it one day at a time.

Wainwright, of Addiction Intervention Resources, calls another coffeehouse, the Starbucks at Grand Avenue and Victoria Street, the “ground zero” of recovery.

“All you would need to do was walk in and have your life put together in a half-hour,” he said. “I’ve gotten phone messages there. It’s the place.”

Laura Yuen can be reached at lyuen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5498.

Copyright 2007 St. Paul Pioneer Press