Recipe for drug freedom: fresh air, hard work, prayer
By Ed Langlois of The Sentinel

Carlton, OR - In the day's increasing heat, safe in the shade of a burly walnut tree, a blue book rests on a chair. The pages riffle in the wind, showing the tome to be the guide to Alcoholics Anonymous.
      Across the farmyard, within earshot of squealing hogs, a small table and chair are home to a Catholic Bible. The well-worn book includes special footnotes for readers recovering from alcohol and drug abuse.
     This is Blanchet Farm, where 40 people work the soil, tend livestock and surrender to the Higher Power.
     The hilltop is covered with acres of vegetables and pens full of chickens and pigs. Sheep, goats and several llamas graze the 60 acres and may soon be joined by beef cattle. A crucifix overlooks each room. In almost every corner are Images of the last supper, the Sacred Heart, Mary and Pope John Paul.
     The Catholic charitable enterprise includes the farm, the flagship Old Town residence and meal site, and a 10-bed substance-abuse recovery center in NW Portland.
     In 1962, the handful of University of Portland graduates who had founded Blanchet House a decade earlier sought to fulfill the Catholic Worker dream of having homeless people work a farm. The idea was to escape the wiles of the city and be healed by country wholesomeness.
     The idea still works. Alcoholics and addicts shed those labels and become farmers instead.
      "I wanted to get away from the downtown environment, the drugs and drinking," says 39-year-old Gerald Mann, who has found working with chickens and pigs a salve for 20 years of heroin and methamphetamine abuse.
     Mann, who grew up on a farm in Columbus County, clearly knows what he is doing with the animals. He has been named manager of poultry and livestock, a position of some prestige on the farm.
     Shirtless, with sunglasses and tattered jeans, he fills water buckets and feed troughs. Inside the barn, he tends to 300 new chicks, maintaining strict temperature in the enclosure.
     Mann awakes at 5 a.m. and spends most of the day making sure the animals are fed and safe. If the geese sound an alarm at night, he wanders out to scare off predators -- coyotes and bull snakes mostly.
     Last growing season, the farm produced 80,000 pounds of produce.
     Guests say the farm forces teamwork, a difficult but important concept for people in recovery to embrace. Whether in the fields or in the support group, folks on Blanchet Farm can't afford to be loners.
     "This is a place where people come to help each other," says pony-tailed Rob Lundl, 31. "Nobody recovers from this disease alone."
     John Pastor works in the garden, putting up string to support sweet peas. An Army veteran, until a few weeks before, he was in the throes of another alcoholic fit.
     "I like it her," he says, his hands trembling as he ties knots. "No temptation. Where am I going to get booze? Plus, everyone works together here."
     People on the farm admit that they show up angry and then soften. Much of that happens during the three Alcoholics Anonymous meetings the place hosts each week.
      "This farm has been a Godsend," says Bill Hemphill, former client who is the farm's new foreman. "It's a real peaceful place to recover from anything."
     About half the residents come from Yamhill and Washington counties. The others need to escape drug dealers and ne'er-do-well companions of Old Town.