In the News

Glen Ellyn News
March 22, 1996
By Robert Lundin, Correspondent

On a shelf in Henry Tews' office at Serenity House, next to a few souvenirs and a football autographed by the Chicago Bears, stands a small statue of Don Quixote.

Tews, a Glen Ellyn resident who is the founder and president of the highly successful Addison-based halfway house for drug and alcohol abusers, explains that his wife bought him the figurine in Mexico. She made the point that he and the mythical conqueror had something in common.

The fictional Don Quixote, who yearned to be like the dazzling knight of storybooks, would embark upon a crusade of whimsical adventures, ultimately leading to a dreamed-up version of himself as a great knight.

Any resemblance between myth and man? Yes and no.

It's not accurate to call Tews' mission at Serenity House anything like a fantasy. Serenity House, which houses 10 women and 16 men, is a very real place, with people facing very serious problems and suffering very powerful addictions.

Neither is it fair to call Tews' vision dreamed up. He has become something of a real champion among the men and women who pass through DuPage's only state-licensed halfway house. He's been a tireless promoter and lobbyist. His political connections go to the highest levels of state government.

Under his direction, Serenity House, located next to an industrial park, has managed a 65% success rate; it has multiplied and thrived. It has found money where many have not: in state agencies (Dept. of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse), the United Way, and through client fees.

But like Don Quixote, Tews is a heroic mission. He'll outright tell you he's aspiring for the "inconceivable." That's the attraction of what he does, he'll say.

Ten years ago when he founded Serenity House, he had no idea where it would take him, no idea that a treasury of $50 would grow into a yearly budget of $600,000.

"I got Serenity House in spite of myself. It was given to me. The Lord has always picked impossible scenarios." said Tews, who describes himself as a deeply spiritual and faithful man.

Moreover, like the serendipitous man from La Mancha, Tews says he doesn't direct his life from point A to point B and walk a straight line. That's not the way life is, he says. Tews says he bounces around like a pinball hitting a bank of flippers.

"What I did was not so much charge forward but walk cautiously and look at the barricades," he said. "Then like a pinball machine, bounce off this one to this one to this one. All those bumpers were guides by the Lord."

"In life, you will not so much find what the good Lord's will is, but you will sure as hell know what it ain't."

What it "ain't been" for Tews is a bed of roses. Grappling with his own allergy of alcohol for three decades, Tews began at the age of 30 working with alcoholics.

"Thirty-one years ago, I came to the realization that alcohol wasn't going to be a part of my life anymore. On that day, 31 years ago on Dec. 10, I stopped drinking and smoking," he said.

At the age of 30, he made a stab at founding his first halfway house. It failed miserably.

In the following years, Tews settled into the family business and enjoyed financial success as owner of a specialty paper company. But Tews said he became too wrapped up in being a provider. He lost touch with his family, his values.

Ten years ago came a drastic and unexpected change. He took a seemingly foolish tack, and has found a different kind of riches and satisfaction since taking the plunge, he says.

"There was no conceivable, logical, realistic reason for me to start a halfway house," said Tews. "I had no powerful, influential financial friends. I had five children that I should have been working with. I had just had a heart attack and bypass surgery."

Friends of Tews', noting his excellent volunteer work withaddicts, kept telling him that DuPage needed a halfway house.

"I told them they were crazy. But they kept coming, and kept coming," said Tews. "My true belief and feeling is that the good Lord wanted it to happen. There's no other reason to start one."

Now Tews, perhaps no longer searching for his own identity, listens and grieves and searches for meaning in the lives of clients who enter Serenity House addicted to alcohol and drugs.

He's sensitive, a characteristic which he says not many people know about him. His eyes well up with tears as he stands in the parking lot of Serenity House and watches a baby being taken from his 24 year-old drug-addicted mother.

There are many other heart-rendering cases at Serenity House - the shattered lives of people, many who say they find their last hope in Tews' mission.

There is John, 45, who asked not to have his last name used. John is a hard-core addict and has been for 15 years. Originally from the western suburbs, John moved to Colorado where his drug habit became the center of his existence.

John, who's been offered a house manager position at Serenity House, tried various other halfway houses and detoxification programs. In his own words, he was "treatment smart."

"The last time, I stayed clean about 90 days and then I relapsed; after that, I pretty much gave up," he said. "I said, 'I'm an addict, nothing's going to change. I'm going to die an addict,' and kept using for the next six years."

John said the addict who told him about Serenity House couldn't get in for space limitations and, before space was available, committed suicide.

"When you're a drug addict, that's exactly what happens; you lose hope. The drugs take your humanity away," he said. "One of the great things about Serenity House is that a lot of people who have been through these halls come back and they're still sober. That's where the hope lies."

Another of Tews' gripping success stories is Arlene, a 29-year-old mother of three girls from Elgin. Arlene and her husband had become addicted to cocaine, especially crack cocaine. Arlene still has recurring cravings. She fears the drug.

Her husbands' life so revolved around cocaine that he was late to their wedding. He was out buying an "eightball" - or 3.5 grams of cocaine.

Arlene has resorted to prostitution and "ganking" - or con games - to find money to pay for her drug habit. If she goes back to the street, she fears the "yets" - things that could yet happen. She said she's been an attempted murder victim twice, but more than that, she fears the next step is the needle. This is something she dreads. But she may be driven to it by the craving for a better high.

"This is my last hope. I know there are 'yets' out there for me," says Arlene. "I'd like to dig my roots in here for awhile, feel safe for awhile."

What does Tews give to people like Arlene and John? An example of a life of sobriety, commitment and hope, he says. "I'm giving them my time, that's the most valuable thing I have," he says.

"Walk the site here and you'll feel the presence of God," says Tews. "There is a presence here and I've stood and I've felt it. There is no doubt in my mind."

"They say that your faith extended is how you give to the needy. My faith has been alive for a long time because of what I try to do for others, but in a sense with the philosophy that I do not survive unless I give it away."

So, like Don Quixote pursuing his fabulous dreams of greatness, Tews pursues miracles every day. They're miracles in the eyes of addicts like John and Arlene and hundreds of others who find hope and security in the dreams of Tews and Serenity House.