Community-Minded Enterprises, Recovery Cafe Spokane

Community-Minded Enterprises, Recovery Café Spokane (RCS)’s large, multifaceted parent nonprofit, saw the needs of the estimated 33,000 people in recovery in Spokane County and created the Café to employ the same practices common to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)-endorsed Recovery Café Network, based in Seattle since 2004.  RCS provides recovery support to those seeking recovery from alcoholism and addiction and the co-occurring mental health issues that often underlie and accompany those illnesses.  The Café is not a treatment center; rather, it is a therapeutic recovery community designed to help its members stay in treatment and in recovery following treatment.

Our Mission 

As a community of compassion, courage, and transformation, Recovery Café Spokane promotes recovery from alcoholism, and co-occurring mental health disorders by providing peer-based recovery support from persons with lived experience.  RCS does this by offering hope, strength, and stability to the adult recovering alcoholic or addict, whether that person has been in recovery for ten minutes, ten days, ten months, or ten years.

Who We Serve 

• Adults aged 18 and older who are affected by chronic substance use disorders and/or co-occurring mental health conditions.
• Members must have at least 24 hours of sustained abstinence from alcohol and drugs to access Café services.
• Members represent the array of age, gender, racial, ethnic, US veteran-status, and disabilities-related diversity common to Spokane County.  All of our members are of underserved socioeconomic status.
• Many Members are connected with 12-step Fellowships, or faith-based recovery organizations; others choose medication-assisted recovery or solo recovery pathways.

Our Goals and Impact 

The Café aims to reduce the burdens alcoholics and addicts place on the healthcare and criminal justice systems, reduce the rate of relapse, and promote stable housing.  The most recent member survey of our seventy members indicated that in the thirty days preceding the survey: 

• None reported having used the ER as a way to obtain routine medical care.
• All have a primary care physician or use a drop-in clinic.
• None reported using alcohol.
• Only one member reported using drugs.
• All of those surveyed live in stable or supportive housing.
• Only one member reported spending one night in jail.