Sunshine Sober Living provides mens sober living for Calabasas families from a structured house at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, roughly nine miles east on US-101. Men aged 21 and older live with a curfew, drug testing, house meetings and daily peer accountability while holding down work, school or an outpatient program.
A man leaving treatment usually knows exactly what he ought to do next. The hard part is the empty hours between plans. The daily structure at the house fills those hours with something sturdier than willpower: a job to get to, a meeting to sit in, and a roommate who notices when he goes quiet for two days.
The house sits north of Burbank Boulevard in Tarzana, between Wilbur Avenue and Vanalden Avenue, two blocks from the Tarzana Recreation Center. From Calabasas that is a fifteen to twenty-two minute drive, far enough that the old routine cannot walk in the door and near enough for a father to come to dinner.
The Calabasas Group at Church in the Canyon on Las Virgenes Road is an open Tuesday discussion meeting rather than a mens stag, so men who want stag rooms build a Valley routine instead.
Men in early recovery are good at sounding fine. The performance holds up in a phone call to a parent in Calabasas and falls apart in a kitchen at eleven at night, in front of three other men who have made the same speech themselves. Nobody has to interrogate anyone; the guy who skipped his meeting and lied about his shift is simply visible.
Peer accountability is not the same as toughness. Elliot Leonard, Program Director, came to Sunshine with professional addiction-treatment experience, including previous work at Jaywalker Lodge, and the tone he sets is direct rather than harsh. The program director’s background matters most on the days when a resident wants to argue his way out of a rule.
Not insight. Attendance. The first month asks a man to be where he said he would be, to tell the truth on a test, to keep his room in a state he would let his sister see, and to be inside before curfew every single night. NIDA associates better outcomes with treatment that runs beyond ninety days, and notes that people with severe substance problems or co-occurring disorders generally need three months at a minimum.
Thirty days is enough time for a sleep schedule to reset, for a paycheck to land, and for a man to sit in enough rooms that one of them starts to feel like his. Most of what changes in month one is boring from the outside. That is the point.
Employment is expected, not tolerated. Men who work the Agoura Road technology and office corridor beside US-101, at employers such as Harbor Freight Tools or DTS, drive west in the morning against the heavier flow of Valley-bound traffic. Warner Center in Woodland Hills sits roughly halfway between the house and Calabasas, so a man who changes jobs mid-stay often does not have to change his route.
Trade shifts, night work and school all fit if they are declared and planned. A resident taking classes at Los Angeles Pierce College can build the week around them. What does not fit is a schedule that quietly swallows every meeting and every house obligation. Mens sober living in Calabasas has to fit around a paycheck rather than the other way around, and planning what comes after the house starts with proving a week can hold together.
The Calabasas Group at Church in the Canyon, 4235 Las Virgenes Road, runs on Tuesday evenings and is listed by the San Fernando Valley AA Central Office as an open discussion meeting, not a stag. The Friday beginners discussion at the Motion Picture and Television Fund campus on Mulholland Drive is the other fixed point in the local week. Men who want a mens meeting specifically will find them across the Valley.
In the eighteen-month study of sober living residents, arrests among residents fell from 41.9 percent to 22 percent over the follow-up period. For a man on probation or facing a court date, showing up somewhere every week and being able to prove it is not a small thing. The wider mens program is built on that assumption.
SAMHSA’s recovery housing guidance describes what a real recovery residence does: stay recovery-centered, run on social model principles, refuse patient brokering, and sit alongside evidence-based outpatient treatment rather than pretending to replace it. Those are the plain markers a family should check for. A house that pays or takes a fee for a referral is not doing any of them, and anyone comparing mens sober living near Calabasas should check all four.
Sunshine is family-owned, and admissions works with licensed California treatment facilities and Joint Commission-accredited facilities to arrange care the house does not provide, including detox, residential rehabilitation and intensive outpatient treatment. What the family running the house actually does day to day is the difference between real accountability and a monthly rent check with a list of rules attached to it.
Call 866-216-9789 and describe the situation as it is, not as it should be. Admissions will ask about the last thirty days, current treatment, medications and any legal matters, and will say honestly if a higher level of care needs to come first. The new client intake form can be filled in before or after that conversation, whichever is less overwhelming.
Families in Calabasas often ask whether nine miles is too far to be useful. It is usually the right distance: close enough for a Sunday visit, far enough that the drive back gives a man time to remember why he moved. If a partner is weighing the same decision, the women’s side of the house answers a different set of questions.
The clock varies with a man’s job and program, but the pattern holds.
| Part of the day | Weekday | Saturday |
|---|---|---|
| Morning | Up, chores done, out to a shift or a class | Later start, laundry and house chores |
| Midday | Work, school or an outpatient session | Errands, the gym, time with visiting family |
| Evening | A meeting, dinner with the house, a call home | A meeting or a sober plan made in advance |
| Night | Back before curfew, phone down, lights out | Same curfew, no weekend exception |
A man who cannot hold this pattern for a week usually needs a higher level of care first.
The house is about 9 miles from Calabasas, roughly 15-22 minutes in normal traffic. The full route, turn by turn, is on the directions page below.
Sunshine Sober LivingThere is a curfew, and it is treated as a real boundary rather than a suggestion. A man who needs to be out late for a shift or a family event clears it in advance and it is normally fine. A missed curfew with no explanation gets a conversation the same night.
Often within days of discharge, which is usually the strongest option, since the gap between leaving treatment and finding an address is where a lot of people come unstuck. Where someone still needs detox or residential care, referrals to licensed California facilities are arranged instead of a bed here.
Yes. Curfew, testing, house meetings, chores and the expectation of work, school or an outpatient program apply to every resident aged 21 and older. Residents are expected to respect one another’s privacy and sleep, and that expectation is enforced as firmly as any other part of the house agreement.
Absolutely, and it is encouraged. Nine miles does not break a sponsor relationship, and plenty of residents drive back to the Tuesday meeting on Las Virgenes Road to keep it going. The house asks only that recovery commitments and the house schedule are planned around each other honestly.
Elliot Leonard, the Program Director, oversees daily operations and holds residents to the house agreement. Richard Goldberg, Founder and CEO, brought more than forty-five years of business experience from his previous company, Aquarium Design International, and Wendy Goldberg, Founder and Director of Admissions, handles intake calls.
This is a recovery residence, not a treatment facility. Detox, residential rehabilitation and intensive outpatient care are delivered by licensed providers, and Sunshine can make the introduction where a higher level of care is the right call. No program can promise a particular result, and we will not suggest otherwise. If you or someone you love needs immediate help, the SAMHSA National Helpline is free and confidential on 1-800-662-4357, 24 hours a day.
If a man in Calabasas is between a discharge date and nowhere in particular, the useful next step is a phone call, not another week of waiting. Reach admissions at 866-216-9789 for a confidential assessment, or start with how to compare treatment options if a higher level of care still comes first. Either way, somebody picks up.