OLD ORCHARD BEACH — James Barnett said he came to the Milestone Foundation residential treatment program with apprehension.

Barnett, 49, said he had “great fear” and didn’t know what to expect.

“I tried several other programs, to no avail,” he said. He was living in the woods and on the streets. “It was just survival.”

Now, he said, through the Milestone program, he’s not only learning how to live life sober, but also learning “how to become a gentleman” and be a productive member of society ”“ “something I wasn’t when I got here.”

“A lot of us come in on death’s doorstep,” said Barnett, who said he feels blessed to be at Milestone. “I’m forever grateful.”

Barnett lives in a home on Portland Avenue with 15 other male residents.

“It’s a brotherhood of brotherhoods,” he said.

The program, said Barnett, is intense and a lot of work.

Milestone Foundation is a nonprofit corporation licensed by the state to provide emergency shelter, detoxification and extended care to chronic substance abusers. Its Old Orchard Beach facility has provided residential treatment since 1967, according to the organization’s website.

Clinical Team Leader Lynn Avigo said those accepted into Milestone’s Old Orchard Beach program must be Maine residents, in the late to final stages of addiction, and have tried numerous times to stop drinking or taking drugs without success.

“It’s a very, very structured program,” said Avigo. A typical day begins at 6 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. The men live in a family setting for nine months, with everything done together.

“What we’re trying to do is give back something they’ve lost a long time ago, and that’s family,” said Avigo.

The residents are responsible and accountable to one another. For example, if someone is not up in time to start the day’s schedule of events, the others will go and figure out why. Many of the residents were formerly living on the streets or in prison, where they learned to do everything on their own, said Avigo.

The program is designed for chronic relapsers, said Avigo, and the staff is under the mindset that people who enter the program will, at some time, “mess up.” While other facilities may kick someone out for drinking or using drugs, the Milestone Foundation will take people back on a case-by-case basis, said Avigo.

If someone has relapsed, other residents will sit with them, one at a time, at a reflecting booth, and the person who relapsed will discuss why relapsing was not a good choice.

And although there is a set schedule every day, sometimes it isn’t followed, said Avigo. For instance, if someone has stolen someone else’s tobacco, the group will meet until the thief “feels safe enough” to admit to what he has done, even if it takes six hours, she said.

Avigo said the facility is staffed about three-quarters of the time, and graduates of the program “give back” by staffing the facility at night, doing hourly checks on residents, and calling staff in emergency situations.

Participants in the program do community service work. They also learn life and vocational skills to help ensure success after they graduate and move on to the next phase, where they receive outpatient services and live in a different building on the Milestone property. At that point, participants are responsible for their own rent and food.

“Fortunately here, they never give up on you,” said Barnett. “The staff here is second to none.”

Barnett and resident Pete Bickford, 50, have both entered the program more than once.

Bickford said he was living on the streets of Portland before he came to the Milestone program.

All his friends with whom he used to hang out are now dead, he said, and he feels fortunate to be alive.

Bickford said he realized he needed to “trust the process” and follow directions in order for success.

Conrad Berry, 52, a graduate of the nine-month residential program, has similar sentiments. If he hadn’t come to Milestone, “I’d be in the ground right now, no doubt about it.”

Bickford said he was once an angry person, and had issues from his past that he hadn’t dealt with, including family matters. He said he was living in Florida when his brother, who lived in Connecticut, died, and he never had the chance to say goodbye to him. In order to get closure, he went down to his brother’s grave in Connecticut, and the other residents and staff went along for support.

Right now, he works in the kitchen at the facility, which he said helps him get over his patience and anger issues.

“I look at people in a different way now,” he said. He said if he looks at their good traits, he doesn’t get as angry.

“It takes great strength and courage to do this program,” said Avigo, and those in the program have “the gift of desperation.”

Barry agreed.

“Drinking is very easy” he said. “I used to drink over anything, if it was rainy out or sunny out.”

Berry said that he doesn’t even want to drink anymore, something he couldn’t imagine saying a few years ago.

“Waking up every day (sober) ”¦ it’s all new,” said Berry. “Everything’s new all the time.”

He said he is now pursuing community service work.

“I got hope and peace here,” said Berry. “I came here, they gave me the will to live and unconditional love.”

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.