How recenter Stayed Nearly Covid-Free

At Recenter, we have 200 full-time residents who are recovering from the diseases of alcohol and drug abuse. Since Covid arrived in Texas we have hosted 539 people in our facility although only 200 reside with us at a time.  People in recovery come into our facility, regain control of their lives and move on.

In the beginning, we were just becoming aware of what Covid-19 was and what our prospects might be.  Our residents live close together, in ten-person, two-person, and one-person living quarters.   We share a single dining facility.  Some of our people have disabilities that could make them more susceptible.  I could see Covid spreading through our facility and infecting many residents and staff.

Traditionally we welcomed people in recovery to attend one of our 40 weekly AA meetings.  We invited everyone, strangers as well as residents, to discuss their progress in overcoming their alcohol and drug diseases.  We often fed the homeless if we had food leftover from our normal meals.

People in recovery often rely on a higher power to help them recover from their abusive diseases.  We, too, called on this higher power to help us develop a plan and implement rules to help us all survive.  At that time there was research to find a vaccine, but the only sure things we had were keeping six feet of separation, wearing a mask, and washing our hands.

We immediately went into lockdown mode.  We furnished free masks.  Only residents and a minimum of service people were allowed access to our five buildings.  We tried using Zoom for our AA meetings, but the participants felt that we’d lost the emotion normally present in our meetings.  So we cut back and allowed only people living at Recenter to attend the meetings.  Unfortunately, we had to suspend feeding the homeless too.

Recovering drug and alcohol abusers are survivors.  Many have had near-death experiences.  They are still around because they want to LIVE.  We talked about the only early defensive measures we could take.  We also added the need for testing if anyone had any doubt about their status.  Residents took advantage of pop-up test sites set up by the City of Houston and Harris County.  Abusers also are observant.  Over the years they’ve learned to tell if others are drinking or using.

Our people soon learned to tell what Covid symptoms are and were not bashful about taking someone aside and asking if they plan to get tested, then followed through and insisted anyone testing positive go into self-quarantine.  The effect was to self-police.  We used hand-held thermometers to take non-residents’ temperature who needed entry.