Serenity Mesa is opening a new youth detox facility

Nonprofit Serenity Mesa will open the only inpatient youth detox in New Mexico. The six-bed facility in the South Valley is newly renovated and set to open in mid-to-late September, depending on when provisional state licensing is finalized.

When someone under 18 in New Mexico is trying to escape addiction and needs to detox from drugs such as fentanyl or meth, there are few options for a medical detox, where health care providers give the person medications to help ease withdrawal symptoms.

They can go to an emergency room and try to get treated, but typically they get fluids, get their vitals under control and then are sent home, said Director of Facilities and Programming David Burke. They can try to get treated on an outpatient basis with medications they take at home.

“As soon as they make the decision to get sober and they stop using, trying to get from that point to where they actually feel better is really difficult, and that’s usually where we lose them,” said Executive Director Jennifer Weiss-Burke, one of Serenity Mesa’s cofounders. “They want treatment, and then all of a sudden they’re gone because they can’t handle the pain of the withdrawal. So having a medical withdrawal, it’s a safer way for them to go through the process, and it’s also less painful.”

Serenity Mesa already has a 14-bed, 90-day substance use disorder treatment program for clients who are 14 to 21 years old, but those teenagers and young adults have to detox for three to five days before they arrive. The program isn’t allowed to accept youth who are high or test positive for substances like meth or fentanyl. Adding a medical detox allows Serenity Mesa to accept those kids instead of turning them away to go through withdrawal on their own before going through the treatment program.

Meth use has been a steady presence since Serenity Mesa opened in 2015, according to Weiss-Burke, but other substances have risen and fallen in popularity. Heroin and prescription opiates used to be common but have been replaced by fentanyl, and over the last year and a half, the facility has seen a lot of young people using cocaine. Marijuana and alcohol are also prevalent.

The increase in fentanyl use over the last nine years has made it even more difficult for kids trying to go through withdrawal.

“Someone trying to withdraw from fentanyl by themselves, on their own, is really, really difficult, and it can be dangerous. ... So having medical oversight is really important, and it’s been a piece that’s been missing for a long time for us,” Weiss-Burke said.

The detox facility will have nurses who can monitor the youths’ vitals as they detox and provide medication to make the five to 10 days of withdrawal more comfortable.

For these parents, a youth detox is personal

Weiss-Burke and Burke are married, but each of their lives was affected by substance use disorder before they met in 2012 and married in 2014.

Weiss-Burke’s son Cameron Weiss died of an overdose in 2011 at 18 years old. He became addicted to prescription opiates after a sports-related injury and moved on to heroin.

“It was just frustrating because there was nothing out there for him. I had to send him out of state,” Weiss-Burke said.

David Burke got addicted to prescription pain pills after a surgery in the mid-2000s, before the prescription monitoring program. He was able to get prescriptions from his gastroenterologist, his family doctor and more medical providers, until he had 27 different prescriptions.

“I lost everything, and so I come at it from the side of recovery,” Burke said.

The new detox is named Michael’s House after Michael Duran, who died at 19 in 2011 after struggling with addiction. His mother, Lou Duran, is one of Serenity Mesa’s cofounders and the facility’s billing specialist.

“We lost our son Michael to the disease of addiction, and our journey started sitting at the kitchen table when Michael said, ‘Mom, I’m addicted to oxy.’ Those six words forever changed our lives. After several calls to local ERs that night, we were advised to stay home, keep Michael comfortable, and if he stops breathing, call 911. ... No child, or any human for that matter, should detox at home,” Duran said at a ribbon cutting for the youth detox in August.

The challenges of providing services to young people

Setting up a youth detox is difficult because the higher liability makes it more expensive. A youth facility also has to get guardian approval and work with the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

Youth are also not always as motivated as adults to get sober. Often, someone else, like a parent or the court system, is telling them they need to go to treatment, Weiss-Burke said.

“Some of our kids are 15 years old, dealing with 40-year-old problems,” David Burke said.

Serenity Mesa has been working for eight years to make the youth detox a reality.

The facility required $750,000 to remodel, $100,000 in supplies and will cost $2 million to run over the first year. Serenity Mesa is staffing it with 10 nurses and two part-time medical directors.

Bernalillo County and the city of Albuquerque are helping the nonprofit cover the first year of operational costs. After that, the detox will likely be self-sustaining, by charging insurance and Medicaid. Serenity Mesa does not charge families for its services.

Serenity Mesa already offers a transitional housing program and an apartment program that houses 40 families, so young people who enter the detox will be able to transition directly into treatment, followed by stable housing.

“Our goal has always been to provide a full continuum of care where they can go from detox to treatment to stable, affordable housing,” Burke said. “Our goal is to teach them how to survive in the world, how to have fun without using drugs, to live a life without drugs.”