A therapist-free rehab farm is helping addicts get back on their feet

Everywhere you look, men and women are working hard. They’re cutting wood, tilling fields, milking cows, stirring cheese and harvesting courgettes. At first glance, Fleckenbühl looks like any ordinary farm. That is, until the workers start talking about their former lives: about drugs and violence; the highs and the comedowns; friends and enemies; freedom and prison. They speak about what life is like at rock bottom, what it was like before coming to the farm.

Fleckenbühl, 66 miles north of Frankfurt, Germany, is run exclusively by drug addicts and criminals. It is a small community consisting of 106 people — 84 men, 15 women, and 7 children, who all live here. The youngest is 1 year old, the oldest, 91. They come from all over the country, with one goal: to escape addiction.

Withdrawal on this farm is not easy. It entails determined self-help, hard work, and strict rules. There are no doctors, psychologists, or therapists. In fact, the residents are their own therapists, using their own experiences to help others. The caretakers have experienced it too, even the management.

There are also no pills or prescription drugs. The rules are simple; no drugs, smoking, and violence. Anyone who violates these has to leave. A drag on a cigarette, a sip of liquor and your chance of a better life on the farm is over.

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Janosch is training to be a farmer. The 32-year-old reflects on his turbulent younger years: “I smoked a lot and drank a lot. I regularly climbed on rooftops to break into people’s homes. The thrill of doing what was forbidden made everything more exciting for me. I spent more than six years in prison, which was just a waste of money for the state and a waste of time for me.”

Speaking about the prison system, Janosch says: “Nobody [in prison] learns how to think rationally so that when you get out, you don’t know how to live normally again. But it’s different here. The animals and nature calm me down. If I am angry, I stroke the calves. If I am very angry, I cut wood.”

The 19-year-old Henry, who has been on the farm for three months, also had a rough childhood and dreams of a better life. He wants to get a job, pass his driver’s license exam, move into an apartment with a girlfriend, and to “live a really average life”.

Previously, Henry used to know pretty much every drug, every local policeman, and every street corner. He was homeless for two years until he asked his parents to take him to Fleckenbühl. He knew that if he could make it anywhere, it would be here.

Every type of clinical therapy Henry attended before Fleckenbühl turned out to be a failure. “It was too relaxed, there was too much time, and too little to do — it felt like a vacation.” Henry calls it “bathrobe therapy”: the usual mix of medicine, painting, yoga and the sauna. “While I was at therapy I started to take drugs again, encouraged by my dealers at home. No wonder this happened — we were allowed to be on our mobile phones all the time!”

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He likes the fact that people in Fleckenbühl know what it’s like to fail. “Well-educated professors don’t understand me. They understand the textbook, but they don’t have a clue about what real life on drugs feels like,” says Henry.

Instead, the ex-addicts here only understand one language: direct, brutal honesty. They understand that successful therapy means learning how to live again: to simply work, eat, sleep, and endure everyday life.

An average day on the farm is tough: you get up at 6:00 a.m. and work until the evening. In between, you get small organic meals and by 9:00 p.m you must be in bed. Everyone has to be punctual, shaved and washed. Whoever takes their time, has to do an extra shift the following day.

But people get accustomed to the schedule. The 34-year-old Sebastian, who is training to be a cheese monger, enjoys waking up at dawn. “Since arriving in Fleckenbühl, I have taken responsibility for my life. I love waking up at 5:30 to stir cheese. Once I leave the farm, I want to go to Switzerland to work at an Alpine pasture and continue my passion for making cheese.”

Sebastian’s ambition is a far cry from where his addiction journey originally began: “In the beginning, I was fine with having just 3 pints of beer a day, but these quickly went down so easily that I didn’t even feel anything. After I had a panic attack and my father told me to ‘Relax and have another beer’, I knew that I had to stop.”

Simon, who was in jail for 4 years, also prefers a strict routine, adding that the work you have to do on the farm wears you out and uses up your time so you can’t waste it in less constructive or even dangerous ways. “I am not a number here. I am a human being who has work. There’s always something to do and fix, and at night I don’t even have the energy to come up to no good. On Sundays, I spend my time with everyone else. There is no time to slip back into bad habits.”

To be accepted at Fleckenbühl, you don’t need to submit an application, send money, be put on a waiting list or even have health insurance. You just come by. Everyone is accepted. The moment you arrive in Fleckenbühl, your rehab begins. “I was completely stripped: mobile phone, clothes, money — everything went into a safe,” recalls Henry.

But most of the new arrivals bring with them real problems instead of materialistic items. First, you get sent to take an ice-cold shower, then to sober up on a camp bed, and then finally on one of the many bunk beds available in a large shared room. In the first three months of your stay, you are put in charge of all the dirty work: clearing tables, washing dishes, sweeping corridors, washing laundry, taking out the garbage, and cleaning toilets.

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There is also no outside contact, no internet, no telephone connection, and no visitors allowed either. It’s a complete digital detox. The idea behind this? Before pleasing others, you should first learn to please yourself. But the more sober days you have, the more rights you get back. After half a year, you get $20 worth of pocket money for the month. After 12 months, you get your first family visit, and a first supervised short vacation. After two years, you get the chance of living in a single room.

For the most part, the 106 Fleckenbühler finance themselves through their own work. Other income comes from national allowances, donations and money conditions of courts.

Everyone can stay as long as they want. Henry has just started his training as a cook and wants to be here for at least three years.

Max also wants to become a chef. His girlfriend, Nicole, also recently arrived at the farm but had to leave her 10-year-old daughter behind with her parents. The separation isn’t easy, she claims, but she’s hoping she can bring her daughter to the farm sooner than later to raise her “little family”.

Another small family, Angy and her 7-year-old son Lejan, are also living life together on the farm. “Juggling a child, a drug addiction, and a full-time job was too overwhelming. Everything at home was chaotic and child services eventually ended up taking Lejan away,” says Angy.

“But then I fought like a lion to get him back, and now in Fleckenbühl, I’m learning to live again but also to be a good mother. I have a beautiful single room, he has his own room next to mine and I’m training to be a saleswoman. The year away from my son was the hardest challenge of my life. But now I feel so proud,” Angy says.

Fleckenbühl offers training in 12 different professions, giving you 12 chances to make something out of your life.

Christoph, 20, wants to be in the restaurant business. “I wasn’t able to go to a single event without taking drugs. Therapy for me was hell and really didn’t help. But Flecknbühl made me human again. I am working on myself and am still getting something from life,” he says.

“I go to the gym twice a week and jog once a week. I’m even dating a girl!” he laughs, amused at the prospect of being able to return to a “normal” life.