Sunrise House from monastery to sanctuary for addicts |
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Lafayette - Addiction. It’s an ugly word and its companions are no better: despair, fear, poverty, crime, hopelessness.
But
for residents of Sussex County and the surrounding area, there is hope.
That hope can be found on a hilltop above the intersection of Routes 15
and 94 at 37 Sunset Inn Road in Lafayette. Its name is Sunrise House.
Visitors who drive up the half-mile long
entrance road could be forgiven for wondering if they had arrived at an
old-world style resort. Sunrise House is situated on 22 acres in an
impressive complex that was formerly a monastery, and perhaps it is a
resort of sorts - a place of last resort for people with addictions, a
place to renew their hope, a place with a doorway into a new life.
Sunrise
House offers sanctuary and treatment for 108 patients under the care of
nearly 200 staff members. The personnel include medical doctors,
nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, behavioral
technicians and aides, recreation staff, and food service employees.
The facility operates like a small hospital with staff on hand all day,
every day, throughout the year.
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“Addiction
is a disease that strikes indiscriminately across economic, social, and
racial lines,” said Dr. Philip Horowitz, Chief Executive Officer. Yet
many sufferers and their families feel ashamed to admit to addiction,
including alcoholism. They are reluctant to seek treatment, as they
would with more “acceptable” diseases, he continued.
Others
believe that lasting results can only be achieved at a big-name
facility far away from home. While such centers may treat the patient,
they cannot address the sickness of the family that is inevitable with
addiction. Sunrise House works with a patient’s entire family and
significant others.
Kieran Ayre, Chief Clinical Officer, is
proud of the Sunrise House program. “It rivals some of the better known
programs,” he noted. Horowitz added that an outcomes assessment by the
State of New Jersey showed that Sunrise House has a much higher than
average success rate when compared with similar facilities.
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Admission
to Sunrise House is voluntary. The facility offers outpatient and
inpatient programs of varying length, depending on the person’s needs.
If an initial evaluation indicates the presence of a co-occurring
condition (either medical or psychological) that would interfere with
addiction treatment, the person will be referred to an appropriate
doctor or center to address that condition before admittance. Sunrise
House has relationships with many facilities nationwide that can treat
such co-occurring conditions or even accept addiction patients when
Sunrise House is filled to capacity. |
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Sunrise
House can serve 15 people in the detoxification unit (where all
newcomers spend the first week). The longer-care units can accommodate
33 adult women, 44 adult men, and 16 mothers with their children. There
are special programs for the patients’ family members and significant
others, as well as an intensive outpatient department for adults. An
article next week will describe life at Sunrise House, including the
“Mother and Me” program for women and their preschool children. |
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