Addiction recovery center opens in Albuquerque's International District

Bernalillo County unveiled a gleaming new support center on Friday for people in recovery located in the heart of an Albuquerque neighborhood known for addiction and homelessness.

The new $6 million Recovery Support Center is managed by Endorphin Power Co. — a private nonprofit with more than two decades of experience in providing services for people struggling with substance abuse.

“This operates more along the lines of a community center with an emphasis on people in recovery,” said Jeff Holland, executive director of Endorphin.

Community leaders, including Bernalillo County Commissioner Adrian Barboa and state Sen. Debbie O’Malley, D-Albuquerque, spoke Friday at an open house at the center at 517 Cardenas SE, just south of Zuni.

“We’re here today not just to open a building, but to open a door to healing, to hope, to long-term recovery,” Balboa said at the event. “I got a countywide commitment to behavioral health care that is compassionate, accessible, evidence-based and community-driven through our partnership with Endorphin Power Company.”

The 5,000-square-foot building houses a large kitchen, multipurpose classrooms, meeting rooms of various sizes and a children’s play area in an attractive, accessible setting. The building was funded by county behavioral health gross-receipts tax revenues, grants and general funds.

Endorphin will use the new center to provide intensive outpatient therapy for people in recovery, Holland said. The programs can include group and individual counseling, case management and peer-to-peer work. The center can also provide space for classes and community uses.

The nonprofit will manage the center under contract with Bernalillo County’s Behavioral Health Authority Division.

“It’s a place where you can come for three to four hours a day, three or four times a week, have intensive group work, and then go about your day,” Holland said.

Intensive outpatient therapy, he added, “is something you can do while keeping your life intact on the outside, instead of just putting your life on hold and going into a quasi-inpatient hospital center.”

Endorphin, located next door to the new Recovery Support Center, offers about 20 units of transitional housing for people recovering from substance abuse.

“We try to operate as a normal apartment complex,” Holland said. “It just happens to be filled with people who are coming out of addiction.”

The organization has operated since 2003 in a former church building at the corner of Zuni and Cardenas riddled with code-enforcement and accessibility problems. Holland said his next project will be to demolish the old structure and obtain funding to build additional housing, including housing for single mothers with children.