Our Story

The Recovery Alliance is an organization of people in recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, including their friends, families and allies.  Compassionate and service-oriented, we address community needs through recovery coaching, sober housing, and peer services.  Acting as responsible advocates and brokers, we strive to create an environment for positive experience through community centers and social and recreational events.  Our services are person centered and self directed strength based.

The Recovery Alliance sees recovery as a life affirming process that can be fostered by recovery support services. These services, which are described and delivered by peers in the recovery community, are alcohol and drug free social and recreational activities, informational workshops, skills development and training, career and business planning, parenting classes, education and housing. For the most part the Alliance provides these services, and hosts others such as mutual support groups from its recovery community center, or from Casa Vida de Salud, its 37-bed residential recovery center in central El Paso.

We foresee a community wherein long-term recovery thrives.

The El Paso Alliance came into existence in 1998 to encourage people in recovery, (as well as their families, friends and allies), to engage in a public dialogue about addiction, treatment, and recovery.   This dialogue addressed treatment and recovery policies, systems, and services to meet needs as they were defined by the community. This process mobilized the recovery community and addressed the social stigma that is often prevalent, and that often creates a barrier to recovery.The organization began meeting in March 1999, inviting the recovery community to participate in county-wide meetings, community assessments, and volunteer trainings…  Members of the Alliance appeared on radio and television shows; the City of El Paso proclaimed April 11, 2000 El Paso Alliance Day of Sobriety; and people with long-term, successful recovery were encouraged to display a positive face and a clear voice for the recovery community.In 2001, the Alliance achieved a 501(c) 3 classification.  The corporation acquired offices for staff, purchased a van for transportation of participants, and continued its outreach and networking activities.  In early 2002, the Alliance shifted focus from advocacy, to emphasis on direct provision of services.  The gaps in services that the community had identified began to take on more significance, as peer leaders emerged to lead the new efforts.In 2005 the Alliance began work on a sober housing project for people with co-occurring disorders called Casa Vida de Salud.  Casa Vida opened its doors on February 14, 2005, and in that year served 126 men and women with peer-to-peer recovery support services. New participants were immersed in the recovery culture, as Alliance recovery coaches guided them into the recovery community, a community of people who have recovered from alcoholism and/or drug addiction.  Casa Vida de Salud continues to be a very successful project of the Recovery Alliance.In 2006, the Alliance began working on a federal project to develop new services and refine existing services.  In the months and years ahead, the Alliance will seek community input – focus groups – to develop new peer services and continue to improve those currently offered.  These focus groups, key informant interviews, and community dialogs will determine future direction of Alliance activities.