Laying the Path to Recovery

Photograph by Cedric C. Chatterley

Self-reliance is a trait that a Durham, N.C., charity seeks to instill in people trying to kick alcohol or drugs — but it is also a guiding principle in the way the charity runs its operations.

Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers offers a two-year residential treatment program. The program’s 300 participants do not pay for their room and board or for the counseling, job training, health care, and education assistance they receive. Instead, they earn their way by staying clean and working in one of the organization’s businesses — “sweat equity,” as the charity calls it.

Kevin R. McDonald, who founded the charity in 1994, believes that job training and real-life work experience are critical to helping participants gain self-confidence and stay off of drugs and alcohol for good.

“You have to instill a work ethic in people,” says Mr. McDonald. “If you don’t do that, I don’t care how many couches they lay on and have some psychiatrist or some psychologist or some social worker say, ‘How do you feel?’ Once they walk out of that office and they can’t get a job, that’s all shot to hell.”

The organization’s money-making ventures, which include a residential and commercial moving company, a catering service, and a brick-masonry business, provide $3.6-million of the organization’s $6-million budget. Donations of shoes, toilet paper, furniture, and other products from companies make up much of the rest.

The Center for Documentary Studies, at Duke University, this month concluded a photo exhibition on the charity’s work, which can now be viewed online at http://cds.aas.duke.edu/exhibits.

Here, in a photograph from the exhibit, a masonry crew from the organization shows off the group’s handiwork after completing the foundation and brick walkways of a home the charity is renovating to provide low-cost housing to program graduates.