Doc’s House provides a ‘wholeway’ house to recovery care
When Rochester’s Rick Utley decided to get sober, he started attending recovery meetings and one day was called upon to share his story. He did.
After the meeting, a couple approached Utley and said they had a heroin addiction. Could Utley help them, they asked.
Utley said he’d be right back with them. He turned to his daughter Tori Utley, and discussed the situation. By the time Rick Utley went to track down the couple who needed help, they were gone.
They had left the recovery meeting and went who knows where. Utley felt such “a sense of loss,” he said, over losing this opportunity to help fellow addicts find their path to health and recovery.
“Even though we didn’t know what to do, it really left a dent,” said Rick Utley, Doc’s House cofounder and development director. “Tori and I both really had a sense of loss in what had happened. Out of that we got together and decided halfway houses, treatment centers, all of these facilities exist but there’s nothing to help people immediately when they’re at their lowest, worst, hardest point.
“Wouldn’t it be great to grab these guys right when they really need help? Hang onto them and help them navigate a system they can’t navigate themselves? That’s when they need it. It’s meeting people where they need to be met. Immediately.”
So that’s what father/daughter dynamic duo Rick and Tori Utley set out to do. They started Doc’s Recovery House in Byron in 2019. Since then, their program has grown to include five recovery houses for men in Rochester in partnership with Bear Creek Development Center, which together can house up to 38 men; and another Rochester house is opening in the coming year for 14 women.
Thus, 52 people will be served once the new house opens. Doc’s Recovery House has served 130 people since opening in February 2019.
While residents have housing in Rochester, Doc’s House in Byron’s Oxbow Park is where the staff of now 11 work with residents to partner with Oxbow on service projects and “get out of the noise of the city,” said Tori Utley, Doc’s House cofounder and executive director.
“It’s where we get quiet and find the peace of nature,” Tori Utley said. “As an organization that’s kind of our identity, the power of inner work and what needs to be done with this recovery journey internally. We started in 2019 with one house for 14 so it’s been incredible growth over the years.”
Doc’s Recovery House got its name from Dr. David Donald, who used to live in the house that’s part of Oxbow Park in Byron. He was a Mayo Clinic doctor and a steadfast friend to Oxbow Park. When he died, he donated his property to Oxbow.
Oxbow set out to find a community partner to use the site as a means of continuing Dr. Donald’s legacy through a deserving organization. That’s where Tori Utley enters the picture. She and Rick took the reigns and made Doc’s House a reality.
The house is used for benefits, fundraisers, recovery milestones and good old fashioned bonfires.
“We want to give back to the community and be out in nature,” said Derek Krueger, program manager for the Byron location. “We believe nature has a lot of healing components to it. And one of our pillars is gratitude so every Friday night we run a gratitude meeting out there. We lean into things the guys are thankful for.”
Doc’s Recovery House provides a full spectrum of housing in Rochester. There is pre-treatment housing to help connect people who have just decided to pursue recovery find and enter a treatment facility. Doc’s Recovery House also provides housing after a resident finishes treatment. So long-term housing and peer support, all happen at the recovery housing campus in Rochester. Byron’s house is more for programming and, in time, after COVID recedes, where the recovery house will welcome in the community and share what they’re doing.
This type of involvement in a person’s recovery has never really been implemented anywhere else, said Steve Coddington, Doc’s program director. A lack of pre-treatment facilities has been a problem in the recovery community for decades, Doc’s staff says.
The wait time to get a treatment bed can take weeks or months, and often residents don’t have the willpower to wait. They need to act fast upon their desire to get clean.
“What we’ve tried to do is streamline this process because if you have any familiarity with substance use disorder, you know that the day someone quits and the day that they decide to become sober and join a recovery type of environment, it’s very important to get that done as quickly as possible,” Coddington said.
“Because you’ll have withdrawals, triggers, coping mechanisms…people often don’t have the wherewithal or ability to remain sober during this time. So this pre-treatment time is imperative. Doc’s Recovery House helps the individual when they say they’re ready for treatment and we bring them in and help them navigate the system. While they’re here they’re able to be with people who have gone through treatment, gone through the same struggles.”
Rick Utley said this pre-treatment assistance is what makes Doc’s House unique. Because a resident has a short attention span once they decide to seek help, Doc’s staff treats this short window of time with great attention.
“What’s neat about it,” Rick Utley said, “is that when a person has help, it doesn’t have to take long. Because we’ve become efficient at what we do here and try to get them into a treatment facility as quickly as we can.”
While the term “halfway house” is known to many, Rick Utley prefers the term “wholeway house.” The camaraderie is especially vital to Doc’s residents.
It’s a recovery community that is offered at Doc’s House, and the community impact is lasting.
“Our residents are people who have every opportunity to do anything they choose in this world as long as they want to accomplish it,” Coddington said. “That is what is felt here, and the biggest thing is, this is a sober community. It’s a recovery community. When there’s a man down, there’s a bunch of guys to pick him up. This is what we strive for, for individuals to not have to get through this alone.”