Addiction treatment pioneer Dr. Peter Hayden celebrates 50 years of recovery
Dr. Hayden, co-founder of Turning Point in Minneapolis, reflects on MLK, George Floyd, and a half century of sobriety and service
NOTE: This Q&A, facilitated by Jeremiah Gardner of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, and edited collaboratively with Dr. Hayden, was originally published for Hazelden Betty Ford’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update. If you’d like to receive our advocacy emails, subscribe today.
After crashing his car in front of a police station 50 years ago, Dr. Peter Hayden was arrested and then admitted to addiction treatment, where he met a social worker named Daryl. “I was scared. He said, ‘if you work this program, you will never be the same person you are today.’ And, for whatever reason, I believed him. I didn’t know this fellow, but I knew I needed to believe in somebody and something, and he gave me the foundation to believe my life could be different.” Sure enough, Daryl was right, and this month, Dr. Hayden celebrated a half century of recovery.
The addiction treatment leader — whose lifetime of service has been recognized in recent years by Faces & Voices of Recovery and the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers — has inspired countless others with his story. And the treatment center he founded — Turning Point, Inc. in Minneapolis — has helped more than 30,000 others heal. Dr. Hayden was a tireless champion for equity long before such concepts became mainstream and is a proud military veteran, who served our country with courage abroad. He exudes the recovery spirit and is deeply admired. We are fortunate to have him as a collaborator at Hazelden Betty Ford and grateful he sat down with us to reflect on 50 years of sobriety and the legacies of George Floyd and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Congrats on your 50th recovery anniversary. What reflections have been top-of-mind as you’ve celebrated this month?
Did I map out 50 years? No. But a lot goes into making it possible. It’s been one step and day at a time, just like we say.
For 50 years, I did something consistently. I have consistently tried to be a better person through the Twelve Steps and the principles they instilled in my life.
What I’m thinking about most is how everything I do is on the foundation of my recovery. Even in everyday things like trying to grow a nice, full beard I apply the Serenity Prayer, reminding myself there’s only so much I can control. Recovery is not just a piece of me, it’s my life — my lifestyle.
Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Recovery was a revolution in my own life. Not once in 50 years have I felt like I needed to use mood-altering drugs again. But what I have had to deal with is anger. That’s what the program does. It takes you to where and why you use, and helps you address that.
I felt like people didn’t see me for who I was and the only way I could get you to understand was to have some sort of exchange or boxing match. I think what I learned was that it’s not in my best interest to try to get someone else to see me the way I see myself. I learned there are times I need to be quiet. I felt like I was out there fighting by myself, and that’s not true. In some cases, I learned to understand that they may be right or that I need to move on. What I’ve learned is: don’t ever allow yourself to feel slighted or resentful or fall into traps where you start discounting yourself.
We help each other on this walk. Community is huge. And, for me, even bigger has been my personal relationship with the Lord.
I was never so smart as to make all the right decisions. I just try to take next right steps and leave the rest to God and people acting through God. You look up once in a while and then you can see all the good that’s happened. And you realize that good things seem to come sooner when you don’t push it.
In recovery, we don’t just deal with the chemical dependency. We deal with life. This happens to be the journey I took, the calling I found, and the contribution I’ve been able to make. I could have done a lot of different things in life, but I’m really grateful I took the next step of helping others.
At Turning Point, we’ve served over 30,000 people who each got the chance to achieve 50 years, too. We all take our own unique journeys. This is the only thing I have that I can say I’ve done for 50 years. And I believe God wanted this for me so I could share my experiences with others.
In all these years, I’ve seen a lot. My daughter Taylor was murdered — and that was definitely the lowest of lows. But I’ve experienced much more good than bad, and my faith has seen me through the challenges.
Today, I have many wonderful children and grandchildren, and none of them have ever seen me use any drugs. That means a lot to me.
I’ll turn 80 this year. I’m truly blessed.
What was your upbringing like, and what did life look like five decades ago — in 1973 — when your recovery began?
My mother was young — 15 — when she had me. So, I was raised by Mother Bowers, an elder in the village where we lived in Kansas City. It was almost like foster care — only the government wasn’t involved.
Mother Bowers was an Afrocentric woman, and she was married. She took care of me, and provided for me. She loved me and became my foundation. I ended up having a great early childhood. In our village, everyone was there for you; they didn’t turn their back on you. Mother Bowers and her network even paid for me to attend De La Salle Military Academy.
When I was 16, Mother Bowers was aging and couldn’t take care of me anymore. So they sent me to Minnesota where my birth mother had moved years earlier. But my mother wasn’t too interested in me, so I was on my own for the most part.
A couple of years later, I needed a job and the military seemed like the best place to work. I enrolled and then served for two years, mostly in Korea. The service helped me in many ways, but I also drank a lot. Alcohol was cheap — 9 cents a shot.
After being discharged honorably, I came home and moved to Chicago with a severe alcohol problem. Things weren’t working for me there so I took a bus back to Minnesota and tried to see if I could be part of my mother’s family; she was married by then. I wasn’t treated well. Felt like they had changed the locks on me. I started taking fishing trips up north and doing odd jobs. Got involved in community activism and the Black revolution. But I was drinking a lot, starting to have children and, at various times, homeless.
By age 29, I was living with the son of a prominent Lutheran Church leader and writing on race issues for the University of Minnesota but still struggling as much as ever with my drinking and drug use. And then one day, everything changed.
I was driving high and got into a car accident right in front of the police station. I was arrested, jailed and sent to the workhouse. Two others involved in the accident sued me. It was a mess. But during the pre-sentence investigation, I was given the opportunity to go to a county addiction treatment program, and it was my saving grace. That’s when I met Daryl Kosloski*, a social worker there. I was scared. He said, “If you work this program, you will never be the same person you are today.” And, for whatever reason, I believed him. I didn’t know this fellow, but I knew I needed to believe in somebody and something, and he gave me the foundation to believe my life could be different.
That’s the key — belief. From that initial spark of belief and hope, God has blessed me for all these years.
That’s why it’s so important to have people with lived experience involved in our treatment programs. For many of the people we serve, that’s where belief starts.
That’s also why it’s so horrible when people break that belief cycle by betraying trust and making it harder for people to believe in anything.
Someone saw value in me even though I didn’t see it in myself. That’s when the revolution of my recovery began.
You refer to Turning Point as an African American organization, and the patients you serve are primarily — though not exclusively — African American. What does MLK Day mean to you, how do you recognize the holiday, and what do you think it means to the country?
When I co-founded Turning Point in 1976 — many years before there was a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday — I asked our Board if we could work on President’s Day and instead recognize Martin’s birthday (Jan. 15 — now the MLK federal holiday). They said yes, so we’ve been honoring MLK Day, and giving some of our staff the day off, for 46 years. We also honor Rosa Parks’ and Malcolm X’s birthdays.
For the staff who do work on MLK Day, we always bring in a special speaker and make a point to work with our clients to talk about Martin and the significance of his legacy. I often say to them, “He lost his life to violence — are we going to do the same thing? Are we going to give up our lives to drugs and to violence on the streets?” I say, “His deeds and his goodness and the things he gave his life for were for all of us, even us sitting in a treatment center.”
When Dr. King was doing his work in the 1960s, I was writing about racism for the University of Minnesota. I even had an opportunity to get on the bus and go to DC for the March on Washington. But I didn’t. I knew he was doing good, but I didn’t truly appreciate his influence at the time. His impact became clearer with the perspective of time.
I also was drinking a lot then. It was recovery that allowed me to begin acquiring and living in wisdom, including his wisdom.
When Martin was killed, that’s when the revolution started. I believe he knew that in order to make a change, nonviolence was good. He was trying to calm the waters because he knew “the revolution would not be televised” — that the changes he was talking about could be forced underground. Nonviolence also enabled us to ask, “How can you get angry with equality?”
MLK Day is not just a holiday. It’s a day to make sure we don’t forget about what he stood for and to help others learn.
Dr. King allowed me and others to see a better way for ourselves and our people. We’re doing the same in addiction treatment. Just as he planted a seed of belief that continues to grow today, we are planting seeds of belief, too.
Q: Turning Point helped George Floyd, whose murder in Minneapolis by a police officer in 2020, sparked another salvo in America’s struggle for equality and equity. What do you think about progress in these two and a half years since?
I’ve been encouraged at times. DEI efforts are happening, but I don’t see the results happening broadly like I thought they would, or as quickly as I think they could.
In the revolution I’m talking about, if you are Black and want to get a good education and a good job, you can. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case for many in my community. We don’t hear about George Floyd in public conversation as much anymore, and I don’t want his death to have been in vain. Where is the missionary part of the movement George Floyd’s death inspired? Where is the outreach to communities of need? I still feel like we’re uneasy doing the uncomfortable work of change. We’re not quite getting to root causes. Economic equality is what we need. I don’t think we’re going fast enough, and we have the resources to do it.
All I ever wanted was someone to believe in me and to help me take the next step. We need to do that for more people in my community. Nobody ever achieves anything great alone. That’s a big message of MLK too. Even Malcolm X, when he went to Mecca, came back with more of that spirit.
I was never in the revolution by myself. And it wasn’t just Black people in the revolution either. It’s not just a color thing, and Martin knew that. He referred to all men and all women. I would not be free today if it had not been for white folks making the Underground Railroad possible. John Brown wasn’t my color, and that was what Martin was saying — all people need to be involved — joined together in a way that can benefit all people.
I am hopeful we’re making progress on some fronts. What I really want people to imagine, though, is everyone doing their part. What if everyone did their part?
*spelling of Daryl Kosloski, Dr. Hayden’s counselor/social worker in 1973, is unconfirmed
