SHELTER PROGRAM FOR ADDICTS GAINS U.S. RECOGNITION

Healing Place Among Five Award Finalists

Before he began treatment at The Healing Place, John Byers says, he lost
his mother -- partly because of his drug and alcohol addictions.

"The guilt was too much to bear," recalled Byers, 40, of Louisville. He
reacted by losing everything to drugs. But while living on the streets, he
heard about The Healing Place and made his way there.

After completing the homeless shelter's recovery program, Byers is clean,
sober and an assistant staff supervisor there.

"The program has given me a whole new life, and I feel for the first time
in my life that I have friends," he said.

For its success in helping people like Byers, and because its program can
be copied in other communities, the Healing Place won $26,000 last month
for placing among the five finalists for the national Premier Cares Award.
The award is sponsored by Premier Inc., a purchasing alliance of hospitals
and health-care systems across the country.

More than 230 applicants were considered, and the top prize -- along with
$70,000 -- went to a diabetesand hypertension-management program in
Huntington, W.Va.

The Healing Place, which occupies several buildings on West Market Street,
is Louisville's largest homeless shelter and the only one with an on-site
medical clinic. It was founded by the Jefferson County Medical Society
Outreach Program.

Since it started its recovery program in 1993, a total of 1,152 people have
graduated, said Phil Marshall, president of The Healing Place. Two-thirds
of the people who complete the program are still sober a year after
starting it.

Marshall said The Healing Place will use the prize money to continue its work.

The recovery program begins when a person spends up to seven days in its
nonmedical detoxification center and decides to stay, said Jay Davidson,
chief clinical officer of The Healing Place.

What sets it apart from other programs is that participants "are
accountable to colleagues" for offenses such as tardiness or sleeping in
class, Davidson said. That means their colleagues choose the punishment.

For one person, it might mean writing an essay; for another, extra duties.

The program also includes privileges based on progress, classes on life
skills and the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"It's not clinical, it's a 12step model of peers helping peers to get them
clean and sober," Davidson said.

Thomas Gentry, 44, of Hopkinsville, is addicted to crack cocaine and
alcohol. He came to The Healing Place this week to change his life.

"I'd get up craving it everyday, and I just got tired of being sick," he said.

Gentry said he can go to anyone who has been sober for months and get
support when he needs help. "They don't tell me what to do," he said. "They
suggest what they would do."

Gentry said he is looking for a better life.

"With God's help and my willing, I never want to be dependent on that
again," he said, "but you can only do that one day at a time."