Learning to Live Sober

Most people come to the Kimberley House with a few belongings in a trash bag. They leave with communication skills, healthier relationships, and a new, sober life.

The Kimberley House is a residency program for alcoholics and addicts who need help learning how to live a clean, sober life. House manager Paul Schuster said Door County needs another Kimberley House to get help to more people.
“Get people out of the streets, get them out of cars, get them into places like this one,” Paul said. “They’re not bad people, they’re sick people.”
Photo by Len Villano.

“They pretty much come here with nothing,” said Lynn Schuster, a Kimberley House manager. “We show them there is a way to live in sobriety and a way to live peacefully and joyfully. It can happen.”

The Kimberley House is an adult living facility for alcoholics and addicts ready to get clean. It’s a bright green house in a quiet neighborhood, across from Otumba Park in Sturgeon Bay and next to an impressive garden that blooms bright red with roses in the warm months.

It’s not a dormitory. It’s not a detox facility. It’s a home.

Lynn and Paul Schuster are the Kimberley House managers. They live in one of the bedrooms and act like parents teaching a family how to live a healthy, sober life. Residents are also required to go to a daily meeting to help deal with substance abuse.

Nutrition, exercise, responsibility and communication are all part of that healthy equation, and the Schusters are there to model that behavior. They host alcohol-free Super Bowl parties, invite residents’ friends and families to celebrate Thanksgiving, and sit down together every night for dinner and conversation.

Lynn and Paul Schuster are managers of the Kimberley House in Sturgeon Bay. They help residents learn how to live healthy and sober.
“There’s something to love about every single person that walks through the door,” Lynn said. Photo by Len Villano.

“Mostly we just listen to what’s on people’s minds,” Lynn said.

Lynn and Paul listen to residents’ stories, good and bad, and help them react in a healthy way. A tragedy isn’t worth relapsing, neither is a triumph.

“Bottom line – it’s not worth using over,” Paul said. “It’s not worth doing something stupid.”

Residents typically stay at Kimberley House between three and six months, or as long as they need. Many of them attend intensive outpatient treatment from Door County Human Services three days a week, instead of going through an expensive, month-long residential treatment program.

“We have utilized Kimberley House over the years as a complement in helping stabilize people whose lives are completely unmanageable as a result of their alcohol and substance use issues,” said Tina Baeten, behavioral health program supervisor for Door County Human Services. “It’s often served as a safe place for people to live while they’re going through our intensive outpatient treatment program.”

The Kimberley House can purchase cases of food at low-cost through Feeding America. Photo by Len Villano.

Residents at Kimberley House pay $150 a week. Baeten said other residential facilities for substance abuse recovery cost between $125 and $200 a day, and patients have to leave Door County to get help.

Though the $150 weekly cost at Kimberley House is cheaper than other programs, it is still tough for many residents to pay – but the Schusters have never turned anyone away because they can’t afford the cost.

That’s why grant support, donations and fundraising are so important. Paul said it costs between $110,000 and $120,000 to operate the Kimberley House for a year.

The program is supported by organizations like the United Way and the Raibrook Foundation, gets low-cost food through Feeding America, and Target donates items with packaging flaws, like laundry detergent bottles with broken caps, that can’t go on the shelves.

The Kimberley House was donated by John Weise, and named after his niece who died of diabetes in her youth.

But before it opened in 1997, the house underwent serious repair. Volunteers turned out to sand floors, patch ceilings and fix leaky pipes.

Items in the Hall of Shame, like the Hello Kitty lunchbox, brass rose and half-burned candle, bring back good and bad memories of past Kimberley House residents. Photo by Len Villano.

“The community kind of came out,” Paul said. “We had days when we had 15 volunteers here, mostly from the recovery community.”

Once the physical structure of the Kimberley House was more or less in order, furnishing it became the next step. Everything in the house, from the silverware to the kitchen table, was donated.

And the house has come a long way. The first resident carried his own mattress into the house. Now after 200 people have made their way through the program, new residents walk through the doors to a cozy, clean home, mattresses included.

The Kimberley House can host four people at a time, and there’s often a waiting list to get into the program.

While it’s good that the program is being used, making people wait for help isn’t a good thing. Paul and Lynn said there is a short window available for alcoholics and addicts to get help, and if they can’t get it in that time they could be lost.

Lynn and Paul estimate over half of Kimberley House residents end up getting clean for life. They might suffer from a relapse, but usually end up sober. Some residents come back to the program for another stay, but others don’t get the chance.

Paul once ran into a former Kimberley House member on the sidewalk in Sturgeon Bay as the man was relapsing. He looked bad.

“I sat and talked with him at great length,” Paul said. “He asked if he could get in [to the Kimberley House], he said ‘things are bad, I need to get in.’ We were full. What could we do?”

Residents get a medal when they graduate from the Kimberley House to remind them of what they learned in the program. Photo by Len Villano.

The man died of an overdose in a week.

“That kind of thing happens regularly,” Paul said. “We need another house.”

Baeten agrees. The need for another facility in Door County is there. Kimberley House almost always has a waiting list, and people struggling with addiction are often left with few options.

“That old stigma of addiction is not something that’s well received in all communities,” Baeten said. “When people feel cared for they have a greater chance of drawing upon their strengths to be successful and to feel hopeful.”

Residents don’t leave Kimberley House with just their belongings in a trash bag. They leave the ready to live a healthy, sober life that will affect their family, friends and community.

“It’s not just about the residents who have been through here,” Lynn said. “It’s about all the people who are affected.”