Choosing Sober Living as part of a recovery program can be a life and death decision. Fresh Start Sober Living homes occupy the space between inpatient care and returning home. A Fresh Start provides independent living, with accountability, continuing and continuity of care for those in recovery who want success.
What A Fresh Start offers you as a participant is clean, upscale affordable and safe housing in good neighborhoods. As you begin your journey of recovery, you will receive support and encouragement from a ready made peer-based and structured living scenario. At A Fresh Start, you are shielded from negative influences and triggers, and new, supportive relationships are formed and nurtured through fellowship.
A Fresh Start's main focus is to provide a safe and sober environment for recovering addicts and alcoholics. We wish to help people overcome their disease and return to society as productive members, being able to help themselves as well as others. Our beliefs are based on the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. We feel through "working the program", people do recover from alcohol and drug addiction every day, but they rarely do it alone.
There are many individuals with the disease of addiction, and there are too few safe and sober environments for them to recover in, resulting in fatal circumstances. A Fresh Start provides safe housing for all who need it, with all the comforts of home, and a feeling of close-knit peer support. If a safe and sober living environment with fellowship and support is what you seek, we hope you'll find it here at A Fresh Start.
Most of our residents have been through an inpatient rehab program and have learned about the disease of addiction and the tools needed in order to stay sober once they come to us at A Fresh Start. It is up to the individual to utilize these tools that they've learned in rehab in order to stay sober. All of our residents are subject to random drug screens and daily breathalyzing. This is a critical part of their routine to insure recovery is their number one priority. Here at A Fresh Start Sober Living Environments, we provide the newly sober individual with a built in support group, where help and a sense of fellowship, which is much needed in early sobriety, can be found.
A Fresh Start is the last step before one bridges themself back to "the real world", helping people with the disease of addiction move on once they are completely comfortable to leave this environment. In our sober environments, the recovering individual has one foot in their recovery program building a support group for themselves once they leave us, and the other foot in everyday life.
Recovery is reliant on servant leadership, and as we learn and grow, we are responsible to pay it forward. We feel this responsibility and know we cannot deny help to someone else that has asked for help. We share our stories to offer each other lessons of hope. It was because so many people had helped us get our lives on track that we searched for a way to help others through a career in public service. We try to apply these same lessons to share and pay forward the support we’ve received throughout our recovery journey.
Juan Hernandez – Executive Director
Juan’s non-traditional background gives him a unique insight into running a sophisticated organization like A Fresh Start. He started at aA Fresh Start in 2006 as a client, with 33 days sober and a whole lot of desire to work the program. Fully committed to his own recovery, he was offered the position of House Manager a few times before finally accepting the role. He has served at every level, from House Manager to Operations Manager until being named Executive Director in August of 2010.
Under his supervision Fresh Start has grown by nearly 110%. As Executive Director of Fresh Start, Juan has played a key role overseeing the successful recovery of many individuals. His experience at every level, including that of a client allows him insight that very few have. He’s constantly looking for ways to better help those he serves. Today he’s driven by gratitude.
Dustin Dillow – Operations Manager
With just over 30 days sober, Dustin came to A Fresh Start in November of 2014 as a resident. His initial plans were to stay for 30 days to get “back on his feet”. By working with supportive managers and residents Dustin learned the importance of working a recovery program and living life in recovery. He was offered an assistant manager position in early 2015 then shortly after became a full time manager. In that same year Dustin decided to retire from being a professional chef and started working for A Fresh Start as an intake coordinator. While working for A Fresh Start Dustin has been an intake coordinator, maintenance manager and now The Operations manager.
As Operations manager Dustin has created a manager training program, updated policies and rules, overseen the opening of two new locations and played a key role in the development of individuals in recovery. Dustin is currently finishing his B.A. in psychology and will continue on with his masters in clinical counseling. Today Dustin credits his life to the people of A Fresh Start and continually works to give back what was given to him…courage, strength and hope.
"Recovery is my reality. This is the only order I can rely on in the chaos of addiction, because I know I am flawed. I know am not perfect. There's no such thing as perfection, only reality. But I know I am loved, I love and I have learned to accept. I've accepted my reality. This is my life. This is my truth. I can't accept anything less than that. Life really is too short. I choose this life. This is living. One single day at a time. Smile, because why not? Be happy, for it takes more effort to be angry. Live, but really live. Be everything, or be nothing. But be."