“We absolutely insist on having fun in sobriety. We will destroy any misconception that being sober means enjoying life is over” – Robert Pfeifer,Founder of Sober College

Teaching Young Adults How to Get Sober and Maintain Long Term Sobriety

Many young adults come to Sober College struggling in several aspects of their life, such as school, health, family relationships, peer-to-peer relationships etc., and in order to get to the bottom of these issues it is necessary for students to be abstinent from all mind altering substances. This gives Sober College students a clear head to work on themselves and learn tools, other than drugs and alcohol that they can use to deal with life’s issues both past and present.

To ensure residents are maintaining sobriety residents are drug tested randomly, several times a week. Sober College understands that early sobriety can be difficult, and knows how to help those residents that might struggle with relapse.

Introducing Sober Fun to Young Adults

Most newly sober young adults struggle with the idea that they can have fun without drugs and alcohol. For many students at Sober College it is the only way that they know to have fun and relate to their peers. Sober College shows its residents that it is possible to have fun without using by introducing them to exciting new activities, and showing them that everything that they enjoyed doing while drinking and using is just as fun, if not more fun now that they are sober.

Trips and Activities

Located in Los Angeles County, Sober College students have access to an unlimited number of fun exciting activities such as:

Sober Conventions: Dances, Speakers, Music Festivals, Art Shows, Skiing and Snowboarding, Concerts,Beaches, Movies, Museums, Hiking, Rock Climbing, Go-Carting, Skydiving, Wind Tunnel, Different Professional Sports Events, Amusement Parks and Fairs, Whale Watching, Deep Sea Fishing, Surfing, Universal Studios, Cliff Jumping, The Hollywood Bowl, Rooftop Dances etc.

The California Recovery Community

Young adults new to recovery need to feel a sense of belonging as they move from their old life to a new and different one. The first Sober College campus in Woodland Hills, CA just outside Los Angeles, provides access to one of the most exciting young adult recovery communities.

Southern California has the largest number of young people’s recovery groups in the country, making it the ideal place for Sober College. Residents are taken to daily 12 Step Meetings, and encouraged to fellowship, or get involved, in the sober community. There is nothing like hearing the experiences of someone your age who was once struggling that is now sober.

Sponsorship

In addition to staff at Sober College, residents are urged to get a sponsor who will serve as another resource that will help guide them threw early recovery. It is important for residents to practice building relationships in the 12 step fellowship, and a sponsor can be both a role model and a friend to help residents meet more helpful, inspiring people in the program.

Hear from our students about their struggles with drugs and alcohol, and the hope they have found through sobriety…

Click on the student’s name to read their whole article…

“Somewhere along the line, my recreational usage stopped being just fun on the weekends. Soon it was after school. Homework isn’t that important right? I’m living the high school dream. Everyone else is doing it! Except I never realized other people were doing their work. I was just smoking while i waited for them to be done so they could come smoke more with me.”

-Jordan B.

“As an adolescent, I was always taught that drugs were bad, especially heroin. When I thought of heroin addicts I always thought of someone that was homeless and had terrible track marks all over their bodies. However, when I had to leave college and go into treatment for cocaine addiction I was introduced to heroin.”

-Emily H.

“I have been a smoker since I was twelve years old and have struggled with this addiction. I don’t enjoy smoking anymore and it is annoying to have to go out for a smoke break every hour.”

-Zach P.

“When i was 14 I tried smoking marijuana for the first time. I was a regular teen, with many insecurities trying to fit in with my friends. It was hard for me to socialize and feel part of the group, but whenever i smoked marijuana I felt completely confident and laid back. As I learned my way around the marijuana culture, I realized that nearly all the other kids and young adults were smoking weed.”

-Peter A.

I had multiple addictions that were all getting out of control. Using got to the point where there was no more partying there was only me and two friends in a small apartment getting high on whatever was out there. My drug addiction had torn down whatever I managed to make out of my life. I had lost the trust of my family and was going down a path that had no end in sight.

-Sam M.

Eventually, I became physically addicted and always needed it to get through the day. I didn’t think that could have happened when I started.

-Teddy H.

After I got out of the wilderness program, I still wanted to use drugs. I smoked marijuana and drank alcohol often. After a short amount of time I was back to using all types of opiates. I liked using all kinds of opiates. Whether it be painkiller pills like Oxycontin or dilaudid, inject able morphine, pure opium, or heroin; I like them all.

-Matt L.

I began using ecstasy in high school, which is more often than not laced with amphetamines, which gave me a taste of what it feels like to be “spun.” Before long, someone had introduced me to tweak, which we used to call “shit” – the perfect nickname for this disgusting drug

-Michael K.

The following is from a student assignment in one of our courses.

“Perhaps it’s because I do not want to be remembered for my failures, yet for my triumphs. In the past, these issues weighed me down, and kept me from moving forward. My life is much different now that I am sober, and for as few as two and a half months, I can really feel a major difference. It is hard to focus on the negative parts of my life when I am as content as I am today. If anything, that is the most important thing I have learned through my writing in this course.

Since 2005, I have enrolled in four different colleges (not including this online course.) Some were much briefer than others, but the ongoing pattern was I didn’t follow through with any of them. In some

instance, I made it as far as days before the final exam before somehow managing to choke. When the going got tough, I hid. I completely avoided reality. Consequently, I do not have a single college credit to my name. Right now is the closest I have ever come to completing a college level course, and the thought of getting my first credits, and actually following through with something is overwhelmingly emotional. I get chills each time I think about it and I am sure my family does too. Each word I type is inching my way closer to a goal I couldn’t imagine a few months ago. The longer I have stayed sober, the happier I have become. I have also noticed a gradual progression in my level of focus and the quality of my work.

Basically, what it comes down to is my life is really not so bad. In fact, it’s going pretty well. I have to attribute much of this to my sobriety. I know it won’t always be this good, so I want to hold on to what I have now. Writing this will help me remember that I was happy being sober, because I am sure I will doubt it in the future.

I hope this course is the first of many academic successes in my life, changing the recurring tale of failure to one of accomplishment. The future is ambiguous, and can be intimidating if I choose to worry about it. Still, there is no reason to let it get the best of me. I know I am capable of accomplishing great things; I just need to keep reminding myself that failure is no longer an option. I have wasted enough time taking the easy way out and avoiding hard work. It is time for me to suck it up and face reality head on . . . one day at a time.”