Located in a modest Tucson neighborhood, Tucson Transitional Living (TTL) makes a conscientious effort to stay low key visually. When I arrived at the address which was in a neighborhood of residential homes, I wasn't sure which building it was until I asked a neighbor across the street who happened to be a student living independently who had just graduated from the program.

I was met by CEO John Cimino and Program Director William Skinner who explained this coed recovery program for ages 18 to 25. They explained that the foundation of their program is a vision of the necessity of strong, committed sobriety as the foundation of building a life. They see alcoholism as a self obsessed disease and rely heavily on the twelve-step program as an integral part of the one year program. The main elements of this one year program are a focus on sobriety; enhanced family communication through contacts and family workshops, teaching life skills, community service, and formal education.

They had eight students there at the time of my visit (including 2 girls) and they feel an optimum size is 15. Based on a philosophy that actions create attitudes, the structure is very tight the first few weeks. The staff custom picks AA sponsors for each student and each student attends one outside AA group every day. They are exclusively focused on all the AA steps for the first 90 days and a staff is always with them.

There are two phases within the program, with a possible third if independent sober living with continued contact with the staff is what is needed after graduation. The first phase lasts six months and they call it transitional living. After the initial highly structured weeks, they either finish High School or start attending college classes. Everything is considered a privilege to be earned, and the basic requirement is to maintain good grades and progress in the other elements including passing urine tests. There are eight staff members available and these staff members are seen primarily as coaches.

The second six month phase is called Sober University which they describe as a finishing school where the students experience 12-step principles in their day-to-day life. Each student must take a 12 credit hours load at the University or a local community college, or hold down a full time job and attend school part time, as well as continuing daily outside AA meeting attendance. Community service is expanded and urine testing continues as well as increasing success in accountability and developing future plans with family involvement.

Some take advantage of the three month third phase which is designed to mimic self sufficient apartment life with the benefits of sober friends and supportive staff. The young man who directed me to the house the program was in was one of these living in an apartment across the street owned by the program. Continued urine testing was part of this phase as well as active participation with the others in the program, and demonstrating life skills such as money management, good relations with their employer and punctuality.

Although the program was established just last year, most of the staff has worked together for several years from the now closed V3 and Gatehouse Academy programs.

A tour of the facilities showed them to be clean, home-like and functional. The back yard was very large and included a swimming pool, pool table, basketball court, barbeque and plenty of gathering places for discussions, groups or individual counseling. To me it was very appealing because it allowed students the opportunity for some fun down time right there in the program.

I had a chance to visit some with the young man who had directed me to the right residence in the first place. He presented as a young man with a purpose and composed, knowing how he came to being enrolled in the program, and working on a better future than he had facing him before TTL. This was a student who had graduated. I also had the chance to visit with a couple of the students still in the program, and my impression was of young men with a future because they had a good idea where they were going.