Q&A: Meet Tori Utley, founder of Doc’s Recovery House
Google recognized National Recovery Month on Sept. 30, 2021, by adding to the home page of its ubiquitous search engine this link: Learn More About National Recovery Month.
Those who clicked the link discovered a “Recover Together” page with fresh content that included a video featuring Phil Rutherford from Faces & Voices of Recovery in his role as board member of Doc’s Recovery House, a recovery community organization founded in Rochester, Minn., by Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation product market manager Tori Utley. Tori was kind enough to answer some questions about Doc’s; her role at Hazelden Betty Ford; and the distinct, complementary roles of addiction treatment and recovery support organizations.
What is Doc’s Recovery House, and what inspired you to create and open it?
Doc’s Recovery House is a recovery community organization and grassroots sober living community. We provide housing before and after treatment, and peer recovery support along the way. What makes us especially unique is our pre-treatment program, a no-barrier way for people to start the process of recovery while they wait to secure a treatment bed.
I started the organization together with my father, Rick — who is a person in long-term recovery — back in 2015. As we were both involved in our local recovery community, we started to observe the barriers people faced when they made a decision to choose recovery and go to treatment. Sometimes, they didn’t know where to start — or even when they did, many people were (and still are) told that securing placement can take three-to-six weeks. We share more on that story in this interview, but these experiences inspired us to create a place that kept people safe and gave them somewhere to start their journey. Around this same time, we had stumbled across a beautiful home at a county park west of Rochester formerly owned by a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, Dr. David Donald (Doc), who serendipitously has ties to Dr. Seppala right here at Hazelden Betty Ford. It was a beautiful, serene and healing space, and we had an idea that perhaps this could be people’s “somewhere to start.” We were so inspired by this place and what it meant to us that we named our organization after Dr. Donald and his legacy.
Seeing the ways recovery transformed my father’s life and contributed to the healing of our family, we wanted to share that gift. We finally opened the doors to Doc’s Recovery House in 2019. Today, we leverage Dr. Donald’s house as a place for gatherings, bonfire gratitude meetings and events, and opened a larger housing campus in Rochester with four different buildings and a community center. We have also been excitedly growing into our roots as an RCO, seeing all of the opportunities there are to create authentic community and support people in early recovery through the power of peer support.
Can you describe the healing that takes place at Doc’s Recovery House, and how it happens?
At Doc’s Recovery House, our key phrase is “recovery with dignity.” We work to keep dignity and respect at the center of everything we do. We also focus on the little things. Aside from some peer-led meetings, our programming is simple — it’s meals together, fun sober outings, and helping people get connected to the existing recovery community around them. We try to stay focused on what we do best at Doc’s House, which is creating community; a safe space that becomes a home to the people that choose to live here; and create a culture of dignity and love alongside people who come to consider each other as family.
In our pre-treatment program, we look to transform the process of going to treatment into something celebratory. For example, we make cakes after someone has stayed with us, to celebrate their journey — followed by a peer-led group in that person’s honor, usually followed by hugs and high fives out the door. It’s amazing to see healing in the form of someone standing up a little taller, a little more hopeful, and with a smile on their face as they go to their next step.
In our long-term housing programs, healing happens slowly. We try to focus on the everyday moments that start to give people hope and perspective, and we affirm and celebrate along the way. We have another saying at Doc’s: “The little things are the big things.” In the early moments of recovery, this couldn’t be more true. In our community, healing happens by creating a safe, dignified space that is marked by authenticity and respect for the person’s individual journey, and sometimes you see healing start to peek its head through a comment made around a campfire, or a smile, or a shrug, when you know someone has gotten feedback or encouragement that “clicked” inside of them. Recovery is equal parts art and science, and these moments are the art.
How is Doc’s Recovery House different than addiction treatment?
As a recovery community organization, Doc’s House differs from treatment in that we provide non-clinical, community-based support through peer specialists — people with lived experience in recovery. The formality of treatment is critical to so many people, which is why much of our work focuses on helping people get there safely through our pre-treatment program. But after treatment, Doc’s House gets to be a complementary force to the treatment process in helping people flex their recovery muscles and learn to do life in recovery — we help get them connected to supportive resources in the community, encourage them, and provide a sober community where they can continue to grow in their own community through peer support and friendship.
How should recovery community organizations like Doc’s and addiction treatment providers like Hazelden Betty Ford support and complement one another to collectively add value for the people we serve?
Simply put, we need each other. Addiction is ravaging our families and communities, and I believe we need as much help as we possibly can in this fight. Places like Doc’s Recovery House and other RCOs can provide grassroots support to complement our clinical systems, or offer alternative pathways for people who find success in another way. But at Doc’s House specifically, we help people get to treatment and acknowledge it’s critical, necessary place in people’s healing journey. We also know treatment is not where recovery ends; for many people, it’s just the beginning and it continues in community.
At Hazelden Betty Ford, you have a unique role in our training, consulting and education division collaborating with recovery community organizations, treatment providers and other partners to create recovery-oriented systems of care. What are those and why are they so important to the future of addiction care and support?
The definition of a recovery-oriented system of care (ROSC) is “a coordinated network of community-based services and supports that is person-centered and builds on the strengths and resilience of individuals, families, and communities to achieve abstinence and improved health, wellness, and quality of life for those with or at risk of alcohol or drug problems.”
Simply put, ROSCs put recovery — and a person and their family — at the center of the supportive systems built around them.
In our consulting and training division, our team has the opportunity to take the learnings and legacy of Hazelden Betty Ford and stitch that together with the strengths, ideas and gifts of communities around the country. Through these engagements and unique collaborations, truly remarkable innovations and learnings have been created by and for the recovery community. My role is in amplifying those learnings into products and services that could help people outside of these collaborations. Similar to how Doc’s House and the pre-treatment program started with an idea, community-centric innovation is important, but when a model, idea or approach is proven to be helpful, we owe it to each other in the recovery movement to share what we’ve seen work — whether that’s through resources, products, or simply sharing the stories of what is working in our communities. When we do this, others can continue to build on these learnings, and that’s the process that brings us all forward. A rising tide lifts all boats, and whether we’re the tide or the boat, this is the joy of working together.
What takeaways did you have from Recovery Month 2021?
My primary takeaway this year is the continued importance of collaboration — and the humility collaboration requires. I had the opportunity to go to events both in person and virtually to see the great work my friends and colleagues are doing locally and nationally. As always, it was an important reminder that the barriers and opportunities we have in front of us are too great to tackle alone. As we push for continued investment and parity for treatment and recovery resources for substance use disorder, we will be able to go further and faster by understanding our seat at the table, and encouraging others to sit alongside us, pulling up a chair for anyone and everyone willing to sit down and contribute to the work of advancing recovery.
Learn more: read Tori’s blogs on Medium.
