By Jared Castañeda
Sober Friends, a PLLC business in Rock Tavern that specializes in addiction recovery services, invited residents to its new location at 8 Colonel Drive recently. During this grand reopening, attendees enjoyed food and music while the business’ team toured them around the building.
James Turner, a Montgomery resident and NYS certified recovery coach, completed an entrepreneurial success Program under the Business Council of Greater Montgomery in May 2024. Having seen many people struggle with finding recovery resources, he decided he would use his newfound knowledge to create a recovery center. The business was originally going to be a single “Sober Friend,” but it became Sober Friends after Turner joined forces with fellow recovery coaches. Prior to their relocation, the team operated at 269 Route 17K in Newburgh.
“I have 17 years in recovery myself, and people have come to me over the years. They’ve told me there’s nowhere to go and you have to get arrested to get help,” Turner said. “So I said ‘let me start something small.’ I was just going to do it by myself as a part-time thing. It was originally going to be Sober Friend, because I was going to be the only friend, but that escalated quickly into Sober Friends and where we are today.”
Besides Turner, the rest of the team includes Sammy Birmelin, a musician and artist from Cornwall; Jody Nicoli, a Walden resident and founder of the Walden Overdose Memorial Committee; Janell Santana-Sims, a social worker from Maybrook and founder of Self-Care JS; and Frankie Wright, a Cornwall resident and prevention specialist of the Orange County Alcohol and Drug Council. These five coaches have extensive experiences in drug and prevention and recovery, and they are always looking for ways to help people struggling with addiction.
“We’re definitely separate from the rest, in the sense that we truly want to heal the root. For me personally, I was to help inspire people through the arts,” Birmelin said. “There are so many forms of healing and health and tools out there. And for me, stuff like art, music, and meditation is so important. So there’s so much more we’re offering.”
Since forming last year, Sober Friends has provided various resources for addiction and mental health, including counseling, sober coaching, self-help groups, and a podcast. The last few months have been especially as the team rebranded the business and prepared for its relocation to Rock Tavern. Compared to the former building, which mainly comprised one big room, the new building comprises a meeting room, a recording room for podcasts, and an office.
With this new space, Sober Friends can now host open house meetings and expand its self-help groups. The business is also looking to expand its team with new members and apply for nonprofit status. The current members are thrilled with their progress so far and look forward to both broadening their resources and serving their communities.
“We never got established to host groups, but now we’re going to do open house meetings and make them a little bit easier to access. We’ll host private and public groups,” Turner said.
“We’ll be hosting men’s, women’s, and coed groups. These groups are what makes us unique,” Santana-Sims said.
“We’re taking our own kind of spin, something less structured and more catered to being more individualized, like self-help groups,” Birmelin said. “We’re going to have those every Friday evening, and they’ll be open to the public.”
For more information on Sober Friends, visit its website at sober-friend.comor Facebook page at.facebook.com/soberfriends.me. The recovery center will also host a free open house meeting on Friday, December 5 at 7 p.m.
