Here’s what one noted addiction recovery advocate had to say about The Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa and its mission of offering treatment.

Original Article Featured in The Patch
By Ryan Phillips, Patch Staff

Posted Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 12:52 pm CT | Updated Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 12:59 pm CT

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Dave Durocher, a reformed felon, recovering addict and current executive director of The Other Side Academy, has made a name for himself in advocating for fresh approaches to addiction recovery and recently paid a visit to Alabama to connect with those at The Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa.

Located in the former West End Christian School, the Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa is a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility founded in the late 1960s, which has operated as its current incarnation since 1972.

As Patch has previously reported, clients utilizing the services offered at The Phoenix House typically come from the court system, jails, and the local homeless population.

Durocher is far from a stranger to the struggles faced by those seeking help through nonprofits like The Phoenix House. Indeed, by the time Durocher turned 38 years old, he had been to prison four times for a total of 15 years.

However, his life would be changed forever when a judge gave him the chance to avoid prison in favor of committing to a program at Delancey Street — a residential treatment program in the San Francisco area that offered long-term help for those battling the disease of addiction.

Watch Durocher’s TED Talk from 2016 below.

Durocher would go on to stay at Delancy Street for eight years and went on to become managing director of the nonprofit’s Los Angeles facility for five. During this time, he oversaw 250 residents and numerous vocational training school businesses that funded the operation.

“At Delancy Street, I got to stay there for 8 years because I could,” Durocher told Patch. “It afforded me the opportunity to stay in the mode of practice for as long as I needed to and that’s what we need more of.”

He then set out on his life’s work at The Other Side Academy in Salt Lake City — a two-year life skills academy similar to Delancey Street and The Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa.

“In my opinion, we’re killing more people than we’re helping,” Durocher explained of the longstanding approach to addiction treatment. “We’ve shortened the model and unfortunately treatment facilities in general, 50 years ago when they started, were for much longer [durations], then the government got involved to make the time shorter, shorter, and shorter. Length of time is critical. If someone has been a drug addict and criminal for 20 years, anybody who thinks they are going to get well in 30 days is more sick than the person who has been doing it for 20 years.”

Durocher was quick to praise the commitment to the long-term offered by the Phoenix House, which focuses on the initial 90 days for its clients while placing an emphasis on regimented schedules consisting of recovery activities, employment assistance, and case management.

At The Phoenix House, as Patch has previously reported, the program then transitions after the first 90 days and for the remainder of the first year of treatment to focus on housing, full-time employment, continued recovery, and help on the legal end of cases such as graduating from drug court programs, remaining in compliance with court orders, and the reinstatement of driving privileges.

But it’s the treatment after that crucial first year that The Phoenix House hopes to build upon, especially considering the lack of a three-year residential recovery program in Alabama.

“Can we get people clean and sober? Absolutely. But we can throw them in a jail cell, in insolation for a year and they’re clean and sober,” Durocher said. “If we don’t work on behavior change, drug addicts will continually use over and over again. It’s getting worse because we’re not responding to it correctly. There is no science that says 30, 60, or 90 days is the optimal time for a drug addict to get better. The science will prove the longer you’re in a treatment model, the better your odds are for success.”

Despite the limitations faced at present by The Phoenix House as it relates to the nonprofit’s day-t0-day capabilities and funding, Durocher pointed to the residential and employment components offered as being a crucial foundation to build upon. It’s a model, he says, that should be the norm as it relates to treating addiction.

“If you can get someone into treatment and it’s funded by the social enterprises for a long time, they can learn right living, learn to tell the truth and learn to manage their emotions before you put a dollar in their hands so they can go back to using,” he said. “The Phoenix house is doing a lot of things right. It’s residential and has a graduate component, that you can stay in for a long time, and that is absolutely essential.”

Indeed, The Phoenix House’s treatment facility is funded by the state, while its graduate housing is paid for by clients who have chosen to stay in the program longer.

“The longer you are connected to a healthy community, the better your odds of success going forward,” Durocher said. “People will tell you they learned more in the graduate component, where peer interaction is so important and many treatment facilities don’t have that. So if you can take a strong organization like The Phoenix House, which has incredible leadership, and help them make it longer and more self-sustaining, we can impact far more lives.”

Former Tuscaloosa County Sheriff Ted Sexton is the executive director of The Phoenix House of Tuscaloosa and brings a unique perspective to the role, along with a keen awareness of issues on the street that often make their way to the nonprofit in the form of clients.

“I know now that with Ted leading the organization, he is doing everything in his power and deserves the opportunity to gain the public’s trust,” Durocher said. “They are the right people right now for the job, what do you have to lose? Right now they have great leadership we need to get behind them.”