Setting Balanced Boundaries: How One Day at a Time Recovery Manages 25 Active Residents

When Dara and her wife launched One Day at a Time Recovery, the vision came straight from lived experience. Her wife spent years working her way up from a resident in sober living to a house manager, experiencing the system from the bottom up. Along the way, she noticed things happening in other programs that she didn't necessarily agree with, which inspired her to start her own program with clear structure and her own twist. With Dara joining in as a supportive partner also in recovery, they set out to create an environment where residents could truly rebuild their lives.

The Challenge: Balancing Grace, Boundaries, and Early Growing Pains Running multiple recovery homes comes with steep operational hurdles. During the early days, the program faced classic growing pains, including trusted house leaders overstepping boundaries. As Dara explains, it's a very hard balance between giving residents grace and support when they push boundaries versus realizing when people start taking advantage of it. When behavior starts affecting the entire household like a domino effect, operators have to step in and draw a firm line. Balancing support with strict, black-and-white house expectations became the core of their operational model.

The Solution: Streamlining Intake and Multi-House Management on Sobriety Hub To keep everything organized without drowning in administrative chaos, Dara relies heavily on Sobriety Hub. Managing approximately 18 forms on the platform, she and her house managers keep operations centralized across their properties.

When an inquiry comes in, Dara focuses on whether the program is a genuine fit rather than just trying to fill beds. As she notes: "At the end of the day, I feel like our program isn't just here to fill beds... I want to make sure that we are gonna be helpful for that person in progressing in their life and their recovery." She walks prospective residents through strict house expectations—including a zero-tolerance policy for substances, alcohol, and medical cannabis—alongside curfews, chores, and recovery pathways of their choice. House managers actively use Sobriety Hub to log UA and BA results, meeting attendance, and behavioral notes, keeping the entire team aligned without endless phone calls. Additionally, the program features structured visiting hours, allowing residents to share their clean spaces with loved ones and build pride.

The Numbers and Impact By keeping operations standardized and transparent, Dara achieved strong metrics across her houses. Reflecting on their growth from a single house in January to managing multiple properties, Dara shares: "When we first opened, we had one house... And so, honestly, I think the reason why it grew so much is, honestly, a lot of word-of-mouth."

That steady growth is reflected in their current scale and impact:

• Current Active Capacity: Manages 28 total beds across multiple properties, with 25 active residents currently in the program.
• Total Impact: When asked about how many individuals have walked through their doors since January, Dara notes: "I would say maybe in the seventies."
• Digital Engagement: 22 residents actively use the mobile application, which Dara highlights: "Once the resident is officially moved in, I verify that they have downloaded Sobriety Hub... They're also able to get to, like, their payment portal where they can see where they're at as far as their program fee, along with easy access to the forms."
• Community Success: Driven by strong local word-of-mouth within the recovery community, watching people come in with no job or ID and progress to buying their first car and building a stable life.

As Dara proves, combining genuine empathy with robust digital structure creates a powerful foundation for sustainable recovery.