MORAINE HOUSE RESIDENTS DETOXIFY TROUBLED SPIRITS

VALPARAISO - When Rodney Sass first encountered the Moraine House,
it wasn't as the program's director, where he sits today. It wasn't
as assistant director, where he found himself last year. Sass came
into the mens' home through a judge's order. He was a client.

"I came here in January 2003, out of jail, having been through a
lifelong substance addiction," said Sass, who has been clean and
sober for more than three years. "As part of my plea bargain, I was
assigned to the Moraine House." Sass says he had tried to quit his
addiction to alcohol and cocaine a dozen times, but always went back,
until he found the help of the Moraine House, a halfway house for 13
men who get the 12-step support, housing, and guidance they need to
learn how to live.

"My life fell apart every six or seven years," Sass said. "I'd run
away and get around people who didn't know me and I'd fool them."

Even though Sass detoxed his body while serving a sentence of four
months, it wasn't until his court-ordered program at the Moraine
House that Sass was able to detox his spirit and point his life in
another direction.

"Before this place, I had no idea what my principles were," said
Sass. "I thought that alcohol and drugs were the problem, but really
my character defects were the problem."

The Moraine House has been around since 1976 when it was founded to
help men who had gone through the medical detoxification period, but
were unable to get the critical life help they needed after this process.

The home on Lincolnway in Valparaiso provides a residence and
support. The men who live in the home must pay rent and remain clean and sober.

"Many people think, 'Hey, you made your bed, now sleep in it,'" said
Sass. "And because these are men, people think that they're the ones
who have done their kids wrong, their mom wrong, or their wife wrong.
But for chemical addicts, there is no help for men, so it just goes
on. The men go out and cheat and steal to get dope and think no one
will help them. Before this place, they stuck us in institutions and
gave us frontal lobotomies," says Sass.

Now Sass helps those who were just like him a few years back. He
works one-on-one with clients as the director of the Moraine House.