Recovery Café Is a Refuge of Healing and Transformation

Recovery Café is a recovery support center utilizing an alternative therapeutic community model. In a beautiful space, the Café supports women and men who are seeking a life of transformation, free from drugs, alcohol and other destructive behaviors.

Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness Requires Stability

The co-occurrence of addiction and mental illness are at the core of homelessness. Roughly half of Seattle’s 8,500 homeless men and women suffer from addiction (substance use disorder) and another diagnosable mental illness (co-occurring disorder).

While transitional and shelter housing provide a roof over one’s head, they rarely have the necessary resources to offer in-house, intensive, recovery programs which are critical for individuals suffering from addiction and/or other mental health challenges  
to obtain housing and then keep that housing; to gain and keep employment, volunteer positions and relationships; and to fulfill their potential.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recommends a shift from focusing on addiction as an acute illness and moving toward an on-going, recovery-oriented system of care to create stability and healing. That is what Recovery Café does.

Our Unique Approach Fosters Stability, Healing and Recovery

Recovery Café’s therapeutic community model provides integrated support, and addresses addiction and other mental health challenges (co-occurring disorders).

We provide ongoing recovery support, which begins where traditional treatment programs end. Most treatment programs last 28 days to 6 months. Recovery Café begins providing support where those programs end.

Our approach works. Ninety percent of Recovery Café members report that our supportive community has helped them maintain sobriety. Through our supportive community and programs, our members are able to lay a foundation of recovery on which they can build for the rest of their lives.

Recovery Café offers a cost-effective way of providing the support and stability individuals need to end a life of addiction, mental illness and homelessness. Sustained recovery radically reduces societal costs of addiction and mental illness, including the financial cost of “high utilizers” of emergency rooms, hospitals and courts.

Our Therapeutic Community Supports Change and Personal Responsibility

Our community and our programs support personal change and increasing personal responsibility through the following:

• Membership in our supportive, drug-and-alcohol-free community
• Learning and practice of healthy behaviors within the community
• Opportunities to take on increasing responsibility for peer support and Café operations
• Weekly, loving accountability groups called Recovery Circles
• Participation in School for Recovery courses addressing core issues of addiction and co-occurring disorders, tools for recovery, relapse prevention and life-skill building
• Providing leadership in 22 12-Step meetings held at Recovery Café