As residents of two sober houses work to stay off drugs, some in Medford have made them feel welcome

Billy Walsh, Shawn McGuriman, Justin Pruitt, and their housemates are grateful for the calm after the storm.

They’ve stopped using the drugs that were laying waste to their lives. Much of the controversy about their home — a pair of sober-living houses in the heart of Medford — has abated. And some local folks are embracing them.

“How can we not support this group of people who are doing their best to have a second chance?” Jen Megaw, of the nearby Church Without Borders, said. “They’re just regular people who have made mistakes and are trying to do the right thing. I want Medford to be a town that rallies around them.”

Said Tim Meise, 29, the operator of what he calls the Empower Recovery homes: "There have been ups and downs and growing pains. It’s been a ride. "

Has it ever.

Meise, a charismatic fellow who grew up in Burlington County and has been sober nearly five years, opened the houses — essentially, boarding homes — nearly a year ago as he was applying for (but had not yet secured) a state license. The township allowed the houses to continue operating during a contentious zoning board process that generated fierce opposition from some Medford residents and concluded in mid-December with a conditional approval.

“Some neighbors aren’t happy, and I understand their concerns,” Mayor Chuck Watson said. “But these [former drug users] need a place to go better themselves, and as I understand it, these sober-living homes can be very successful.”

Thirty-three such facilities have been approved statewide since the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs cleared the way for them last year.

“The department … saw such facilities as serving a laudable public purpose, which should be encouraged,” Tammori Petty, director of communications, said, adding that the regulations “are intended to ensure that such facilities are operated in a manner that adequately protects the safety of residents.”

The Burlington County Times quoted some neighbors warning that children or property values would be at risk, and some posts on social media asserted that two houses was one — or two — too many for a site with schools and bars nearby.

And a week or so after the approval was granted, Medford police reported a spate of vehicle thefts and burglaries, later charging a man who lived in one of the houses in connection with the case.

"That one incident in a year is being used to define us … not the 20 guys who have stayed sober, moved out, and are doing great,” Meise said in a text message. “I won’t let one incident take away from the miracles and blessings.”

When I visited one of the houses last week, members of Church Without Borders and the Fellowship Alliance Chapel had brought lasagna, salad, and cake for dinner. Seven young men in recovery, most of them former heroin users, were living in the houses, which have a limit of five residents each.

The men pay $150 a week — the amount can be negotiable — and share the chores listed on a white board in the TV room. They go to work, attend meetings of 12-Step or other recovery programs, and are drug-tested three times a week.

Meise manages one house, and Pruitt, the other. The 11 p.m. weekday curfew can be flexible “once a guy proves he’s doing the right thing,” said Meise.

“You are accountable to yourself, and we hold each other accountable,” said Walsh, a 27-year-old Bronx native who has been off heroin for two months and works as a painter.

“I’ve been trying to get sober since I was 18,” said McGuriman, 24, a landscaping company worker who grew up in Berlin Township. “Tim is one of the most solid people I’ve ever met, and every single person in this house wants to stay sober."

Said Pruitt, 26, a 16-months-sober custodial worker from Prospect Park, Pa.: “Sobriety is my whole life now, and my life is good, so I’m sticking with it.”

Unfortunately, relapse is not uncommon, especially in early recovery. Addiction is a pernicious foe, and in my experience — I’ve been sober for a dozen years — the battle against it never ends.

But one way to prevent relapse is to become part of the recovery community, a vibrant place of deep and abiding friendships, as well as goodwill, good advice, and lots of tough love. While I never lived in a sober house, I know many people who have, and the Medford houses strike me as offering a genuine chance for lasting recovery.

I do respect the fact that some people in Medford are concerned. Their concerns certainly don’t make them bad people.

But of much greater concern is the fact that Medford, like everywhere else in America, is home to alcoholics and addicts who are neither in treatment nor in recovery, and therefore pose a greater danger to themselves and others than people who are struggling to get better, one day at a time.