"The Rendezvous of Hope was an event that had enormous heart," said Gay Parker, a Hazelden trustee and a cochair for the Rendezvous. "It greatly surpassed my expectations, and my expectations were very high to begin with. It was a life-changing experience for many people, and it triggered a wonderful sense of gratitude, spirit and discovery from recovering and non-recovering people alike. It simply carried high energy from beginning to end."

More than 6,000 people experienced the special spirit of the Rendezvous, the biggest and grandest of all parties thrown by Hazelden during its 50-year history. The Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center, Minn., offered the perfect venue for this multipurpose event, which had something for everyone, including entertainment, inspiration, fellowship, art and education.

"I've never experienced anything like the Rendezvous in my life, and many other people told me the same thing," said Parker. "I'm sure the international AA conference this summer (in Minneapolis) will be tremendous, with close to 100,000 people expected to attend. But nothing can compare to the breadth of activities at the Rendezvous. It represented virtually everything Hazelden does and more, and Hazelden has tremendous knowledge in so many areas."

A place for gratitude

The Rendezvous created a forum for putting a face on recovery--many faces--and it provided a place to show that treatment and recovery work and that many addicted people go on to live productive, exemplary lives. It offered an occasion for people to show their gratitude and commit to building recovery during the new millennium. It was a forum for joy and tears, warmth and fellowship.

From Friday morning's opening ceremony, which featured a "Parade of Nations" with flag bearers representing 50 countries, to Saturday night's grand nationwide celebration of recovery, which linked 3,000 people, the spirit of the Rendezvous simply grew and grew. "The coming together of so many people had greater impact than any of us ever imagined," said Bill Dickman, Rendezvous coordinator. "The collective energy and knowledge from a range of people with a passion for addressing substance abuse was simply amazing."

Many leaders from the addiction scientific community presented at workshops, including Alan Leshner, PhD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Mary DuFour, MD, deputy director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Thomas McClellan, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, and David Lewis, MD, project director for the Physicians Leadership on National Drug Policy at Brown University. Well-known Hazelden clinicians, researchers and authors, including Melody Beattie and Karen Casey, also presented, and a host of recovering people shared their experience, strength and hope.

Bill Moyers delivered the keynote address on Friday night and eloquently expressed Hazelden's tremendous impact over 50 years. Judy Collins and guest speaker Tony H. captured the hearts of everyone at A Night to Remember on Saturday. And the weekend culminated with great music provided by "Voice of Three Dog Night" Chuck Negron and musician Lonnie Knight. Sprinkle in inspirational gospel tunes, improvisational comedy, a climbing wall, dancers, magicians and a range of other outstanding entertainment, and thousands of people truly had A Weekend to Remember.

Affirming the Hazelden experience

In addition to being a grand celebration of recovery and serving to inspire participants to enhance recovery into the 21st century, the Rendezvous was particularly affirming for Hazelden.

"Especially affirming was the fact that so many people participated and shared their gratitude for recovery," said Hazelden President Jerry Spicer. "On Saturday night we had an overwhelming outpouring of gratitude at our A Night to Remember celebration. This was truly an inspirational event, and to think that our Center City patients had the opportunity to view this emotional event live via satellite was particularly fitting."

Even more affirming was the fact that addiction experts who presented at Rendezvous workshops endorsed the Hazelden approach to care, without any prompting. They simply offered some research-based facts that support the Hazelden model. For example, McClellan reviewed the "active ingredients" for successful treatment. He listed the best-practice recommendations for addiction treatment as cited in research--professional staffing, extensive care, information management, effective medications, and aftercare--components of clinical practice that are employed at Hazelden, but are rarely practiced concurrently elsewhere today. Also, Leshner said "the best treatments address all aspects of the disease--the biological, behavioral and social contexts,"--which of course is the objective of Hazelden's holistic, multidisciplinary approach to care.

Opening ceremonies pay tribute to Hazelden's past, put focus on the future

The opening ceremony of the Rendezvous of Hope provided a powerful expression of hope for the new millennium. A parade of nations, led by bagpipes and drums and flag bearers representing 50 countries where Hazelden has had an impact, kicked off the Rendezvous.

Hazelden Board Chair Mike Conley spoke of the tremendous anticipation building up to the Rendezvous, comparing it to the excitement of an 8-year-old waiting for Christmas. "I cant think of any better place to be than here today celebrating the miracle of recovery," he said. "Hazelden has a special place in the hearts of all of us here today. Little could our founders have thought that tens of thousands of people would find recovery after 50 years of Hazelden."

Conley then read a heartfelt testimonial from a grateful Hazelden alum. "What a powerful reminder this testimonial is of who we are," he said. "Like the pioneers before us, we need to make sure that we preserve the opportunities for recovery for years to come, and that's a task that certainly hasn't been a slam dunk in the last decade."

'Springboard for building recovery'

President Jerry Spicer, in his remarks at the opening ceremonies, paid tribute to the pioneers of Hazelden and the current Hazelden leadership. He spoke of the Rendezvous as "a springboard for building recovery" with even greater numbers and passion into the 21st century.

"The Hazelden vision began five decades ago with a small group of social innovators who had a very simple, but powerful, sense of what Hazelden should be," said Spicer. "In a time when alcoholics, or public inebriates, as the law called them then, were seen as morally weak or crazy, Hazelden's founders wanted a different way to help these suffering people and families, in contrast to the options then of jail or commitment to a state mental hospital. Hazelden was to be a safe place, a caring community, where male alcoholics would benefit from the wisdom of Alcoholics Anonymous combined with the emerging professional knowledge about the medical, social, emotional and spiritual dimensions of addiction and recovery. Then, as today, Hazelden was grounded in the belief that chemically dependent people could be helped to change their lives and that recovery was a wholistic transformation in spirit, mind, body and relationships.

"From this pioneering vision, Hazelden has become even more than its founders envisioned. Within the first decade of Hazelden, female patients were admitted and a halfway house was established in St. Paul based on Hazelden's understanding that recovery is a process requiring a continuum of care to assist people throughout their journey. Adolescent services were developed, and in the last 15 years we have reached beyond our Minnesota border to partner with our friends in Florida, Chicago and New York to bring Hazelden services to their communities. Prevention programs for young people and services for older adults have been added to further our continuum.

"Early in its history, Hazelden recognized that it could not grow fast enough to reach all of the people in need, so we began to train counselors, clergy and other professionals who could carry the message of hope throughout the United States, and indeed the world. The flags you see today represent the countries where Hazelden has had an impact. Research, training and consulting activities broadened the reach of Hazelden, taking our vision to literally hundreds of communities.

"The strength of Hazelden is not solely in its history, or its pioneers, or in its current supporters and staff. But Hazelden's strength is in all of us joined together in an unceasing commitment to helping others and in the recognition that our work has only just begun. . . .

"We are a place of healing for individuals and families. But we are also carrying on a pioneering tradition of leadership and innovation. This direction was set for Hazelden early in its history, and not solely by Hazelden itself but by people like you who wanted to help, who saw other opportunities and who have always known that in a country where only a quarter of the people who need help ever get that help, Hazelden could not simply limit itself to being a treatment center for male alcoholics."

Workshops address the science for change, treatment access, corrections, future of health care, and more

Workshops featuring some of the nation's leading experts on addiction helped make the Rendezvous a tremendous learning experience for professionals and the general public. The benefits of treatment and recovery were emphasized along with the unmet challenge to educate the public about those benefits in order to make treatment accessible to all who need it. What follows are just a few highlights from several workshops:

The unmet challenge: providing treatment

"The Unmet Challenge" was a workshop that examined why "providing treatment for anyone who needs it" is far from reality. A panel of six, offering broad representation from the business community, agreed that chemical dependency treatment is a great investment, and they had facts to prove it.

However, the greatest challenge is educating business leaders and the public about the tremendous cost benefits and human benefits of providing treatment, said Leslie Wheeler Horton, a senior vice president with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Maureen Miskovic, head of risk management for Lehman Brothers, Inc., an investment brokerage firm, supported the need for workplaces to supply quality treatment.

"At Lehman Brothers, we don't stigmatize the disease or the sufferer, we treat it like any other disease," she said. "We know treatment works. We want highly talented people to continue as highly productive members of our team. We spend a lot of money to recruit and train good people. Its essential we do the utmost to keep them."

Ken Collins, former director of the Employee Assistance Program at Chevron Corp., said, "We have to convince employers that good substance abuse benefits save dollars and lives." A study of Chevron's efforts at addressing substance abuse in the workplace showed a 14:1 return on their investment, or $20.6 million a year in savings.

Sheryl Ramstad Hvass, director of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, said that "we need to let the public know that treatment affects the bottom line--public safety." She said it's important to provide quality addiction treatment as needed, before people commit crimes and enter the corrections systems. "Eighty percent of all offenders have a chemical-abuse cause for being in our corrections system," she says. "Prison is not the best place for treatment, so we need to improve access to treatment on the outside (in our regular health care system)."

Science for Change

At the "Science for Change" workshop, a panel of addiction experts convened to advance ideas for affecting change in addiction care. Alan Leshner, PhD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, spoke of the "great disconnect" between the scientific community and the public's perception of addiction and treatment. He said, "Advances in science have reframed our fundamental view of addiction and what to do about it." He describes addiction as a brain disease--but not just a brain disease. "Addiction is the result of prolonged drug use that changes the brain. It is a biological disorder in that the brains of addicts are different from those of nonaddicts," he said. "But addiction also has behavioral and social components that need to be addressed, and the best treatments address all aspects of the disease."

Thomas McClellan, PhD, discussed the "active ingredients" for successful treatment and how those ingredients, documented by the Institute of Medicine's "Bridging the Gap Research Study," are rarely applied. The best-practice recommendations, components of care such as longer care and aftercare, are rarely implemented in clinical practice. Ninety-six percent of all addiction treatment today is outpatient, he said.

Patricia Owen, PhD, director of the Butler Center for Research at Hazelden, presented Hazelden outcome data that supported many of McClellan's points. For instance, participation in AA after treatment is a strong indicator of success. While McClellan cited research that suggests no single approach to care is most successful, Owen noted that Project MATCH, the first rigorous follow-up of the Twelve Step model, shows that overall the Twelve Step approach does as well or better than the other therapy models studied (Motivational-Enhancement or Cognitive-Behavioral).

Corrections workshop

A workshop on treatment in the correctional system was particularly timely, given the announcement a day before of Hazelden's new partnership with the Minnesota Department of Corrections. Peter Bell, Hazelden's new executive vice president of New Ventures Development, led the workshop and offered this opening statement: "There's not a single issue that contributes to crime more than substance abuse."

With that statement the stage was set for speakers such as Sheryl Ramstad Hvass, director of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and Susan Turner, PhD, associate director of the Criminal Justice Program at RAND. Both documented the problem of substance abuse among offenders and the need to increase and improve treatment opportunities for this population. Turner said that 80 percent of the people incarcerated are alcohol or drug abusers, and less than 20 percent are getting help for their substance abuse. Said Hvass, "If there is any hope to help the corrections population, we need to get at the underlying chemical dependency problems. Otherwise we're going to see the same clients returning over and over again to our correctional system."

A number of other workshops covered a host of timely and provocative topics. To name just a few: Ian Mitroff, author of Framework: The Radical Redesign of American Business, discussed how spirituality and the Twelve Steps can be applied in the workplace. Judith V. Jordan, PhD, director of training at the Stone Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., discussed "The Healing Connection: A Relational Model for Women." Michael Gilbreath, managing director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention in Rockville, MD, presented on "The Binge That Kills: Responding to the College Alcohol and Drug Culture." Carol Colleran Egan, director of Older Adult Services at Hanley-Hazelden Center at St. Mary's, discussed "Substance Abuse and the Older Adult Woman." Jeffrey Bauer, a nationally recognized health care futurist, offered his view of the most likely changes ahead in health care. For instance, within a couple years, he predicts the demise of the defined health care benefit plan and the rise of an employee-determined benefit (in which employees will be given a certain amount of dollars to designate how their health care insurance dollars will be spent).

Published in The Voice, Winter 2000