In 1986, In Portland Oregon, within the African American community, a ssmall group of drug addicts and ex-offenders, most of whom were know with-in the African American community, the legal community and the prison community, came together to support one another in changing their lives. They were led by Donald Mc Millian, who himself was a chronic recidivist and drug adddict. It is believed that Don's motivation was the fact that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but Don believed and maintained until his death that the real challenge facing these friends of his was not in just learning how to get clean and sober, but learning how to stay clean and sober.

 

Thus staing clean became the mission, the goal, the focus and the reason. Ya see at stay clean it was understood that you could get clean all alone by yourself, just as many had done before, in a lonely jail cell or in the corner of a dexot facility, but to stay clean, it involved a dependence on others whom you knew understoodd you and who you learned to love and trust, thosee who had walked a mile in your shoes. Therefore, Stay Clean was staffed by peers who knew one another and depended on one another to help and support one another. As Stay Clean considered itself a spiritual program, its daily paryer, as well as all meetings ending with a pry which said "Lord, help me, to help somebody".

 

Through a purely peer support model, Stay Clean built a therapeutic community of recovery from drugs, alcohol, prison, violence and ignorance. Stay Clean provided housing, employment, youth and family support services, peer driven therapy and other social supports that were culturally specific. To address the need for additional social supports needed to promote the resiliency of the recovering Aferican American community, in 1993 three Stay Clean alumni, including Johnnie W Gage, founded the Miracles Club, a peer run organization in innerr NE Portland committed to providing a social haven for its members.