A MAN WITH A PLAN: Clinton man pushes for addiction recovery center

Jul. 3—CLINTON — A Clinton man has founded a nonprofit organization with the hope that he can launch a recovery center to help others find their way out of addiction.

Clinton Substance Abuse Council intern Dominic Capella founded the nonprofit, Rediscover Recovery Community Center, because of his desire "to give my recovery away."

Capella seeks only a physical location. Ideally, the commercially zoned facility would be at least 2,500 square feet with space suitable for a main gathering area, an office space, a resource area, a kitchen, and a play area for children. If such specifications aren't possible, Capella is nonetheless determined to make the center a reality.

Capella grew up in Alaska. In the late 1980s, his family decided to move to Iowa. Hesitant about the change of environment, Capella didn't join them until a year later when he was around 18 or 19 years old and found that he indeed felt it wasn't the right place for him.

In the attempt to return to the West Coast, he joined the United States Coast Guard, which took him on an international ice breaker for the next two years. He then did search and rescue on the Oregon coast for the subsequent six years and decided thereafter to stay in Brookings, Oregon, 13 miles from the California border, where he was first introduced to methamphetamine.

The next 12 years of Capella's life were spent in active addiction until he was arrested in 2012, charged with theft by receiving, and sentenced to nine years in prison, of which he would serve seven before being released.

During the last year he would serve of his sentence, Capella decided that upon release he would come to Clinton to care for his mother and better his relationships with her and his siblings. This, along with fitness and education, would become his motivation to not return to drug use.

Three years out of prison, in May 2023, Capella earned a bachelor's degree in social work from St. Ambrose University in Davenport. He currently continues to attend as a graduate student in pursuit of his master's degree.

He also began volunteering at the Clinton Substance Abuse Council, where he's since become a Peer Recovery Outreach Coordinator intern.

In this role over the past few months, Capella passionately developed and established the Rediscover Recovery Community Center, for which he says he's gained the support of county officials as well as that of Iowa State Sen. Chris Cournoyer in bringing it to fruition.

"There are few resources in the recovery realm," CSAC Executive Director Kristin Huizenga says. "We kind of went through this recovery community index score and looked at what they identified as resources and realized that we really didn't have probably the amount of resources needed to support people in recovery in our own community."

A 2013 survey conducted by the Faces & Voices of Recovery organization in Washington, D.C. estimated over 23.5 million adults in the U.S. as being in recovery. The study also found recovery to be associated with a 50% increase in paid taxes, a 10-time decrease in emergency room visits, a four-time decrease in reports of untreated mental health problems, and a three-time increase in community volunteerism.

Inadequate support, however, both nationally and locally for those in early and long-term recovery often results in the tendency to isolate, which then leads to a deteriorated mental and emotional state and ultimately the greatly increased chance of the return to drug use.

"When I was in active addiction," Capella says, "I never knew a single person who got clean successfully and maintained abstinence in recovery."

According to Capella, 80% of people relapse within the first year of recovery. Of those who make it to a full year, almost 50% will still relapse. But 85% of those who make it to five years successfully never use drugs or alcohol again.

"When you're quitting, your brain is telling you if you don't use, you're going to die, and it makes you feel like you're dying," he explains. "But now here I am 11 years later clean and sober and thriving in my recovery, so I want to spread that message of hope to anybody that will listen."

There are only four other recovery community centers in the state, Capella says, and they're all fairly new. Elsewhere in the country, though, centers have successfully existed for over 30 years and serve as models of what works as he moves toward building one in Clinton.

The Rediscover Recovery Community Center will be free, requiring no insurance or referral to utilize its peer-based services that cater to the diverse needs of those in the recovery community, helping them to build new support systems, make lifestyle changes, and learn how to once again care for themselves both physically and mentally.

Recognizing that drug or alcohol addictions have different causes and therefore require different solutions, the Center will make recovery accessible to everyone, unspecific to a singular modality or pathway to recovery, while also reducing stigmas associated with recovery by bringing it visibility in the community.

A place where those in recovery can have fun, they can also sign up for initial services like recovery coaching with certified peers, a variety of different peer support meetings that will ideally be available on a daily basis, and a telephone recovery support service in which trained volunteers reach out via weekly phone calls to check on how someone is doing and keep them connected with the community, feeling wanted, cared about, and included.

Anyone with helpful information can contact Capella at (563) 357-0916 or at rdominiccapella@gmail.com.

The community is also invited to participate in a needs assessment survey available until Capella plans to close it in September. It is accessible online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/crns2023.