ALBUQUERQUE
Tory McCaffrey described overcoming his addiction to alcohol as one of the toughest conflicts he’s ever faced.
“It was the battle of my life. … It was literally fighting for my life,” he said.
His battleground was Turquoise Lodge Hospital in Albuquerque, one of only two adult drug and alcohol treatment programs operated by the New Mexico Department of Health in a state with some of the highest rates of drug overdose and alcohol-related deaths in the country.
The hospital provides treatment to an average of 500 people annually with primary diagnoses of substance use disorder, rather than serious mental illness or another behavioral health issue.
Founded more than 70 years ago, Turquoise Lodge moved to what is now the city of Albuquerque-owned Gateway Center, 5400 Gibson Blvd SE, in 2019. The city purchased the former Gibson Medical Center in 2021 to create a hub where several organizations provide housing, mental health and substance use treatment services.
Many New Mexico Department of Health facilities have struggled in recent years with underutilization, and the trend hasn’t spared Turquoise Lodge — which is currently operating at about 60% of capacity. However, the facility has taken steps in recent years to increase its patient census, with its intensive outpatient treatment program now closer to full.
McCaffrey, 47, completed inpatient and then intensive outpatient treatment at Turquoise Lodge Hospital. Later this month, he will celebrate two years of sobriety.
He described his experience at Turquoise Lodge as both incredibly difficult and unquestionably necessary.
He started drinking around age 13, and his alcohol use grew through his teen and young adult years. By his 30s, McCaffrey said he was “way past” a point of no return.
“I drank black-out; I drank in the hopes that I wouldn’t wake up,” McCaffrey said. “And it got to a point when [I] realized I’m very happy to be waking up another day sober.”
Path to recovery
Jackie West, a licensed professional clinical counselor and alcohol and drug abuse counselor, supervises Turquoise Lodge’s intensive outpatient treatment program. She’s held every role in the facility’s counseling department since starting work there in 2001.
In that time, she’s had a front-row seat to new trends in substance use. When she started working in New Mexico in the early 2000s, heroin use was most common. Then meth showed up. In recent years, fentanyl has “really rocked the world,” she said. And alcohol abuse has been a mainstay through it all.
Drug and alcohol use is a major public health issue in New Mexico. Despite a decline in drug overdose deaths across the U.S. in recent years, the state had the seventh-highest overdose mortality rate in the nation in 2023, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. The problem is particularly acute in Northern New Mexico.
The picture is even more grim for alcohol abuse. New Mexico had the highest alcohol-induced death rate of any U.S. state in 2023, according to data from the health research and polling organization KFF.
Turquoise Lodge helps addicted patients find the “well-traveled path” toward sobriety, said hospital Administrator Jeff LaMure, a recovering alcoholic.
“If you really are ready to make changes and you want to do everything you need to do, then there’s opportunities. There’s lots and lots of support. There’s a way out,” he said.
Turquoise Lodge can provide three to 10 days of medical detoxification services before entering the next level of care: about 30 days of inpatient treatment.
Then patients can transfer into intensive outpatient treatment, a highly structured program designed to help them abstain from drug or alcohol use without the residential setting of an inpatient facility.
Turquoise Lodge has capacity for up to 20 patients at each level of care — medical detoxification, and inpatient and outpatient treatment.
The facility is funded largely through a mix of state dollars — allocated to the Department of Health — and insurance reimbursements, including from Medicaid.
Turquoise Lodge isn’t often at capacity — at least not for the past two years, LaMure said.
“We’re always scratching our head as to why we’re not full — with the systemic problem of addiction, with all the things that the public sees out there with addiction,” he said.
Underutilization isn’t unusual for Department of Health facilities, despite a growing need for behavioral health and long-term care in the state. A Legislative Finance Committee progress report published in September 2022 found chronic underutilization drove “growing costs and inefficiencies” at state facilities including Turquoise Lodge.
Hospital staff worked to increase Turquoise Lodge’s patient counts in 2025 by improving procedures to ensure timely admissions and collaborating closely with law enforcement, county and state agencies, and private providers, Department of Health spokesperson Robert Nott wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
LaMure suspected the facility’s still-low capacity could be because fentanyl is relatively cheap and accessible, patients have broader access to outpatient treatment programs and the hospital has high expectations for participants.
Participation in any of the hospital’s programs is voluntary, and Turquoise Lodge administrators can’t make anybody stay.
“If for some reason they don’t want to be here, then we open the door,” LaMure said.
‘Change everything’
McCaffrey’s first couple of weeks at Turquoise Lodge were nearly unbearable.
“I was almost ready to walk out, to be honest with you,” he said. “I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I just can’t. I’m going to get out of here, and I’m going to keep drinking.’ ”
The bonds he formed with other people in treatment enticed him to stay. He described the experience as befriending a “fellow soldier in battle.”
“We’re all in the same trench,” McCaffrey said.
During his 28 days in inpatient treatment, he followed a steady routine of morning walks, counseling sessions and mindfulness activities. An artist, McCaffrey drew and penned poems in a book, which he was required to keep as a kind of memorial to his time in treatment.
After inpatient treatment, he transferred into the intensive outpatient program, which McCaffrey said was a “perfect anchor” to maintain his sobriety. He said it made him feel busy, like he wasn’t being thrown back into the “big, scary world” without any help.
Turquoise Lodge’s outpatient treatment program is designed to help participants create a plan for sobriety and stick to it — while imagining what kind of challenges they might face in that process. Three days a week for 16 weeks, participants must join a roundtable discussion to bolster their coping skills, stability and sobriety, West said.
During one intensive outpatient session in late October, for instance, participants answered questions aimed at maintaining long-term recovery: What are your long-term goals for your recovery journey? What relapse prevention strategies will you need to continue practicing? What resources will be available to you to access support if you experience a relapse?
“You can’t get to this place right here if you don’t have the building blocks,” West said. “And so we start with the building blocks, and then we build from there.”
“We have a saying: All you have to do is change everything,” LaMure added.
Though he graduated from outpatient treatment in 2024, McCaffrey has kept up the practice as a peer mentor, returning on occasion to share his experiences with newly sober participants.
Making it through treatment should be a source of satisfaction, he said.
“People may not realize it when they’re in there, but being there — the fact that you made it and the fact that you show up — is something to be … proud of,” McCaffrey said. “You became one of that small percentage that got through the whole entire rehab program. You didn’t walk out. You didn’t relapse.”
He added, “I don’t know if a lot of people really realize just how special that is.”