If you've read "Fat Boy Thin Man," you know about Acorn Food Dependency Recovery Services. Chapter 6, titled "Itinerant rehab," is based on my spending five days in Acorn's treatment program, based that week at a rented vacation chalet somewhere in southern Indiana. Acorn has also conducted its programs in Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, as well as in Iceland and Canada, and I'm probably missing a few, too.

According to the press release I just got, in February you can add Texas to the list. In itself that's not that significant, but the venue is, to me. Acorn programs are scheduled for the first week of February, March, April, and May at Shades of Hope, a treatment center in Buffalo Gap, Texas. To my knowledge, it's the first time rehab itinerants and rehab landowners are getting together. 'Course, I don't know of any other intinerant rehabbers, either.

I've never been to Shades of Hope, but I imagine it is closer to my first rehab experience, which began 20 years ago Friday at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, N.Y. That place, which still exists even though it hasn't had its eating disorders unit for well more than a decade, was mammoth, dozens of acres with wooded parcels and a small town's worth of buildings and roadways. 

I found the core experiences of South Oaks and Acorn to be similar, which suggests I'm making too big a deal of it, but the affiliation is easily worth mentioning. Clients who attend the Acorn at Shades of Hope programs can continue with Shades of Hope treatment afterward, if they wish to. Those who are interested in learning more can check out this link at the Shades of Hope site. Acorn, which is a smaller operation, does not appear to have put the information onto its website.