CENTER CITY, Minn. -- After two failed treatments, Bob Ferguson found himself at the Hazelden Foundation to cure his addictions to alcohol and cocaine.

"When something went wrong in my life, I wanted a quick fix from outside," said Ferguson. "I didn't want to change me. I wanted to change the world around me with a chemical."

Although he knew he needed help, Ferguson really didn't want to recover either.

"In my mind, addiction was exciting and recovery was boring," he said. "I had it backward in my thinking, but Hazelden helped me invert it."

Over the past half century, tens of thousands of people like Ferguson have found help at the Hazelden Foundation, an acclaimed treatment center about 40 miles north of Minneapolis.

Bob Ferguson, right, director of alumni relations for the Hazelden Foundation, discusses the center's aftercare program with Hazelden CEO Jerry Spicer. -- (Photo courtesy of Hazeldon Foundation)

"Hazelden is one of the nation's foremost treatment centers," said Rod Robinson, executive director of Gateway Recovery Center in Great Falls.

Experts with Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse in New York City and with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Washington, D.C., recommended the Tribune visit Hazelden because of the success of its treatment.

Hazelden is a facility with a $57 million operating budget that treats about 5,000 patients a year on its main campus. It also has satellite centers in Florida, New York and Chicago.

About 60 percent of its patients stay sober for at least a year, said its president and CEO, Jerry Spicer. That compares an average success rate of 35-40 percent for the industry as a whole.

Why is Hazelden so successful?

Counselors treat alcoholism as a medical disease with some social causes. Former patients remain involved in the program, and aftercare is strongly emphasized to prevent relapse.

"The alumni were incredible," said Ferguson. "They were back on the units during the day and speaking to us at night. They became role models for me because I could see they were so happy in their lives.

"They provided me something I'd never had before -- motivation to change."

Ferguson spent 28 days at the treatment facility, receiving help from an inter-disciplinary mix of medical doctors, chemical dependency counselors, psychologists and chaplains.

Then he spent four months in an aftercare unit on the rolling grounds of Hazelden, where hiking and biking trails wend around a string of small lakes.

That was followed by four months in a halfway house.

With the help of an active 12-step program, Ferguson, who is now Hazelden's director of alumni relations, has remained clean and sober since 1992. But he doesn't count his first two unsuccessful treatments as failures.

"I needed to fall flat on my face before I could get it through my thick skull that I needed to take all the advice I was being given," he said.

Inpatient treatment

When they enter treatment at Hazelden, patients undergo a thorough physical examination, then monitored carefully as they undergo detoxification.

Then they're assigned rooms in the foundation's six residential treatment centers, two-story brick buildings with big windows that look like college dorms.

The cost of the average inpatient treatment is about $15,000 -- about twice the cost of private treatment in Montana.

There, they'll spend a month learning about alcoholism, getting counseling for the personality problems underlying the disease, and learning how to live without a drink.

That's fairly standard for treatment centers. The difference is Hazelden`s focus on helping an alcoholic function better in every aspect of his or her life.

Since the disease affects every area of an alcoholic's life, the cure must be interdisciplinary, involving doctors, chemical dependency counselors, psychiatrists and chaplains, Spicer said.

Hazelden has about 1,050 employees, including 110 chemical dependency counselors, a dozen chaplains, eight psychiatrists or psychiatric-therapists, and a number of doctors on contract.

Holistic help

This holistic approach has become known as the Minnesota Model.

One of Hazelden's founders, Daniel J. Anderson, described how he and others came up with that approach in the early `50s:

"There's been a bunch of physicians trying to help alcoholics get well physically, and it's not working too well," he said.

"There's a bunch of clergy people who've been trying to sober them up, save them and give them ethics; that ain't working too well either. Then we have a bunch of social workers trying to pick up alcoholics' home lives and blaming their condition on the wives, and there's a bunch of psychiatrists trying to shrink their heads. Nothing's working."

Anderson's approach was all encompassing.

"We'd put it all together," he said. "Maybe we'd fix them up physically and try to help them with social problems. If they're mentally ill, we'll shrink their heads a little bit. And we'll also include AA members and the clergy.

"In short, we decided that we've got to have an interdisciplinary staff, and we'll create a total learning environment for alcoholics," Anderson said.

Roads to recovery

A good diet and exercise are seen as important to recovery. Hazelden provides a swimming pool, basketball court and weight room for physical workouts.

Since the root of the problem seems to be an imbalance in neurochemicals, considerable research is being focused on drugs.

For example, Naltrexon has been effective in reducing a craving for alcohol, and sometimes is prescribed at Hazelden.

"But we also use other techniques for controlling craving, things like meditation," said Spicer. "And we're experimenting with biofeedback and acupuncture."

Ultimately, the key is finding a balance to life that doesn't revolve around alcohol.

"Our mission is not just to get people to stop drinking," said Spicer. "It's all about living a better quality of life."

Keeping people cured

At Hazelden, patients range from celebrities and business executives to housewives and construction workers.

They live on campus and are counseled daily, but they're also given time to read, visit, listen to music or play pool.

Most evenings, patients gather in a theater to hear inspirational lectures by other recovering alcoholics.

Ongoing treatment is a critical component. That's why Hazelden keeps some patients on campus in an aftercare program for up to three months at a cost of $240 a day.

Others may be encouraged to join a halfway house in Minneapolis, where recovering alcoholics can work during the day and return home to a safe environment. That costs $101 a day.

More than 55,000 people are active members of the Hazelden Foundation Alumni Association, and an alumnus is assigned to sponsor each outgoing patient, getting that person into Alcoholics Anonymous groups and helping him or her stay straight.

"This is a chronic illness," said Spicer, "and we've learned that people need a continuum of aftercare services. We don't send people home cured. We empower them to understand their addiction and make changes in their lives."