A Wayzata retreat returns to addiction treatment’s roots, rejecting costly psychiatric and pharmaceutical methods to make it more affordable.

By CHEN MAY YEE, Star Tribune

Last update: August 3, 2008 – 8:28 AM

Ten years ago, a small group of people frustrated by the rising cost of treating addiction decided to try to turn back the clock.

Managed care was eroding the Minnesota Model, the residential treatment programs that made the state the place to go to get sober. Hundreds of treatment centers around the country were closing as insurers tried to cut costs. The survivors, such as the famed Hazelden Foundation, were under pressure to show clinical results. They added medical staff, pushing prices beyond the reach of many.

The little group tried a different path.

They eschewed the clinical psychiatry and pharmaceuticals embraced by the rest of the industry, going back to the roots of the treatment movement: a full month’s residence, surrender to a higher power and support from a community of former addicts.

“We went in a direction nobody was going — simpler, more affordable,” said John Curtiss, a longtime Hazelden executive who left to start the new venture.

They called it “The Retreat.”

Now housed in a former nuns’ retreat in Wayzata’s Big Woods, it offers a one-month residential program for about $4,000, about one-seventh of what Hazelden charges. Its outcomes are comparable to that of other major centers, with 50 percent of those who come through abstaining from alcohol and drugs for 12 months afterward, Curtiss said.

Ten years after its inception, The Retreat hasn’t exactly reversed the course of American addiction treatment, which continues to get more expensive. But it has thrived and spawned similar centers in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Auckland, New Zealand; and Hong Kong.

“The Retreat is a model for the nation of affordable treatment that works,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, a recovering alcoholic and longtime national advocate for better access to treatment. He is a regular volunteer at the Retreat.

Making access affordable

On a recent morning, two dozen women gather in a sun-filled room to study the “Big Book,” the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous. Young and old, they bend over the volumes, pages heavily underlined.

Ralph C., a bearded, bow-tied volunteer, is talking about spiritual surrender.

“Is it possible that there is a power that has more horsepower out there?” asks Ralph C., who uses just his first name in line with AA’s philosophy. “Am I beginning to suspect it’s not another man who’s going to fix this? Or a counselor or a drink?”

Quit trying to play God, he tells them.

They are among the few who have managed to get affordable help on the road to recovery. Many others never do. In 2006, 23.6 million people age 12 or older needed treatment for addiction, but only 2.5 million, or 10 percent, got it, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Cost is often a barrier — with most programs charging $30,000 or more for a month-long stay. Not all insurance covers treatment, and not all centers accept insurance.

The Retreat draws half of its patients from Minnesota, the rest from as far away as India and Australia. The average age is 38 and most have college educations.

The program isn’t for everyone. With no clinical staff, the typical client is medically stable and highly motivated. Eighty percent have been through previous treatments.

“We wanted to create a dignified, safe place to go, away from the burning house of addiction,” Curtiss said.

If they’re suicidal or otherwise need medical help, the Retreat refers them to Hazelden. Other centers in turn refer patients here.

“They have a niche,” said Ron Hunsicker, president of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. But the fact that the program hasn’t been copied by many suggests its clientele may be limited, Hunsicker said. More addicts are showing up for treatment these days needing medical care.

But William Moyers, executive director of Hazelden’s Center for Public Advocacy, differs. “I believe the Retreat is the future of recovery,” he said. “It’s crucial to replicate it.” There is a need for cheaper alternatives for those who relapse, he said.

It was the Retreat, Moyers said, that inspired Hazelden to start its Lodge program in 2002, a nonclinical retreat on its Center City campus.

Letting go of insurance

Curtiss was a patient at Hazelden in the 1970s and returned as a counselor. He worked his way up to vice president of Hazelden’s national operations, overseeing multibillion-dollar expansions into New York and Chicago.

In the early 1990s, health insurers, anxious to cut costs, were scrutinizing chemical dependency programs. As insurers insisted on medical diagnoses, addiction centers duly produced them.

“You want to see pathology? We’ll show you lots of pathology,” said Curtiss, describing the mood of the day. As centers hired more medical staff, costs went up further.

Others were uneasy.

“We were going down the wrong path, trying very hard to make alcoholism into a mental illness,” said Dr. George Mann, former director of treatment at St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis, now part of Fairview Health Services.

Mann, Curtiss and others began meeting to discuss solutions. In 1998, with a grant from the Johnson Institute, they opened a facility with 20 beds in the old Pillsbury mansion in Minnetrista. Curtiss staffed and furnished it for the grand sum of $177,000.

The Retreat didn’t register as a treatment center. Instead, it is regulated by the state Department of Health as “board and lodging.” It has grown into an 80-bed campus in Wayzata and runs 54 sober living beds in St. Paul for program graduates.

Over the decade, about 3,500 clients have come through the monthlong program, a third of those with financial help provided by donations. The center doesn’t have contracts with insurers.

Stoked by volunteers

In any month, 250 volunteers lead chapel services at The Retreat, drive patients or teach the “Big Book.” They not only help keep costs down, they form a vital safety net of recovering addicts.

Alcoholism is “not a disease where people bake casseroles and come over,” said Dee L., a volunteer wearing a business suit and pearls. A client three years ago, Dee now returns often to tell her story. She does it as much for herself as for them: “This is how I stay sober.”

Even board members continue to work for free. The top executive, Curtiss, is paid $140,000 a year.

An early volunteer at The Retreat was Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods.”

Zimmern left New York City and checked into Hazelden in 1992, in his words: “a homeless, alcohol- and drug-addled wreck.” He credits Hazelden for saving his life. Luckily for Zimmern, his former business partner had continued to pay his health premiums, so insurance covered his treatment.

After he left, Zimmern became concerned that too many people couldn’t afford the same. So he volunteers at the Retreat.

“We all know recovery works at its simplest,” he said, “when one alcoholic talks to another.”

Chen May Yee • 612-673-7434

Ingrid Faust
2/7/2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. – John Curtiss, President of the Community of Recovering People board of directors and The Retreat will be honored with the Johnson Institute’s annual “Advancing Help and Hope” for Lifetime Achievement award at the Founder’s Dinner on April 24, 2008 at the Golden Valley Country Club, in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

“John Curtiss’ practical and consistent endeavor to reduce barriers to recovery is legendary in Minnesota and across America. He is never lost in things as they might be, but ever leading to things as they can be,” Mike Sime, Chairman of the Johnson Institute board said. “Things are different for many because John came our way.”

Curtiss is one of the principle designers of The Retreat model. Prior to his employment with The Retreat, John was employed by the Hazelden Foundation for over 19 years. In his years at Hazelden, John served as Vice President of Hazelden’s National Continuum, Executive Director of Hazelden’s Outreach Services, Executive Director of Fellowship Club, Hazelden’s intermediate care facility in St. Paul, MN, Unit Supervisor of two of Hazelden’s primary treatment units and as a chemical dependency counselor. John has a Masters Degree in Health Care Administration from the College of Saint Mary’s, is a graduate of Hazelden’s Counselor Training Program, a licensed counselor in the State of Minnesota and a Nationally Certified Recovery Specialist.

Past recipients of the Advancing Help and Hope Lifetime Achievement Award include, George Bloom (2005), an instrumental figure in the success of the Johnson Institute; Representative Jim Ramstad (2006), for his giving unselfishly to the recovery community as an outspoken advocate on Capitol Hill for the millions of people in recovery from addiction illness; Victor Capoccia Ph.D. (2007), senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where he led the Addiction Prevention and Treatment Team and also focused on developing skills and career paths for front line health and health care workers.

The Johnson Institute also proud to be giving the Fifth Annual “Irene and Wheelock Whitney Award” to Father Bill Wigmore. He is Chief Executive Officer of Austin Recovery, the largest chemical dependency treatment center in Central Texas.

“Bill Wigmore’s story and service of recovery illustrates the nexus of faith and science through the thousands of individuals and families he has touched in his journey,” said Sime. “The doorway of Austin Recovery is a practical application of the Biblical suggestion to ‘feed my sheep.’ His reach to the last, the lost, and the least is an example to all who believe service is the key to lasting recovery and peace.”

In his recovery from alcoholism, Father Wigmore found his true calling, helping others heal through the power of both faith and science. Bringing the skills and gifts of an Episcopal priest, counselor, caring administrator and fellow pilgrim he helps his flock experience healing and recovery, offering to the recovering community a weekly communion service, “The Fellowship of the Prodigal.”

The Johnson Institute’s Irene and Wheelock Whitney Award is given annually to an individual who has advanced the understanding of faith and science in addiction prevention and recovery. Through research, teaching, writing or service, the individual must demonstrate that both the power of spirituality and religion and the power of medicine are important to the prevention, intervention and treatment of alcohol and other drug addiction.

Past recipients of the Irene and Wheelock Whitney Award include Dr. James B. Nelson, a well-known and highly respected theologian, teacher and author of “Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience;” University of New Mexico professor and author Dr. William R. Miller for his groundbreaking work in addiction illness recovery through his many works linking spirituality and recovery; Dr. Robert Albers, a noted Lutheran pastor, author, and pastoral care theologian who has devoted his professional life to helping clergy understand the disease of addiction; and Rev. Dr. Kenneth Robinson for implemented major ministries of community education, alcohol and drug abuse prevention, emergency sustenance, family life enrichment, children services, academic skills enhancement, and economic development.

The award’s namesake, Wheelock Whitney, and his late wife Irene, were co-founders of the Johnson Institute. The Whitney’s have made significant and numerous contributions to the Twin Cities recovery community. They were instrumental in creating the St. Mary’s Alcoholism Treatment Unit. They created Family Care and Counseling at JI – insisting that the family is critical to a person’s recovery. Irene and Wheelock Whitney were also helpful in setting up the first adolescent treatment program, a halfway house for youth.

The Johnson Institute, throughout its 40-year history, has pioneered practices that enhance awareness, intervention, treatment and recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction. Founded by Vernon Johnson in 1965, the Johnson Institute today mobilizes and trains people in recovery for advocacy campaigns, conducts policy research and promotes congregational team ministries through its offices in Minneapolis; Austin,Texas; and Washington, D.C.

Tickets to the Founders Dinner are available by calling 612.331.5600. Tickets and table sponsors will also be available on our website soon. www.johnsoninstitute.org.

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