Located on a busy street, where temptation disguised as a liquor store resides a couple blocks away, sits His Place, a free home and faith-based rehabilitation center that has been treating drug addicts and alcoholics for 34 years.
“We provide a safe place for people to grow,” said Marc MacIntire, director of His Place, who has a master’s in pastoral counseling.
Currently providing services for 28 men, ranging from ages 18 to mid-60s, His Place has a goal beyond recovery.
“Our goal is not just to turn out guys who stop getting high and drunk,” MacIntire said. “My goal is for men to leave as Godly fathers, as Godly husbands and as Godly men and leaders.”
The main location for the men, during the day, is at His Place’s headquarters in Opelika. The men attend classes to learn about faith, as well as CPR and other technical skills.
Many members sleep at the farm location, approximately 20 minutes away, where there are 20 extra beds.
A member of His Place for two months said he has found how to stay sober through faith.
As tears welled up in his eyes, the member said he remembers what made him overcome his addiction in the first place: his sons, who are 6 and 3 years old.
“I love them, and they’re in a good place,” the member said. “Since I’ve come here, I learned that if I put God first, that everything will just fall into line.”
His Place bases most of the programs on faith. The rehabilitation program also allows people to find jobs their last three months of the program to earn money instead of volunteering.
Overflowing with heartache from missing his sons, the member said he went straight back to His Place after working at Harvest Thrift Store and asked MacIntire if he could call his sons.
MacIntire went back and forth with the member, but ultimately let him call.
No answer.
“I think it’s best I don’t call right now, and I truly thought in my flesh that I needed to talk to my son,” the member said. “The Lord put it on me not to call. If I would have heard his voice, he could have said anything. It could have been bad.”
The member said he prayed for strength after attempting to call his sons.
“The very next day, I went to an autism [charity] event, and it was what I needed,” the member said, while wiping tears from his stubble-covered cheeks. “Most of the time, (the Lord) has been talking to me. It’s through the men here.”
Charles Darwin’s quote parallels the rehabilitation process at His Place, according to Barbara Keller, MacIntire’s cousin.
“It’s not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives,” Keller said. “It’s the most responsive to change. So if you don’t change that whole environment that they’ve come from and have been a part of, that’s a hard transition sometimes to maintain unless the accountability and the follow-up is there.”
So far, the capacity for His Place is 30 people, but more men continue to sign up for the program.
Fifty men are waiting to get into the rehabiliation program now, but His Place doesn’t have the space to accommodate them, according to MacIntire.
In the garage, also home to the men’s gym equipment, construction is in progress to build extra lodging space.
MacIntire said he wants His Place to be different from other rehabilitation programs across the country.
“Some of the men have been through five programs, and this is just another program to them, but not to me,” MacIntire said. “This is the last program.”
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