For over 50 years, Phoenix House has helped thousands of people overcome addiction in order to lead healthy, productive, and rewarding lives. In 1967, six heroin addicts came together at a detoxification program in a New York hospital. They moved into a brownstone in Manhattan and lived as a community; encouraging one another to stay sober. Phoenix House was born and become a model for a citywide treatment network.

We are committed to supporting individuals and families by providing a wide range of services, including treatment for substance users with mental health challenges; Outpatient and intensive outpatient services as well as residential treatment. We have a specialized focus on providing services for military personnel, veterans, and their families. We offer medication assisted treatment at all of our locations.

Our philosophy is that every person has inborn dignity and self-pride. But pride is like a young sapling that must be trained, channeled, and nurtured until it is able to become deeply rooted and stand-alone, self-supported, and unshakable in the conviction that its firm foundation can withstand the test of any ill wind that may attempt to uproot it.

An ill wind has stunted the growth of our pride, but with each other’s help, we will we must dig our roots deeper, make our foundation stronger, and learn to combat and defeat all obstacles that stand between us and our goal of maturity, dignity, and self-respect.

Our symbol, the Phoenix, derives from the Egyptian myth of the great bird which is said to have destroyed itself by fire and to have risen again from its own ashes. It is what we, who have destroyed our lives by substance addiction, are striving to rise from the ashes of our defeat to take our rightful place in society. Society will accept us, for once we have regained our dignity, we will be society.

Author Ronald Williams, 1967