Thirty years ago, in a letter to a girlfriend, Don Troutman, owner and founder of Clean and Sober Transitional Living, wrote, “My brother was taken from us, not from a natural illness, was not shot with a gun, but was shot with a needle and the needle killed him! Alcohol and drugs! My already sworn enemy has killed my brother.” That was the catalyst that resulted in CSTL with its nontraditional approach to recovery from alcoholism and drug use.

Troutman had been a recovering alcoholic for over a year when his brother died. Two years later he started CSTL with the purpose of providing a place where recovering addicts could be among those who can understand what they are going through. His first house included Troutman and three other recovering alcoholics who agreed to be sober and abide by the rules. Since 1989, it has evolved to a community consisting of six Phase 1 homes for 73 residents and eight Phase 2 homes for 48 residents, for a total of 14 houses. It has always been private pay, never receiving any sort of government subsidy.

When they come to CSTL, residents have usually completed 30 to 60 days of detox and treatment. “Everything you learn in treatment episode is like a block of ice,” Troutman said. “You take a block of ice and you set it into the sun and it is going to melt away.” Therefore the need for a clean and sober living place. “If you took that block of ice and you put it in a freezer or a refrigerator, it’s not sitting in the sun and it lasts a lot longer. It takes a while for a person to buy into and adopt a new life style. It’s a process, it’s not an event.”

The CSTL community is a way of life for Troutman, and what he has learned through the process has resulted in benefit to 6,000 people to date, with a nearly 50% success rate.

When challenges appear, alcoholics and users tend to drink or use as the solution to their difficulties. It is not the solution, Troutman said, it is the problem. The solution is the recovery process. “In Don’s community, people have developed the skills so that relapse rates are very low,” said Susan King, CSTL Outreach. “It is private pay and they are taxpaying members of the community. They work, they go to school. Some of them live here a long time.”

People who come to the community might have looked weak and timid before, said Troutman, but, “When they come in here, they turn out to be role models and house managers. It’s incredible what people can discover about themselves while they’re here.”

The group is almost like a tribe, Troutman said. “We’re self-contained, we have our own government, we have our own congress, we have our own court, we have our own senior peers which are like our police force, more or less,” Troutman said. “And really we get very little outside interference from many problems.”

Resident Shelby, 23, turned to alcohol when she was 16 and had problems at home. “When I turned 20 I got into meth and heroin,” Shelby said. After her husband died from an overdose, she knew she must think seriously about recovery. Now a resident at Clean and Sober Living and clean for six months, Shelby has a regular job but is taking it slowly. “Once I come back here it’s a relief, it’s like my safe zone. Everyone’s still here, and the relationships that you build are so amazing . . . There’s just a connection here. It’s really hard to explain, but we just understand each other here. It’s like a different kind of family.”

Another resident, Rik, 58, has lived his life in and out of treatment programs. He has been clean for over a year and is a Phase 2 resident. He is now kitchen manager, and cooks dinner for at least 60 people for two dinners and three breakfasts a week.

Residents learn to be leaders and participators in life rather than just sitting on the sidelines. “Our future is as great as we would like it to be,” Troutman said. “Whatever you think you might want to be, supersize it, go further, because there’s nothing to stop you from getting there.”

Shelby has great hope for the future. “As long as I stay clean and sober, I see myself going back to school,” Shelby said. “I want to actually be a drug and alcohol counselor . . . But for right now I just have to look out for myself and get myself ready and continue what I’m doing, so in the future I know what’s in store for me.”

Rik is happy where he is. “My family supports me,” Rik said. “I’m kind of doing what I want to do. I really am. I’ve lived a pretty good life. I have four great kids, none have any addictions, which I’m very blessed about.”

Troutman’s old letter ended with the statement, “As if this disease is not cunning enough, the addict will not heed the advice and the concerns of those who are close. But Satan’s curse has a loophole, and that is that the addict will listen to a complete stranger.”

For more information go to www.clean-and-sober-living.com, or call 916-961-2691. “They never call us or the treatment program and come to a dead end,” Troutman said.