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Press Publications/Northeast DuPage
August 1, 200

Staff photo by Sidney Thoms

Henry Tews, founder and CEO of Serenity House in Addison, stands in front of the facility's recent expansion project of the men's extended residential care program. The facility opened in July for its clients.

On His Own Terms
Serenity House founder examines life in book
By Marie Lazzara, Staff Writer

As founder and chief executive officer of the 16-year-old Serenity House in Addison, Henry Tews has come face to face with addiction.

He said that people are addicted to some thing in their lives. Today, for him his “downfalls” are visits to Dairy Queen, fishing and golfing. They are benign compared to the past.

As a youngster, Tews was introduced to alcohol and then tobacco. As an adult, he fought his addictions by attending Twelve Step group meetings. Through his experiences, he developed a desire to help others by building Serenity House, a non-profit, community-based, comprehensive treatment facility.

Recently, Tews, a Glen Ellyn resident, wrote about his own trials, tribulations and triumphs in his book Paint a Little Square: Reflective Writings on Self Development and Addiction.

The facility offers services to men and women ages 18 and over who suffer from alcoholism and substance dependence. Included are services such as outpatient counseling and men and women's extended residential care program. This program is for people who have left detoxification units at hospitals or at crisis centers.

In addition, there are two men's independent living facilities in Addison and a women's version in Naperville. When people leave the extended residential care program, they enter these facilities, which are described as safe, sober, affordable places. This is the last step to help them prepare for living on their own.

Helping clients is a full-time staff, along with certified addiction counselors under the guidance of a medical director. Serenity House is licensed by and funded in part by the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse in Springfield. The organization is part of Department of Health and Human Services.

Dealing with demons
In the book, Tews is candid about his family life. The damaging effects of alcoholism indirectly and directly permeated Tews' childhood in Milwaukee, Wis. At the age of 3, he lost his 33- year-old father to the disease. Tews was raised by his mother and strict, no-nonsense grandparents. His mother also remarried another man who was addicted to alcohol and later died.

The sins of the father haunted Tews. While attending military school, drinking and a three-pack a day smoking habit were ways to mitigate his sad realities. He met his wife Diane in 1959. The drinking continued through his adulthood. In the 1964, at age 30, Tews attended his first Twelve Step group meeting to break through his destructive habit.

With that help, he began assisting others. One way was visiting the inmates at the Stateville Prison in Joliet, and describing the Twelve Step program to them. Tews decided to take his volunteerism a step further by creating his own facility.

“I want to help other people and unless I help other people, I don't make it,” he said. “I will lose everything that I have ever received. So the only way that you retain what you have received is by in turn giving that away. The ultimate goal is to obtain humility and the act of giving to others will help you obtain that goal.”

Writing power
He began writing when someone asked him to pen articles for the facility's newsletter three years ago. Consisting of personal stories, readers enjoyed them and wanted more.

“After we'd done 10 to 15 articles, a (book) publisher said to me 'Why don't you put them in a book?'” Tews said. “I've never even thought of it.”

Monies raised from the book will go back into Serenity House's programming and projects.

The book's title, he explained, comes from his experience in starting up the halfway house in 1986. A small cottage and a farmhouse were available in Addison in the back of an industrial site.

Beginning such an ambitious project required all the help Tews could get. It was not easy, because his original supporters of friends and family of addicts did not want to help.

As he writes in his book, he wondered if they did not want halfway houses in their “back yard.” People who he had talked to in a Twelve Step group thought of his master plan as an “ego trip and said that the other addicts and I would never succeed.”

Looking at the dilapidated surroundings before him, he reached a low point. Tews had waited 20 years for this opportunity, and now the project was slow to come to realization. He then prayed to God for guidance and realized that the problem rested with him.

“I was thinking that this was my halfway house, my life and my will,” he said. “It's not. It was God's halfway house, it's His program, His life and His direction. If was if He was telling me, `When are you going to get it through your thick head.' At that moment, I gave up. I said `It's yours. I'm sorry. I will never ever say that it's mine again.'”

He was waiting for God to give him a sign or an answer. Entering the small cottage, he noticed a square on the wall that was not painted. For him, that square was the starting point of a dream.

“I was waiting for an answer when a spot on the wall caught my attention. Someone had missed a spot, which was shaped like a square, while painting the wall. Accepting this (as his answer,) `Okay,' I said, `I can do that. I can paint that little square,'” he wrote.

That little square, Tews described, represents putting one's mind to achieving a goal despite the odds or obstacles.

Alive and well
From Tews' experiences, the book contains many inspirational stories.

There was a time that Tews almost did not see his dream grow into fruition.

On the Fourth of July in 1987, he was involved in a head-on collision. Suffering from cuts and bruises, he survived the ordeal—but the driver of the other car died. After speaking with his son Christopher, Tews went to the hospital. His paperwork was inadvertently placed on the stretcher of the deceased driver. A radio announcement relayed the story and said that Tews died.

In reality, he was alive, but disoriented. Luckily, a confused Tews found his family at the hospital and explained to them the situation. Unfortunately the good news was not given to those presiding over the County Funding Committee meeting. It was up to this committee to approve additional funding for Serenity House. Because of limited funds, Tews wrote that it was going to deny his request.

A bandaged Tews came to the meeting and stunned those in attendance. Emotions and tears overcame the committee members, and they decided to give Tews the money.

Tews is still amazed by that fateful day.

“Nobody knew that I was alive,” he said. “I didn't even know that I was declared dead.”

Tews also addressed the difficulties family and friends have in knowing someone who has an addiction to drugs or alcohol. He wrote that addicts come in all shapes, colors, creeds and income and education levels.

“Without the drugs and alcohol, and on a program of sobriety and behavioral change, these men and women can be the finest people, the most professional employees you will ever meet,” he wrote.

He recommended for loved ones to seek out help from groups such as Alcoholic Anonymous, Family Anonymous or their churches.

Tews is using the book to reach out to different audiences. Recently, he conducted a workshop with the facility's female extended residential care clients and received positive responses.

In October, he will teach a two-day course called Spiritual Issues in Recovery at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.

He hopes that readers will be encouraged by the book's positive messages.

“They look at the book and they can say, `Yes, I can do that. I can do these things. I can run the race. I can help,'” Tews said. “The book is about the fact that we are all miracles, every one of us. There are times that we don't act like miracles and there are times that we will.”

Copies of Paint a Little Square: Reflective Writings on Self Development and Addiction are available for $20 only at Serenity House. Proceeds are considered a contribution to Serenity House.

A newly published, expanded edition of “Paint a Little Square” is now available. Please call (630) 620-6616 X129 to order your copy now.