Checking in with...Kimberly Funk:

Twenty years ago, the mother-daughter team of Mary Lou Williams and Kimberly Funk launched the Latest Thing, a store for people recovering from addictions — and for the friends and family members who are rooting for them. Among the items in stock at 1575 Newport Blvd. in Costa Mesa are books, spiritual figurines and “recovery tokens” that mark the number of years a person has been sober.

On your site, you refer to something called the Big Book. What is that?

That’s the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What kind of things are in it?

Basically, it tells you how the program works, and it tells you how countless men and women have recovered from alcoholism. There’s personal stories in there about people who have recovered, and it explains to you about the disease of alcoholism.

Are most of your customers recovering alcoholics, or do you often get business from friends or family members who want to do an intervention?

Yes, but more so, people are shopping to celebrate. I sell the recovery cards and things to inspire them along the way. We’re more about the celebration.

What are some of the other 12-step programs aside from Alcoholics Anonymous?

There’s about 144 of them. We also sell Overeaters Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous, Al-Anon, Alateen, Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous. I believe everyone is impacted by addiction. Either they have a loved one, a relative, a spouse, a child — someone is affected by an addiction, which in fact impacts them in some way. I don’t believe everyone is addicted to something. But we have the tools to fight it when people are afflicted by it.

A lot of your products are spiritual in nature. Can faith help cure addiction?

Absolutely. It’s a spiritual foundation.

Tell me about the recovery tokens. Do you manufacture those?

We do manufacture those ourselves. The bronze ones, we manufacture.

What do they signify?

Various lengths of sobriety.

What’s the longest length you have?

Sixty years, because that’s all they make them up to. But we have a gentleman who has 62 years. He can’t get one, though, because we don’t make them that high.