Sober Living by the Sea 2 stars

Housing a drug and alcohol program in the notorious party town of Newport Beach, California may not seem like the best idea, but to Carl Mosen, who founded Sober Living By The Sea in 1986, sequestering the newly sober in some sort of fantasy island makes less sense than teaching them to live in a structured, sober living environment right at the center of the society where they drank and used. Though S.L.B.T.S.’s founding idea is sound and most clients are funneled in here after attending primary care facilities, putting fragile individuals in an urban setting with easy access to temptation isn’t always effective. As one alum puts it, “Sober Living isn’t always the soberest of livings.”

Part of the problem is that not all of S.L.B.T.S.’s residents—they can accommodate up to 500 people in all of their programs—have been treatment before: an admissions counselor determines their readiness for admission after an initial phone assessment roughly an hour long.

That isn’t the only unique aspect of the setup: clients are sprinkled in about 75 beach houses strewn across roughly 15 beach blocks, most of them worn and generic in decor, each filled with up to six people and overseen by a house manager who’s also in recovery. All the residents then gather at a centralized office for groups, meetings, and individual sessions.

A typical day begins with an informal meditation at the individual houses followed by breakfast (everyone is supplied with weekly Albertson’s supermarket cards to purchase and prepare all their own food) and chores.  A long string of process groups, 12-step studies, individual lectures, and basic workshop begin at 9 a.m. Clients break at midday for lunch and are allowed an hour at the gym before resuming for more groups until four in the afternoon. Every evening, there’s a required A.A. or N.A. meeting at the local Alano Club.

Upon admission, every client is gifted with a bicycle beach cruiser. “Not having to depend on staff for rides was great,” enthuses an alum. “We could go wherever we wanted.” Which, when combined with bikini-clad women and the influence of the surrounding lax beach lifestyle, can mean trouble: rehab romances, by most accounts, blossom with impunity. “Unless you’re caught having sex in one of the houses,” a recent grad reports, “they are going to look the other way or give you a warning.”

Even more alarming, relapses at S.L.B.T.S. tend to happen in droves.  Although the facility tests clients for drugs every three days, savvy addicts are able to fake tests even if what they’re doing is glaringly apparent. “I was using dope for about two weeks without getting caught,” admits an alum who was passing her U.A. (urine analysis) tests by using fake urine from a friend. “I was nodding out constantly—in groups, meetings, everywhere. They finally got smart enough to ambush me with a surprise test.” Still, a dirty U.A. only means being sent to a neighboring detox facility, with increasing increments of time for each slip—three days for the first one, five days for the second and “to be determined” after that point. “I used six times when I was there, but they kept letting me back in because my family kept writing checks,” reports an alum.

S.L.B.T.S. has many additional programs, ranging from an eating disorder house and alternative sentencing for non-violent substance related offenses, to a Christian-based track and an academic program, T.E.A.C.H., where clients can take classes at local colleges. One happy alum says that “being in a sober environment and under a watchful eye gave me the confidence to give school another shot.” And—who knows—maybe she even got a tan in the process.