Highest level of individualized attention

Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu offers its clients one of the highest client to staff ratio's available. We offer totally individualized programs that deal with conquering addiction for each client specifically tailored to their needs. Our focus is on helping clients to develop a new, healthy lifestyle to ensure long term sobriety. We work with clients to help them gain back their dignity, passion for life and respect of their family and friends. Come and take our Virtual Tour

10 Reasons to Choose Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu When You Really Want to Stay Sober

1. We actually care about you. This is not just a business to us.Unfortunately over the past several years many drug and alcohol rehab centers and sober livings in Malibu and the surrounding areas have sprung up and are pretending to provide a level and quality of care that simply isn't there. Many have copied us thinking that by providing a nice home, with private or semi private rooms they can care for and help support people in early recovery. We are not just a rehab center but a transitional living center that provides not only the initial help needed in early recovery but provides you will skills you will need to transition back to your home. There is far more work involved when dealing with people from an arrested bottom than people can imagine. Clients come in beaten down and often feeling helpless, often with everyone in their lives at ropes end or worse already having given up on them. To have a chance they have to know you care, To show we care we know we have to prove it day in and day out over and over again because if we don’t take a chance and believe in our clients how can we expect them to.

2. We are honest about what it will take to get you sober and how we can help you do it. We will not tell you what you want to hear in order to sell a bed. That isn't ethical and you won't ever find us doing that. We will help guide you in the best direction that will increase the likelihood of beating your addiction for long term sobriety. We have years of experience and know what does and doesn't work for most people.

3. We give as much time and support to families as we do our clients. Addiction is a family disease and every member of the family that can come to understand the process and stages of recovery increases an addict /alcoholic’s chance of success. Dave Johnson, owner and director of Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu, has literally spent hundreds if not thousands of hours talking to families on the phone and meeting with them in person to break down old stereotypes and misunderstandings and begin the process of healing that often needs to take place even in the most apparently healthy families. Our very first goal being to give family members a rest, knowing that their loved ones are watched over and that they can sleep through the night again.

4. You're never a number and when you graduate we don't stop caring about you. Clients stay in touch and come by years after they leave our home, stopping in and sharing their stories, hopes and salvations. Long after leaving our home clients know that they can call day or night and Dave or another member of the house will be there for them to walk them through any bumps in the road. At other facilities it might be days before you hear back from one of the staff yet alone the owner. At Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu all clients have the owner's (Dave's), cell phone and know they can call him anytime, when the going gets tough.

5. We think outside the addiction box and help clients find the way to stay sober that will work for them. Because we keep it small, each client is treated as an individual. While all addicts and alcoholics tend to share certain traits or issues, a 35 year old mother of 3 has a different journey than say a 20 year old college freshman.

Many of our clients will meet with staff members during their month stay for as many as 60 individual one on one meetings to work on finding the path that works best for that client. Other rehabs and sober livings" have 3 or 4 people to a room and a minimal staff so there is not time to work on finding the path that works for you. Often staff that run other rehabs just preach "well this is what my sponsor said so this is the way you have to do it" We know that one approach doesn't work for all people so we work on providing you the best individual and group therapists, Dr's, finding the therapists, Dr's, meetings, and activities that will help you specifically stay sober. We limit our clients, so often our staffing can be close to an almost one on one staffing during the day. We know that if just going to meetings would keep you sober you wouldn't need us. We help you to find the missing piece that has stopped you from staying sober in the past.

6. We teach you life skills that will really help you for the rest of your life in sobriety, work and relationships. We keep it small for a reason. With a 5000 sq/ft seven bedroom house on the beach one would think we could pack in 10-12 clients easily. That's not the way we operate. We keep our client to staff ratio small to maintain a family like feel and to avoid the pitfalls of clients falling through the cracks. Residential rehab center and sober homes were designed to work in communities of 6-12 clients. Sadly many a rehab center and sober home using the residential model have expanded in search of dollars… not sense, and too many clients simply get churned about and lost along the way. By maintaining a workable family unit, Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu is able to provide much more attention to each individual.

7. We don't expect you to be perfect and we don’t believe in a punitive environment, and we certainly won’t treat you as if you’re a bad person. During the difficult first few months of sobriety many rehabs treat you as if you committed a capital crime if you find yourself struggling to stay sober. We work with you to help you learn how to be honest about cravings and desire to use so we can help you through the rough spots. We don't have you mop floors or scrub toilets as if that was the magic cure to help you stay sober. We provide education to the addict about how their brain needs to heal and how they did not choose to have this addiction. The addiction has caused you to do some behaviors that make you feel shameful but we believe at your core you are not a bad person and the real you can come out once you learn how to live sober.

8. We have chosen a location directly on the sand in beautiful Malibu California so you can use the calming of the ocean to heal. As we don't believe in punishing people for their addiction, we chose the most beautiful location in Malibu we could find with waves crashing on our proverbial back door. With private and shared ocean view rooms of the Malibu surf, a chef on site to prepare healthy low glycemic meals, flat screen TV's, huge DVD and Wii library, kayaks, surfboards and other water gear, and extremely comfortable tempurpedic mattresses we do everything we can to bring calm and serenity to our clients minds. Sadly, many people think of a beach house in Malibu as a luxury but early recovery is a battle of life and death and the calming meditative power of the sea is and always has been a strong curative for the mind. It's just hard to stay angry listening to the waves crash or stay sad as dolphins frolic about just yards away, and in living one day at a time… every little bit helps.

9. We specialize in working with clients that have failed at other rehab centers and sober livings. Our past clientele has included people that have been to literally 25+ rehab and sober living programs and have relapsed after every one of them. Our successful alumni have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years going to the wrong places until they found us and finally achieved long term sobriety. People come to us for 2 reasons- 1. They have tried everything else and they know we are their last chance at being successful. 2. They have heard our reputation and don't want to be one of those people that goe in and out of a rehab center or sober living year after year and have decided to get it right the first time.

10. At Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu, we don't give up on you when everyone else has, even when you do. While at our facility many of our clients have learned how to budget and manage money, how to find and keep a job, been successful in college for the first time while living at our sober living, and have learned how to be responsible, accountable, and trustworthy.

We have had many a client come to us with a broken spirit after they have been told that they are beyond help. They have been shamed and told they are manipulative liars and that they don't really want to be sober. We help people to understand that of course they were behaving in ways they felt bad about as that is all they have known. We help teach you a new way of being, one that you and your family can be proud of. When you have good days we are there to cheer you on and when you have bad days we are by your side to help you through the rough waters. Once clients come to Oceanside Transitional Living in Malibu they realize that they are not alone anymore in this journey and that we will carry the hope for them and believe in them when everyone else has given up.