Sunshine Sober Living is a structured sober living residence at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, serving people from across Los Angeles. The house sits in the San Fernando Valley rather than on the Westside, roughly 21 miles from downtown. Residents are men and women aged 21 and older who live substance-free while working, studying and attending meetings.
Most people searching for sober living in Los Angeles are not looking for a house on their own block. They are looking for a bed in a substance-free home far enough from the old routine to interrupt it. The house sits in Tarzana, out along the Ventura Freeway, and the drive from downtown runs 30 to 45 minutes outside peak hours.
Sunshine Sober Living is family-owned and has served the recovery community since 2019. Richard Goldberg and Wendy Goldberg founded it, and Elliot Leonard directs the program. Residents keep their jobs, their classes, their therapists and their outpatient care while they rebuild the ordinary parts of a life that stopped working.
The Westside Alano Club at 11530 West Pico Boulevard runs a full daily AA schedule listed by the Los Angeles Central Office, so a resident can keep a city home group and still sleep in Tarzana.
The address is 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, just north of Burbank Boulevard between Wilbur Avenue and Vanalden Avenue, two blocks from Tarzana Recreation Center. Measured from the Financial District along Figueroa Street and Grand Avenue, that is about 21 miles. From Santa Monica it is closer to 18. The San Fernando Valley address is the first thing to be clear about, because a search for sober living in Los Angeles usually surfaces houses much closer to the Westside.
For many people that gap is the reason to come rather than a reason to hesitate. The bar, the apartment, the corner where deliveries happened, the friend who always has something in the car: those sit on one side of the Sepulveda Pass, and the house sits on the other, past the Getty Center on the hill above the I-405. Distance is not treatment, but it does put a mountain pass and half an hour between an impulse and an old neighborhood. Readers in the east Valley may prefer the Sherman Oaks page or the Studio City version, which describe the same house from a shorter drive.
Most residents drive. From the Reseda Boulevard exit, US-101 runs east through Encino and Universal City toward Hollywood and downtown, and the I-405 runs south over the Sepulveda Pass to Westwood and Century City. People working the studio corridor through Hollywood, Culver City and Burbank leave early and come home late. Students at UCLA in Westwood or USC at University Park, and anyone commuting to Santa Monica or Playa Vista, plan around the same two freeways.
Without a car the trip is longer but entirely real. The Metro G Line busway crosses the Valley from the Reseda and Tampa stations in Tarzana east to North Hollywood, where the B Line subway continues through Hollywood down to Union Station at 800 North Alameda Street. Seven Metrolink lines radiate from there. The D Line extension reached Wilshire and La Cienega in May 2026, which shortens the last leg for anyone with appointments in Mid-City.
The city’s recovery infrastructure is one reason people stay connected after moving to the Valley. The Westside Alano Club at 11530 West Pico Boulevard is a dedicated clubhouse with a full daily AA schedule listed by the Los Angeles Central Office. The Log Cabin at 621 North Robertson Boulevard and the West Hollywood Recovery Center at 626 North Robertson have carried AA, NA and Marijuana Anonymous meetings for years. The Pacific Group, one of the largest AA meetings in the city, meets at the Veterans Memorial Building, 4117 Overland Avenue in Culver City.
Keeping a home group across the hill is worth deciding deliberately rather than by drift. A weeknight at the Pacific Group means leaving Tarzana well before the I-405 fills up, while a Saturday morning at the Westside Alano Club is a far easier trip. Some residents hold on to one city meeting a week for the people in it and build the rest of the schedule close to the house. Others park the drive entirely for the first month and pick it back up later.
Sunshine Sober Living is recovery housing, not medical care. It is not a detox, not a rehabilitation program, not a hospital and not an intensive outpatient program. What the house provides is a substance-free address, a shape to the day, and people who notice when something changes. Clinical services come from licensed providers, and admissions arranges referrals for medically supervised withdrawal, residential rehabilitation and outpatient treatment through licensed California facilities and Joint Commission-accredited facilities.
SAMHSA describes recovery as a process of change supported by four dimensions: health, home, purpose and community. Home appears on that list as a pillar rather than an afterthought. That is the plainest case for sober living in Los Angeles being worth a longer commute: an address where nothing is being used, a routine that holds on the days motivation does not, and other people in the kitchen doing the same work.
Residents are men and women aged 21 and older, including people managing co-occurring conditions, who are committed to long-term recovery. They arrive straight from residential treatment, from an outpatient program that has ended, or from a stretch of trying to hold sobriety alone in an apartment where nobody notices what time they come home or how much they sleep.
The house is not the right placement for someone who still needs medical supervision or 24-hour clinical care, and admissions will say so plainly and point toward providers who can help first. NIDA puts relapse rates for substance use disorders at 40 to 60 percent, in the same range as asthma and hypertension, and treats a return to use as a signal that care needs to resume or change rather than as a verdict on a person.
Wendy Goldberg, Director of Admissions, takes the first call. It is a conversation about what has happened, what level of care someone is leaving, and whether this house fits the situation. Insurance verification runs through the site’s Verify Insurance page; coverage varies by plan and nobody can promise in advance what a plan will pay. Local reviewers rate the house 4.7 out of 5.
Elliot Leonard, the Program Director, brings professional addiction-treatment experience, including previous work at Jaywalker Lodge. Richard Goldberg founded the house after more than 45 years in business through Aquarium Design International. Three people, one house in Tarzana, family-owned since 2019, and the phone at 866-216-9789 is answered by the family.
Four service pages sit beneath this one, each written for a different set of circumstances.
| If you are looking for | Read this | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| A bed for a man after treatment | men’s sober living | Peer accountability, returning to work, the first thirty days |
| A bed for a woman | the women’s program | Safety, privacy, family and childcare realities, women’s meetings |
| A stable, substance-free address | recovery housing | NARR levels, California licensing, evidence on length of stay |
| A bridge from discharge to independence | transitional living | Daily structure, step-down from residential care, planning the exit |
All four describe the same Tarzana house from a different angle.
From downtown, take US-101 north and west – the Santa Ana Freeway, then the Hollywood Freeway, then the Ventura Freeway past Universal City, Sherman Oaks and Encino – and exit at Exit 23 (Reseda Boulevard), north to Burbank Boulevard, west, then north on Donna Avenue. From the Westside, take I-10 east to I-405 north over the Sepulveda Pass, then US-101 west to the same Reseda Boulevard exit. That is about 21 miles from downtown, about 18 miles from Santa Monica, roughly 30-45 minutes from downtown off-peak, 25-40 minutes from the Westside, and considerably longer at rush hour.
Sunshine Sober LivingThe house at 5650 Donna Avenue is about 21 miles from downtown, and the trip on US-101 generally takes 30 to 45 minutes outside peak hours. From Santa Monica and the Westside it is roughly 18 miles and 25 to 40 minutes by way of the I-405 over the Sepulveda Pass. Rush hour in either direction takes considerably longer, so a first visit is easier mid-morning.
Many residents do. The commute runs south on the I-405 over the Sepulveda Pass toward Westwood and Century City, and it is heavy in both peaks. People with fixed office hours build the drive into the schedule; those with flexible hours shift their start time earlier. Jobs in Santa Monica and Playa Vista are the longest haul from the Valley and are worth talking through honestly before move-in.
Yes. From Union Station, the Metro B Line subway runs north to North Hollywood, where the G Line busway crosses the San Fernando Valley west to the Reseda and Tampa stations in Tarzana. Seven Metrolink lines also feed Union Station from the wider region. The journey takes longer than driving, but it means a first visit does not depend on borrowing a car from somebody.
Plenty of residents do. The Pacific Group meets at the Veterans Memorial Building, 4117 Overland Avenue in Culver City, and the Log Cabin at 621 North Robertson Boulevard sits across from the West Hollywood Recovery Center at 626 North Robertson, both long-running venues for AA, NA and Marijuana Anonymous. Some people hold one city meeting a week and build everything else near the house.
No. This is structured sober living, not a licensed treatment facility, and there is no detoxification, residential rehabilitation or intensive outpatient service in the house. Admissions works with licensed California treatment facilities and Joint Commission-accredited facilities and can arrange referrals for those levels of care. Residents already in outpatient treatment or seeing a therapist continue that care while they live here.
Sunshine Sober Living provides structured recovery housing and transitional living. Medical detoxification, residential clinical treatment and other higher levels of care are provided by appropriately licensed treatment providers, and our admissions team can arrange a referral. Recovery is personal, and no sober living program can guarantee a particular outcome. 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.
Sober living in Los Angeles does not have to mean a bed around the corner from the old routine. If someone in your family is finishing treatment and has nowhere steady to land, call 866-216-9789 and ask to Schedule a Confidential Assessment, or begin the intake paperwork online before anyone drives out. The distance from the city is real, and for many people it turns out to be the part that helps.