Will Magdalen ‘Expect a Miracle’ House for alcoholic women move to more-modern digs or be denied? Again.

Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Located in East Dallas more than 31 years, Magdalen House has helped change women’s lives, just a few at a time in the early days, and, by extension, families going through alcoholism hell. By now, they have reached thousands,

Not a treatment or medical detox center, “we provide a form of treatment for alcoholic women,” directors (often recovering alcoholics themselves) say. “We are a supportive-educational environment … we serve women who already know they have ‘the problem,’ so we don’t directly provide assessment or clinical counseling services.”

The recovering sober staffers, alum and volunteers at Maggie’s House provide support and survival essentials—from a warm bed, nourishing food, coffee, toiletries, makeup and career-appropriate clothing to soul-mending solutions, primarily rooted in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Maggie’s House is the first and only one of its kind in Dallas to provide this critical service, notes executive director Lisa Kroencke. You see, alcoholism is a disease that affects not only the addicted, but also their families, neighbors, strangers on the street and beyond. So this — while not as hot a topic as the opiate epidemic, which we can get to later, is kind of important to our entire city and yonder.

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When a small group of recovering alcoholics founded Magdalen House in 1986, they took shelter, and no small amount of pride, in small home on Lovers Lane; it safely could accommodate about six women.

In 1996, funding from the Dallas Women’s Foundation allowed the evolving nonprofit to purchase the large fixer-upper located in Little Forest Hills, which founders, staffers, volunteers and temporary residents transformed into the current facility —  affectionately “Maggie’s,” to most. It’s in the middle of a residential neighborhood and so close to a school that you can hear the children on the playground from the front porch, yet we’ve never heard a complaint. In fact LFH supports Maggie’s, promoting its fundraisers and events.

Treating a family disease

Reminds me of the time an all-male Oxford House, another sober living facility (albeit for those further along in recovery) opened in a northeast Dallas neighborhood. Except that time, an angry HOA member did everything in his power to boot them out. He complained about their cars. (“Do you know what a miracle it is that we can legally drive cars now?” one roommate boomed with laughter. He also complained that the house was too close to the elementary school.) This homeowner was far from first to object to sober-living houses in residential areas. A 2002 New York Times article highlights several court cases involving sober houses fighting for the right to exist in neighborhoods and cities that don’t want them.

Voices of reason in the same neighborhood, such as reader Heather, pointed out that she “would rather have sober house—with rules and standards and openness—than some of the other crazies that live nearby. Sure, they could fall off the wagon [a zero-tolerance policy, both at Oxford and Maggie’s means immediate eviction if alcohol or drug use is detected], but they are in a program … addicts live in every neighborhood, most are not trying to get better, so why don’t people quit being hateful and start seeing what is really there?”

The women of Maggie’s moved into the 1302 Redwood Cir. facility relatively quietly. They held 12-Step AA meetings and invited the community. They painted and landscaped. They vacuumed and scrubbed the floors. They created eight or so comfortable bedrooms where women could endure detoxification under close observation.

“Doctors Hospital is down the street, half mile, if they need help, because alcohol is one of the two most dangerous drugs to quit.”

People do not die from withdrawals from meth, coke or even opiates. But going cold turkey off alcohol or benzodiazepine pills can cause death.

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In 2009, I wrote a feature about Maggie’s. I visited six women who could have been schoolteachers, college students. One actually was a doctor — at least she had been until a DWI caused her suspension from practicing medicine. Though she started drinking relatively late in life, her 30s, the addiction quickly took hold  — she lost her career, her home, her family and her freedom within a few years. On parole, Maggie’s was her last shot at freedom. She’ll likely never practice medicine again, but she could help others, if she could only get well. Women face more danger and destruction from alcoholism than men face.