Published in cooperation between Pura Vida Recovery Services and the Bohemian
Addiction is inherently isolating. It wants us to believe we are incapable of finding enjoyment, comfort or meaning without illicit substances. Unfortunately, getting sober offers its own obstacles, as newly recovered addicts may feel fenced-in by lingering guilt, social stigma or fear of relapse.
Pura Vida Recovery Services in Santa Rosa is working to change this dismal narrative on addiction treatment. To them, recovery from addiction is about more than simply abstaining from drugs and alcohol. It’s about rebuilding a life full of meaningful connections and reclaiming a true joy for living!
Recovery in the Real World
Pura Vida believes that, to be effective, treatment for chemical dependency must closely model real life. They reject the luxury destination treatment model popularized over the last 20 years and reimagine recovery as something rooted in local culture and community—full of acceptance, experience, accountability, tradition, novelty and fun!
Santa Rosa offers the perfect environment for this treatment philosophy. In addition to a robust recovery community with more than 400 meetings per week, it’s surrounded by some of the best food, art and nature the Bay Area has to offer.
Treatment at Pura Vida goes beyond traditional therapy and counseling, taking advantage of this wonderful location to incorporate functional and recreational elements such as:
- Recreation and adventure therapy
- Animal-assisted treatment
- Cooking classes
- Therapeutic gardening
- Hiking
- Beach trips and lake days
- Volunteer work and community action
The aim is to show clients that they are not confined to traditional recovery circles or activities and shouldn’t feel isolated by their past. They belong out in the world enjoying life to the fullest!
Customized Care
Reclaiming a joy for living is quite a lofty goal and designing a program to achieve it is no easy task! It involves meeting every client where they’re at in their recovery journey with tools & resources specifically catered to their needs. To that end, Pura Vida offers an incredible array of supportive services including:
- A live-in detoxification program with 24/7 medical supervision
- Residential treatment for breaking long-standing habits and developing new tools for lasting recovery
- Psychiatry, individual therapy and experienced substance abuse counseling
- Robust outpatient treatment options for ongoing support in early recovery
- Ample and affordable sober living for a safety, comfort, accountability and fellowship on the road back to full independence in sobriety
- Free transportation to treatment and treatment-related activities
- Free adult vocational training opportunities for program graduates
- And more…
Accessibility Matters
Of course, none of this means much unless it’s attainable for the people who need it most. That’s why Pura Vida has worked tirelessly to earn the trust of nearly every major insurance carrier as an in-network provider, including Kaiser Permanente and TriWest Healthcare Alliance through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
They additionally partner with nonprofit organizations like Micah’s Hugs to provide financial assistance to clients who may have trouble affording treatment.
Most recently, Pura Vida achieved a critical accessibility milestone by gaining approval to provide intensive outpatient treatment for beneficiaries of Sonoma County MediCal!
Why Pura Vida Won Best of the North Bay
Since Pura Vida opened its first sober living home in 2015, founders Ben Pahalvan and Alex Wignall have operated by a single guiding principle: When someone trusts you enough to ask for help, go above and beyond to honor that trust.
This simple philosophy has led them to forgo the high-budget marketing strategies of corporate-owned luxury rehabs and instead focus on channeling their success back into their clientele and community. In practice, this looks like financial aid for clients and families who could not otherwise afford care, new service lines to support clients at every stage of their recovery journey, and strategic partnerships with local resources.
A decade later, the results speak for themselves as Pura Vida has grown from a small collection of sober-living houses to a thriving service hub for all things recovery. More importantly, however, their program has also garnered a reputation for being the lone “yes” in a sea of rejection for clients and providers struggling to find help due to limited funds or complex diagnoses—a legacy their founders and staff are very proud of.
“When you invest in helping others rather than promoting yourself, an interesting thing happens: The people you help end up representing you so much better than any marketing campaign ever could. They become ambassadors for the program, sure, but also just for living in recovery. That’s what we want. It’s not about us—it’s about showing people what’s possible with the right help. My business partner and I owe everything we have to our recovery—our families, our homes, our company—all of it. We built Pura Vida to show people that getting sober is only the beginning of something so much bigger and better for them. That’s the message we always want to be sharing with our community.” —Ben Pahlavan, CAO
