Tim Keenan | Special to The Michigan Catholic

Lake Orion — Guest House, the Lake Orion-based addiction treatment facility for priests, deacons and religious men and women from all over the world, announced it’s moving its treatment facility for men from its current location in Rochester, Minn., back to Lake Orion by next summer.

The announcement was made during the organization’s 55th Annual Bishop’s Dinner at the Detroit Athletic Club on Oct. 22. The group’s treatment facility for women already resides in Lake Orion. It opened its Minnesota facility in 1969 and operated two facilities for men, there and in Lake Orion, until the early 1970s.

“We’re bringing the men back because we want to consolidate on our main campus here in Lake Orion,” said Guest House President and CEO Denise Bertin-Epp. “It will allow us to have advanced technology and advanced medical care on site so that the priests, deacons, sisters and brothers will not have to go off campus for those services.”

The organization plans to build a new, state-of-the-art addiction treatment facility on its campus to house the relocated program for men.

“I know that the township is really supportive of us,” said Bertin-Epp. “We know that the donors are behind us. We think there is great potential that we can complete this building by next summer when we are ready to move.”

Guest House offers treatment for many different kinds of addictions including alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs and gambling. Dioceses and religious orders from across the U.S. and around the globe send between 100 and 200 priests, deacons and religious to Guest House each year. Since it was established in 1956 at the one-time Scripps family mansion in Lake Orion, some 8,000 people, 90 percent of those treated, have been returned to active ministry.

In addition, the organization offers workshops to leaders of religious congregations to help them identify members with addictive illnesses and help leaders perform interventions. There is also an outreach program for laypeople that teaches those in parishes how to identify addictive illness and intervene.

Guest House gets its funding from the dioceses and religious congregations that send people for treatment, but also from fundraising events such as an annual golf outing and Bishop’s Dinner, which raise approximately $3 million annually.

During the Bishop’s Dinner, Guest House honored Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron with its Cardinal Szoka Sensus Ecclesiae Leadership Award. During his acceptance remarks, the archbishop recalled a Guest House success story of a priest he had known since childhood at Immaculate Conception Parish in Anchorville.

“He told me when I went to visit him in Lake Orion that he had had a drinking problem for a very long time and although he was already in his 60s, he was grateful that somehow God had led him to Guest House,” Archbishop Vigneron related, “and that he looked forward to spending however many years he had left as a priest in sobriety.

“Receiving this award from Guest House makes me think of him and all the priests, sisters and brothers who have found at Guest House the courage to take up their work anew with a revived commitment because of the service they received there,” he said.

Guest House also honored the Michigan State Council of the Knights of Columbus for their assistance to the organization.

The dinner also marked the 50th anniversary of the Icon Dei support group, which conducts a pair of fundraisers each year and gathers at St. Hugo of the Hills every Friday to pray the rosary for Guest House.

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