ABC Recovery Center was founded in 1963 in a small home in Indio, California. It became the first Alano club and treatment center in Riverside County. At that time, AA meetings were few and far between in the sparsely developed Coachella Valley, causing most recovering alcoholics to drive sometimes twenty or thirty miles a night, multiple times a week, just to attend a meeting. The original home that the ABC Recovery Center was started in was donated by a Coachella Valley family and had to be transported to its current location and placed on a small piece of land purchased with borrowed money from twelve step community members. This first house (which still stands on the edge of the new campus) hosted AA meetings every night and quickly became the center of twelve step recovery in the Coachella Valley. Its transition to a treatment center was not intentional. Eventually, men wishing to sober up showed up for meetings and as the participants noticed more and more of them had a need for things like basic housing and food, started renting the rooms out upstairs for a nominal fee. As it grew over the years ABC expanded its services and facilities dramatically.
In 1970, Danny Leahy became the first true, Executive Director of ABC Recovery Center. Quite by accident. As he said it, he was one of the residents living in the upstairs of the first home and came back from work to find that everyone had packed up and left. Committed to the facility he felt had saved his life, Danny and his soon-to-be wife Helen, worked tirelessly to provide a safe haven for alcoholics – – sometimes even going as far as selling pens in front of the local businesses to raise money to feed the residents. It was Helen and Danny who truly expanded the level of services offered at ABC Recovery Center.
For the first sixteen years of ABC’s existence, it only accepted men; and in fact, it was not until the late 70’s that ABC Recovery Center even started accepting drug addicts into its program. A few years later, ABC became the meeting place for the first Narcotics Anonymous meeting in the Coachella Valley.
In 1979, ABC began to accept female clients mostly due to Helen Leahy’s commitment to provide gender-specific treatment for women. A few years later, Betty Ford and Ambassador Leonard K. Firestone, started the Betty Ford Center. Betty, just as Helen, felt that gender-specific treatment that met the needs of women and the special circumstances that impede their recovery is necessary if we are to see the next generation of women freed from the shackles of addiction.
In 1987, ABC began to offer detoxification services in what we call today, a “social model” setting, which meant that clients – although observed and getting plenty of comforting and encouragement – had little in the way of medical oversight or assistance.
In 1989, ABC Recovery Center began to serve pregnant mothers in what would become their most well-known programs, the perinatal program. Women could come in during any phase of their pregnancy and be provided with – not only substance abuse treatment but – prenatal care, education on parenting, and community resources for on-going support. Eventually, when these women had their children, they could transition to long-term housing that would allow them to live on campus until their baby reached its first birthday. Helen Leahy, once again, was instrumental in the infancy of this program, and provided a warm and nurturing environment in ABC’s new women’s facility. This program continues to be one of our most successful programs with most of the graduates maintaining long-term sobriety. To date, ABC Recovery Center has treated almost 400 pregnant women.
Through a grant given by HUD, ABC Recovery Center built a ten bungalow, forty person transitional living village in 2000. This facility is still widely regarded as one of the nicest, low-income, transitional living communities in this region of southern California.
In 2002, ABC Recovery Center opened a large community center that not only housed the administrative offices but allowed for as many as three twelve step meetings at a time. The largest room would host their long-standing Friday night AA speaker meeting which still today is the largest AA meeting in the Coachella Valley. ABC Recovery Center, just as it was fifty years ago, is still considered by many to be the center for twelve step recovery in the valley.
In 2007, J. David Likens walked away from a budding legal career to succeed Danny Leahy as CEO of ABC Recovery Center. Committed to the ideals of ABC’s commitment to affordable high-quality treatment, and their long-standing twelve step values, David hit the ground running. He took seriously the Mission of the ABC Recovery Center and while expanded the on-going viability of the organization.
In 2008, shortly after his arrival David implemented the organization’s first ever outpatient treatment program, which has turned out to be ABC Recovery Center’s most cost-effective and profitable program.
In 2010, with mounting funding pressures due to the economy, ABC Recovery Center opened a sub-acute detoxification program and started offering partial hospitalization day treatment to meet the needs of insurance clients. With the expansion of these programs, ABC was able to hire a full licensed therapy staff, full nursing staff, and contract with an addiction doctor and a psychologist.
In 2011, ABC Recovery Center lost Helen Leahy to a battle with cancer. And just a few weeks ago, unfortunately, Danny Leahy lost his battle with chronic health issues and passed away. Two huge losses for ABC as well as the twelve step community.
In 2012, ABC Recovery Center started to offer social model, clinical model, and therapeutic community programs on the same campus to meet the various needs of a diverse cliental. Most treatment organizations stick to one modality or another because of the daunting task of training and maintain a staff knowledgeable in the necessary aspects of three clinical models. It is this sort of commitment to meeting the specialized needs of our clients and community that has kept ABC at the forefront of treatment in southern California for half a century. Today, ABC Recovery Center provides complete recovery services on our 15 acre, 24 building state-of-the-art campus.
