About

In the late 1980s, Howard Josepher and Joe Turner met in New York City and began the program now known as Exponents. Their goal was deceptively simple, to establish an outreach and recovery program for people returning home from prison with a substance use problem. But it was actually more complicated than that. Although they had some federal funding to run a limited three-year program, when that money dried up they were left with a program which had promise but few resources. Furthermore, there really weren't that many existing models for this kind of work. Many of their first participants had been recently diagnosed with HIV, and all were at some risk for contracting the virus. Meanwhile, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, neither the formerly incarcerated nor people who used drugs were viewed with much sympathy. Parole programs weren't always that helpful, and addiction programs required drug abstinence above all else in exchange for services. Howie's and Joe's vision of harm reduction-based recovery -- emphasizing stability and wellness first, not abstinence -- was well ahead of its time. So, too, was the program model, which is an 8-week course of classes (three courses a week) on how to begin one's recovery. They called it ARRIVE, which originally stood for AIDS Risk Reduction for Intravenous Drug Users and Ex-Offenders (that language is a little dated, and the program todays does much mx`ore than the title implies). ARRIVE isn't a "28-day cure," and they don't even require participants to always be sober while they're in the course. Instead, Exponents (self-described as "a client-driven organization rather than program driven") focuses on providing participants the tools to re-build their lives and the network (currently some 10,500 Exponents alumni) of other people in post-incarceration recovery. The theory is that if you welcome everyone and just get them in the door to commit to 24 classes, that constitutes a major first step for individuals who have a long road to travel. 75% of enrollees complete the course and most of those go on to get into recovery, get their health back on track (a major challenge, especially for people with HIV and substance use problems), and to rebuild their lives. Most of the staff are ARRIVE alums, hired under the theory that, as Howie explains, "the person who's been down and out, and just getting out of prison, and may be on his way or her way to getting strung out again, looks at that person and says, 'if they can do it, I can do it, too'." The ARRIVE program is the nation's oldest harm reduction program, and is Exponents' flagship program. Over the past three decades, however, they also have developed a range programs and services in support and counseling, homeless services, addiction treatment, peer training, HIV testing, HCV services, outreach to sex workers, recovery support services, GED training, and pre-release and re-entry services for returning citizens. Nearly thirty years after Howie and Joe started their work in the basement of a church, they sat down with me in one of their conference rooms to explain to me how they put the whole thing together.