The East Ridge Recovery Center
The East Ridge Recovery Center is a laboratory for learning to live the All Addicts Anonymous Program, which is the Twelve Step way of life that has been providing recoveries from all kinds of addictions since 1964.
In order for any man or woman to live the All Addicts Anonymous Program, it is by no means necessary to come to a place like East Ridge. The All Addicts Anonymous principles are universal, and can be applied by anyone, anywhere. But some people who are having trouble getting started on the Program find it possible to make a beginning at East Ridge; others renew their strength from time to time by keeping in touch. Anyone who is living the All Addicts Anonymous way of life may find it helpful to share the experience and knowledge of East Ridge, and this may be done by living with us, for a while, or by visiting.
East Ridge consists of people — a place — and a Program. The people are sixty-eight men, women, and children on the scene and several hundred working associates across the country. The place is 77 acres of fields and woodlands overlooking the Delaware River in a remote part of New York State. And the Program is what the people and the place are all about.
Everything takes its importance from the Program. The people are important because they live the Program and help others to live it. The place is important because it provides an effective, unspoiled, and beautiful location to do the work of the Program. The people have their defects, and the place has its shortcomings, but the Program is perfect: it works for everyone who sincerely works it.
Now about therapy:
At East Ridge we practice God-therapy. No other kind of therapy. We are not a resource for people who are looking for custody, secular therapy or counseling, or for psychotherapeutic, psychoanalytic, or psychiatric treatment. The life here consists of prayer, a day’s work, lots of fun and recreation, three All Addicts Anonymous meetings a week, one day of rest each week — and very little besides. Since 1964 this life-style has provided the impetus for thousands of recoveries from the cardinal ills of modern life. And it has proven a source of particularly deep and lasting fulfillment for many who, in this setting or some other, have adopted it completely and permanently as their way of life.
All East Ridge resident guests, as they are able, share the regular work of the place — cooking, baking, housekeeping, maintenance of buildings and grounds, farming, fishing, forestry, gardening, secretarial, bookkeeping, typesetting, printing, graphics, writing, editing, storekeeping, and schoolteaching.