COUNTYWIDE : Alcoholics Center Seeks to Rebuild

Wedged between a small mobile home park and a concrete block of machine shops and auto repair garages, the West Orange County Stephouse blends unobtrusively into its faded stucco-and-chain-link surroundings.

During the day, when its residents are at work, the Stephouse on the corner of Dale and Central avenues in Stanton is mostly deserted, except by a burly house manager, a cook and Rocky the guard dog.

At night, however, the dormitory-like atmosphere of the place comes to life, with recovering alcoholics from throughout the county.

It is the last step in a four-part recovery program administered by the West Orange County Stephouse, a nonprofit corporation founded 17 years ago by 15 men and women from the community who were either recovering alcoholics or whose lives had been touched by alcoholism, according to Art Amidon, the current executive director.

Today, the organization--which recently changed its name to Roque Center Inc., named after a previous director--is the largest government-funded provider of residential services in the county for victims of alcoholism, Amidon said.

He and Orange County Alcohol Program administrators would like to see the aging facility demolished and rebuilt to include a detoxification center, consolidating services offered at other county sites. Money is available through the county, but the project has been at an impasse, because such a use would not conform to city zoning.

The West Orange County Stephouse began in 1972 as a self-supporting. eight-bed recovery house, relying upon community donations and contributions from house residents. It grew into a second building on the site under county sponsorship. Its purpose was to give alcoholics on the street shelter and help from people who had been there, Amidon said.

Based on the 12-step recovery program advocated by Alcoholics Anonymous, the program relies heavily on recovering alcoholics to staff the house and be role models.

The program expanded in 1984 when the county offered the use of a former convalescent hospital in Garden Grove. The Stanton center was then converted into a home where men recovering from alcoholism could stay for up to six months, sharing living quarters and kitchen facilities and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the large meeting hall.

“We encourage the connection to a sober living site,” said Amidon, a recovering alcoholic for 8 1/2 years, because it increases residents’ odds of success. “We present a successful example of recovery. The’s the magic of this kind of setup.”

Two years ago, the Stephouse program acquired another eight-bed, sober-living site in Stanton. The program also operates another six-bed facility in Garden Grove and a 12-bed women’s sober-living site in some apartments above the Roque Center, Amidon said.

Now, said Ron Webb, program manager for the Orange County Alcohol Program, the county and Stephouse would like to rebuild and expand the original Stanton facility to include a detoxification center.

But the center, in an industrial area, operates under a conditional use permit. If the buildings are razed, the center’s nonconforming privilege would be voided, according to a memo by Stanton’s Planning Department.