The meeting house for the Keep Coming Back 12-step Program for drug and alcohol recovery is in jeopardy of closure because of diminishing funds.
The KKCB Program, supports about 200 people per week. The program is a private non-profit organization funded by private donors.
Each month the program is short from $100 to $200, and if the shortage continues, the program won’t exist anymore, said KKCB member Sen. Nate Anderson, College of Science.
“We want to keep the meetinghouse alive,” Anderson said. “We can’t expect this to continue to happen and it looks like it may die.”
Currently, the program is only surviving by private donations.
The 12-step programs, which hosts 20 meetings per week either on SUU campus or at the town meeting hall on 28 N. 100 West, receives $800 to $900 a month but needs $1,000 per month to survive.
Michael B., 52, Secretary board member of the 12-step program, said the meeting hall is important to him.
Michael, who has been drug-free for 23 years, said losing the meeting hall will be detrimental to new members’ needs and the members more likely to relapse with no support group.
Fellow program member Sen. Russell Kennedy, College of Humanities & Social Sciences agreed.
“The continuance of safe, accessible places, like the 12-step hall in Cedar City are absolutely essential to effectively combat and treat the disease of addiction in our community,” Kennedy said. “It quite simply provides a place where lives are saved.”
Kennedy said he picked up drugs for the first time at 24, was a drug user for 10 years and has been clean for two years with the help of the 12-step program, his family and God.
“I am convinced, and remain so, that the only way out of such places of darkness is the involvement of a loving God or higher power and a 12-step program,” Kennedy said.
Michael said the closest support group outside of Cedar City is in St. George, Michael said.
“People are going to go crazy,” he said. “Younger members in recovery are more tenuous and they will go out and start using again — they won’t have means to deal with it.”
Michael said the program has been a blessing in his life.
Michael said his advice to new members in the program is this: Don’t pick up, don’t put it in and you won’t get high.
“It’s a very simplistic process but it’s hard,” Michael said. “Somebody somewhere needs a meeting everyday.”
Michael said people start abusing drugs and alcohol to give them an escape from reality’s hardships and struggles.
He said many end up spending all their money on these substances and go to extremes to obtain the drugs or alcohol just to get high or drunk, he said.
“Many people steal, rob, sell themselves on the streets — they do whatever to get drugs,” Michael said.
“It’s a live or die situation. The brain tells the body ‘if you don’t have them, you’re going to die — if you don’t get high, you’re going to die,’” he said.
Michael said when addicted to drugs, the mind goes into an incomprehensible demoralization and the body’s self-survival mechanism kicks in.
“It’s psychological — it’s for real. It’s very sad,” he said.
Anderson said one of the program’s traditions is that new comers are the most important people, but if the meeting house goes under, there won’t be any support for recovery.
KKCB will host a fundraiser March 27 at the meeting hall, 28 N. 100 W., at 6 p.m.
KKCB will have a barbecue fundraiser April 7 at 10 a.m. at the meeting hall. They plan to sell handmade quilts, have a car wash and a live band.
REAL Peers sponsors the on campus meetings Monday nights at the Great Basin Room at 8 pm.
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