When drug addicts and alcoholics hit bottom, they visit a Fells Point oasis called The Serenity Shop.
Here, in the 200 block of S. Broadway, hundreds of people come each week to the shop's coffee bar, bookstore and pool hall. They share their life stories, provide support for each other and attend the Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous PTC meetings held each day behind the pool tables.
It's the kind of place where recovering addicts "can . . . see there is a life beyond drinking and drugging," says Michael Bratt, a drug counselor at the Baltimore Recovery Center in West Baltimore. And patrons say it's the only place of its kind in Baltimore.
Yesterday afternoon, 18-year-old April Martin was among the more than 60 people who spilled out of The Serenity Shop after a lunchtime Narcotics Anonymous meeting. The recovering heroin
addict, a relative newcomer to the shop, said she has been drug-free for 21 days.
"It might not sound like a lot of time to people who haven't been there, but I'm real proud. It's hard. Every clean day is a successful day," says Ms. Martin, who grew up in Harford County and lives in a city halfway house with 10 other recovering addicts.
Just a few months ago, she would spend her days "copping [buying drugs] or trying to get high" in East Baltimore shooting galleries -- usually vacant houses shared by addicts.
Now she comes to The Serenity Shop almost every day.
"I like to hang around here because I'm around clean people. It's amazing. I love it here because everyone is working toward a common purpose," she says, her eyes welling up with tears.
Former heroin addict Larry DeAngelis -- who says he's been drug-free for nine years -- opened The Serenity Shop last April, after moving from a small bookstore on North Charles Street.
"When I came out of treatment nine years ago, I had a trash bag, two pairs of pants and three shirts and I was homeless," says Mr. DeAngelis, an intense, talkative man.
"It hurts me to see people go back [to drugs]," he adds. "What keeps me clean is God and remembering it being 30 degrees while I'm on the corner, giving somebody money and hoping they're going to come back with some drugs."
Now, drug counselors refer clients to The Serenity Shop. Businesses call, looking for workers.
And the Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are packed with one of the most diverse groups of people found anywhere in Baltimore.
Some come here from recovery programs, some straight from prison. White and black, the elderly and adolescents, business owners and the unemployed, suburbanites and city dwellers -- they mingle inside before heading back out into the world on Broadway.
"It doesn't matter where you come from, Yale or jail," Mr. DeAngelis likes to say.
They speak proudly of their time sober and drug-free: eight years, 15 months, 47 days, seven days. And they talk of sacrificing marriages, homes, cars -- even their children -- to addictions.
The shop's walls are decorated with paintings of Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous books and medallions. Books sold in the shop have titles such as "Treating Cocaine Dependency."
T-shirts on the wall include one that says, "Hugs not Drugs," and one of the many jewelry pins for sale is imprinted with the words, "Just Say No."
Many of the patrons seem as comfortable as they would in their own living rooms.
Lorry Davis, a recovering crack cocaine addict, comes to The Serenity Shop whenever she feels the urge to get high.
"I've been clean for 20 months. Yesterday I got some really depressing news and I wanted to use [crack cocaine] real bad. Instead I came here and there was an NA meeting," says Ms. Davis, 31, who works as an office assistant, answering phones at local drug recovery program.
While running The Serenity Shop, Mr. DeAngelis helps recovering addicts in other ways. He gave Michael Brown, a recovering heroin addict, a job stocking the shop's book shelves. Mr. DeAngelis also rents nine houses to recovering addicts who need to live away from their drug-addicted friends or relatives.
Mr. DeAngelis says he's happiest when he sees the same faces in his shop each week. That means they're staying off drugs and alcohol.
His new business, he says, "is a way of life. Some people find what they're looking for through religion. I find it through helping people through recovery."