Lifeline · Sober Living & Recovery
Rebuilding Lives. Restoring Families.
Recovery is about more than stopping substance use. It is about rebuilding a life—developing healthy relationships, taking responsibility, finding purpose, and moving toward a stable future.
Need Help? We’re Here for You.
If you or someone you love is struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, reach out to Lifeline. We’re here to listen, answer your questions, and help you take the next step toward recovery.
Our recovery program is free of charge.
About the Project
Lifeline supports men and women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. We operate two separate facilities: a men’s center and a center for women and their children. Together, the project includes two homes on seven acres, with capacity for 42 residents. Housing, meals, everyday essentials, and the recovery program are provided free of charge.
Support Begins Before Arrival
The first step toward recovery can be difficult—for the person struggling with addiction and for everyone who loves them.
Our work begins before someone enters our homes. We encourage people as they consider recovery, help them prepare, and support them in making the decision to come.
We also work with parents, spouses, and other family members before and throughout their loved one’s stay. Through a dedicated psychological support course and a support group, relatives can address the ways addiction has affected their own lives, understand patterns of codependency, and learn healthier ways to support recovery.
A Place to Pause and Begin Again
The first stage takes place in a peaceful, wooded setting. This retreat-like environment gives residents space to step away from familiar pressures, rest, and focus on rebuilding their lives.
Many people who turn to Lifeline have lost everything, while their families have exhausted their resources trying to help. Paying for housing, food, and basic necessities is simply beyond their reach. That is why our centers are free: residents receive housing, meals, and everyday essentials so they can focus on recovery without the pressure of paying for their stay.
Lifeline Since 2021
Since 2021, 543 men and women have participated in Lifeline’s recovery program.
Our Program
The Avalon recovery program
During their stay, residents participate in the Avalon recovery program.
During the stay
Recovery From the Inside Out
Our focus goes beyond a period of abstinence. We help participants address the personal struggles connected to their substance use, develop healthier habits, rebuild their sense of identity, and learn to take responsibility for their choices.
The goal is lasting change that reaches beyond their time in the program—into their relationships, their work, and their everyday lives.
After the program
A Supported Return to Everyday Life
Completing the residential program is an important milestone. It is also the beginning of another stage.
As participants move out of the initial recovery setting, we help them navigate the transition toward independent living, find employment, and establish themselves in the community.
Our relationship does not end when they leave. We stay in touch, offer encouragement, and continue supporting them as they put what they have learned into practice.
The goal
A Future Beyond Addiction
We want to see people build lives they can sustain: working, contributing to their communities, forming healthy relationships, and creating stable families.
We have seen participants take these steps and begin new chapters in their lives. Their stories reflect the purpose behind this work: helping people move beyond addiction and build a future with responsibility, connection, and hope.
Stories of Hope
In their own words
To protect the privacy and safety of our participants and their families, some names and identifying details have been changed, and some stories appear without photographs. Every story is shared with permission.
Andre & Julie Ustenko, family portrait
Our Leaders · The Family Behind Lifeline
Andre & Julie Ustenko
Lifeline Project Leaders
Andre and Julie Ustenko have built a loving family and are raising three children together. Today, they also lead Lifeline’s recovery homes for men and women—a commitment rooted in experiences that shaped their lives long before they began this work.
Years ago, Andre struggled with drug addiction for four years. That chapter is now long behind him. Today, he is a devoted husband and father whose life shows how much can change through recovery. The family he and Julie have built together is a meaningful part of that story: a life filled with relationships, responsibility, and people to care for.
Julie understands addiction from a different perspective. She grew up with a father who struggled with alcohol addiction. Although she never struggled with substance use herself, she knows how deeply addiction can affect a home and how children carry experiences they did not choose.
Together, they bring both perspectives to Lifeline: the experience of personal recovery and the experience of growing up in a family affected by addiction. Those experiences help them understand why recovery must include care for the people closest to the person struggling.
Alongside leading the homes, Andre and Julie offer guidance and support to families. They help relatives work through the challenges surrounding addiction, rebuild communication, understand healthy boundaries, and support their loved ones without losing sight of their own well-being.
Their own family gives this work a personal meaning. They know the value of a home where spouses can rely on one another and children can feel loved and secure. Helping others move toward that kind of stability is an important part of why they serve.
For Andre and Julie, recovery reaches into everyday family life: learning to trust again, taking responsibility, showing up for one another, and building healthier relationships over time. Through Lifeline, they have made supporting that process part of their shared life and purpose.
How to Help
Support Lifeline
Every gift helps keep housing, meals, and the recovery program free of charge for the men and women who come to Lifeline.