Standing on the brink of the intersection of Roosevelt and Asher, a very rough Little Rock neighborhood, Dino Davis surveys with pride the treatment facility he has created on two acres of land to serve recovering addicts.
Davis and his partner, Curtis Keith, fashioned the adobe-style Quality Living Center (QLC) out of an older building on the site, a motorcycle dealership/car restoration shop. There was also a house which the owner, Ronald Colding, donated.
The Center, which was licensed by the state in 2006, offers treatment for substance abuse and mental health problems with a range of residential, outpatient and transitional living recovery programs. It can house 60 men and women and Davis and Keith have plans to expand it to 90.
They opened in 2007 as a “chem-free” transitional facility, which accommodates both men and women, with 20 men on board.
The partners also have plans to buy two more contiguous acres before they are finished.
“Our dream,” Davis says, “is to turn this into a combination recovery campus and vocational school.”
The low cost 90-day residential recovery program, which Davis believes is the lowest in the Little Rock area, is based on the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and also involves life skills training, referral and job placement assistance, relapse prevention and court liaison services.
Davis, who has himself been clean and sober for 20 years, and worked in the recovery field for almost as long, began his search for a place of his own nearly ten years ago with Keith, who runs the business side of the operation.
In May of 2011 there were ten men and five women in the treatment phase and twenty in chem-free living. There are also five in outpatient programs.
During a tour of the facility, Davis points out the homey features of the living quarters, sits in for a minute at a life skills meeting, acknowledges greetings from a couple of patients and a staff member, signs a document that is thrust in his face and orders lunch in the kitchen.
“We’re like an extended family,” he says with a smile. “Our residents are able to practice their sobriety in a safe, secure setting. And when they rejoin society, they will be clean and sober and able to cope better.
QLC also seeks out collaborations with other community organizations. The Centers for Youth and Families, for example, makes available their pool and exercise room to QLC’s residents who are taken there in the facility’s van.
On Wednesday nights the van takes residents to the Christ-centered Growing in Grace (GIG) recovery program at St. Andrews church.
It also goes to the Wolfe Street Center for AA meetings and other locations for Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous.
Four years ago, QLC launched an annual event called “Salute to Recovery” and sent out an invitation to people in recovery or who were otherwise active in recovery circles. Held at the West side YMCA, it was intended to raise awareness of addiction and recovery.
There were several speakers, and Davis’s singing group, Integrity, entertained while people got up from their tables and danced with energy and enthusiasm.
There were two more banquets at the “Y” and then, this year, Davis and Keith moved the fourth annual QLC Salute to Recovery banquet to a larger room at Little Rock’s Doubletree Hotel. One of Little Rock’s most respected citizens, Dr. Fitzgerald Hill, president of Arkansas Baptist College, was the main speaker.
Like QLC, Arkansas Baptist College is in a bad part of town, but Dr. Hill is making significant changes with his high standards and entrepreneurial approach. A man of strong Christian faith, Dr. Hill joined Arkansas Baptist College five years ago, and his impact has been enormous.
On a warm May evening, more than 200 friends, supporters, and QLC graduates flocked to the banquet. Some of them gave brief and moving testimonials about their recovery.
Sharon S., a graduate who was among those who told her story, also wrote a poem, “My Journey” for the Salute to Recovery program which began, “I’m on a journey, back from Hell. Drugs led me down a road I thought I knew so well. It took me places I never thought I’d be. Now I’m struggling, fighting, and determined to be free.”
Sharon’s poem ends with the verse, “my life today has great meaning, and this I’m able to share with you. With each new day I’m able to think things through. Life is a journey. It starts and ends with you. Make a decision now. With God’s help there’s no limit to what you can do.”
When Dr. Hill spoke, he prefaced his remarks by noting that he was no stranger to the subject of addiction.
“My brother was an alcoholic and my grandfather was a bootlegger,” Dr. Hill said.
Dr. Hill graduated from Ouachita Baptist College in 1987 and got his Masters degree from Northwestern State University where he also served as graduate assistant football coach and later as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Arkansas.
He also served in the Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm conflicts and was awarded the Bronze Star and Commendation Medal for his service. After the war, he joined the coaching staff at the University of Arkansas for 12 years before being named head coach of the San Jose Spartans.
For his audience, largely of people in recovery, Dr. Hill offered words of comfort and wisdom including these three quotes:
• “Every day I wake up and say, it’s not about me.”
• “To grow you have to get out of your comfort zone.”
• “Inch by inch, life is a cinch.”
When the Salute to Recovery evening ended, the buzz among those drifting down to the lobby was upbeat, and the Quality Living Center brand name rose another notch.
