IN NORTH CAROLINA, A TOWN TURNS HAVEN FOR RECOVERY AND HOPE

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - When Steve Sorrells got out of a Louisiana rehab clinic
where he'd fought his crystal meth habit, his counselor had a final bit of
advice: Find a new city to live in. Check out Asheville, N.C.

And that's exactly where Mr. Sorrells went. Ironically, this mountain city
of misty vistas lies just beneath the canyons where meth manufacturing is
on the rise, and where moonshiners and revenuers once scrapped it out with
mash barrels and axes.

Today, the city has a hippie aura, with tie-dye shops, the Earth Guild
moving in where Woolworth's used to be, and the Mellow Mushroom restaurant
hosting "Totally Trippy Trivia Night!" But despite the mini-Seattle feel,
this gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains is a new and unusual sanctuary for
hundreds of current and former drug addicts fighting to break free of their
histories.

"In the past few months, I've met a dozen people just like me who have just
moved here," says Sorrells, a former Atlanta business owner who struggled
for years before beating his addiction in 2003.

Experts say these new enclaves of ex-addicts are signs of America's
increasing sympathy for its growing legions of people strugglingwith, or
recovering from, addiction. In fact, estimates now put the
recovering-addict population at between seven and 14 percent of all US
males - enough for dozens of Ashevilles.

Still, stigmas - in these conservative mountains as elsewhere - remain. And
with recovering addicts come more of the plain down and out, flocking here
in large numbers and congregating on street corners and in the tiny, busy
Pritchard Park.

"The big secret in the drug-addiction world is that if addicts can find
alternatives to drugs, they typically do so. And moving to a new community
that offers rich nondrug alternatives makes it easier to start over," says
Gene Heyman, a drug and addiction researcher at Harvard Medical School. "On
the other hand, from the community's perspective, you have people coming in
who have many problems - and that can create conflicts and concern."

Today, Asheville is one of a handful of boroughs from St. Paul, Minn., to
Manhattan that top the destination lists of ex-addicts wary of returning to
the siren calls of their former haunts. These cities tend to be gritty, but
artsy, places where the harsher realities of city life are on display
alongside art openings and late-night cafes. Here in Asheville, there's
also a strong religious backbone, a growing number of available service
jobs, and a broad community of recovery support groups and counselors.
What's more, the cost of living is relatively low, with lots of free things
to do - from fairs to hikes in the Pisgah Forest.

"For people recovering from the trauma that accompanies these syndromes,
Asheville has become a place where they can get their life back," says Sam
Sutker, a logistics coordinator at the Asheville-based Voices for Recovery
organization. "There's an underlay of support that goes from the personal
to the metaphysical: It's a hip city, yet we have the oldest mountains in
the world and the third-oldest river. The fact is, people have been coming
here for healing for a long time."

They come on a hunch or a recommendation. Ryan Dieterich has been here two
weeks, and he already feels like a new man. He's staying in a modest dorm
room at the Western Carolina Rescue Mission, one of several groups that are
flourishing here, catering to ex-addicts.

For him, as for many, Asheville has become a crucial reprieve, a halfway
house between addiction and lives back home. One lanky man in a starched
work-shirt says he came to sober up. "I needed to get 400 miles away from
home," he says.

Beyond a sense of purpose, outsiders have brought new economic promise for
a city that was reeling from job losses in the late '80s and early '90s.
Many ex-addicts work as janitors or clerks in the booming tourist industry.
Most attend church regularly and go to a variety of support groups -
Asheville has dozens. And though some leave, many stay. Sorrells works with
several other recovered addicts at a shop where the owners know of their pasts.

"The workforce is getting over the idea that being a recovering addict is a
bad thing," says David Rosenker, vice president of treatment at the Caron
Foundation in Wernersville, Pa. "Many people who go to treatment come back
a better employee than they were before. They have a great work ethic and
they do very, very well."

Today, police don't arrest people for vagrancy as much as they once did and
there's an acceptance of the city's new profile as a destination for all
kinds of people, including those fleeing their pasts.

"If you want to go to jail, they'll still put you in jail, but it's not
like it used to be," says Danny McKinney, an out-of-work general contractor
at Pritchard Park.

Of course, not all ex-addicts can move to the mountains. "It's a great
concept: Go through treatment and then go to a different community. But
that's not an option for many people," says Mr. Heyman.

What's more, the thought of people with drug issues flocking to this
once-quiet and straitlaced city doesn't appeal to everyone."You worry about
people with drug problems moving in," says Nancy Perez, listening to a
religious broadcast. "But I also understand: In my own way, I came back to
Asheville to get my life together, and if other people can pull their
bootstraps up here, then that's a good thing."

Today, Sorrells earns a fraction of what he did in Atlanta. But he has
trouble remembering a time in his life when each day promised so much. In a
strange way, he says, he's thankful for what his addiction yielded: A peek
at the possibilities and pursuits of a happy, drug-free life.

"Before I got treatment, I was proud and arrogant," he says. "But finally I
had lost so much of my life that I became humble enough to start taking
other people's advice. That's partly how I came to Asheville. Since moving
here, I have a whole different way of looking at the world."