needing medications to stabilize his manic depression. ``I'm here 40 hours a week,'' he said. ``I'm sleeping good, eating good. I do chores at the house. I go to three or four meetings a week. Sundays from 2 to 4 I help the cook prepare supper.'' According to Brown, 17 of the 30 residents at the Billerica sober house hold outside jobs and two more are attending trade school. ``I was living in shelters in Boston for five years,” Brown said. ``I used to drink behind dumpsters. I've been sober now for 18 months.” One of Brown's residents, John, 52, is the house chef. On the day a reporter visited, he cooked a lunch of macaroni, hot dogs and clam chowder, and was poised to turn five steaks into ``shepherd's pie Argentine'' for supper. ``Guys come in pretty messed up,'' he said, noting his own previous attempts at suicide. ``But they go to meetings, help each other out, and opportunities open up. My lady friend just stopped by. She works down the street. By June I'll have enough money saved to get a place of my own. I know I don't have to drink.'' Malonson said he expects a May 7 fundraiser -- a kickboxing match he and three partners in Revolution Productions
Doreen Malonson, yet another Twelve Step manager in recovery, oversees the two women's sober houses, both in Woburn, with 10 residents in all. Her attempts to groom female residents as house managers have been unsuccessful so far. ``These big locations Phil is opening, women would never stand,'' she said. ``Women do better in small groups. Women are different. I don't know if they come into recovery with more baggage than men or have been abused more than men. I've been in this business for five years, and I don't know. We've just had more success with men.'' Like other parts of the network, the thrift shop, in a basement beneath a karate studio in Woburn, is barely breaking even. But the manager, Mike Matheson, and two volunteers in recovery at the shop one day this week, were all upbeat. ``I believe in dropping my anonymity because of the stigma people attach to alcoholism and drug addiction,'' said Matheson, now living in Billerica with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter. ``I'd be dead today if it weren't for Phil. He treated me like a brother, helped me get my self-respect back. I'm a fanatic about the program. We should have a sober house in every neighborhood. We have a crack house in every neighborhood.'' Allen, a 1977 graduate of Norwood High School and one of the volunteers, seemed relaxed and confident, boasting of no longer
“Without this program, I'd be on the street.” ~ Billy ``We'd like to buy one or more of the buildings we're renting,'' Malonson said. ``And we'd like to hire a nurse and a mental health counselor to rotate among our locations.'' are sponsoring at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell -- will yield a significant contribution to the Twelve Step network.
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