Moving into a sober living. Walking out of treatment. Starting over. Through Empower Next Project, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit (EIN 39-3580172), we provide free transitional counseling to bridge those moments — licensed, clinically-grounded care at no cost to the person receiving it.
Capacity is limited and we can't promise everyone a slot — but you are welcome to ask, and we'll tell you honestly what we can do.
Almost everyone who has been through it will tell you the same thing: the hardest days weren't the ones inside the program. They were the ones right after.
Inside treatment, the day has a shape. Someone knows where you are. There's a schedule, a group at ten, a person down the hall you can find at two in the morning — people who understand exactly what you're carrying, so you never have to explain yourself.
Then it ends. And the shape goes with it.
You get handed a bag, a phone that starts buzzing again, and a door. On the other side of it is a bedroom you've never slept in, a house of strangers, and a list of things that piled up while you were gone — the calls, the bills, the people you owe an apology to. The structure you'd been leaning on for weeks disappears in a single afternoon, and the world you left is still exactly where you left it, waiting.
That gap is where recovery gets fragile. Not because anyone stopped wanting it — most people leave treatment wanting it badly — but because wanting it isn't the same as having somewhere to put the weight of a Tuesday night. And a hard feeling with nowhere to go tends to find the old door.
Moving houses does it too. So does starting over after a relapse, when the shame arrives before the plan does. The common thread isn't the addiction — it's that something changed, the ground moved, and for a stretch of days there's nobody assigned to you.
This program exists for that stretch of days. The idea is simple and not especially clever: the moment someone is most likely to lose their recovery is a bad moment to be handed a bill. So we don't hand you one. Through Empower Next Project, the counseling is free to the person receiving it — funded by donations and by the sober living homes that support the non-profit — so that cost is never the reason someone crosses that gap alone.
Not a peer chat, not a hotline script, not an app. It is licensed, clinically-grounded care — the same kind of professional counseling people ordinarily pay for, provided through our non-profit at no cost to you.
The word "transitional" is doing real work in that phrase. This is counseling pointed at a specific moment in your life — the one you're in the middle of right now — rather than at everything you've ever been through. It's for the gap.
You are not billed, and there is no insurance requirement. It's funded the way charitable programs are funded: by people who chose to pay for it so that you wouldn't have to.
There's no form and no portal. You call or email, and we talk about whether this program is a fit. If it isn't, we'll say so and point you somewhere real.
We keep this deliberately loose, because life doesn't sort itself into categories. Broadly, this program is for people in early recovery who are in a transition:
Families ask about this too, and that's welcome. If you're calling on behalf of someone you love, we'll talk with you — though the person in recovery has to want it themselves for any of it to mean anything.
We'd rather be honest up front than useful-sounding and wrong. Please read this part.
These are not our programs and we claim no affiliation with them. They're listed because they're real and they work:
There's no application and no form. You reach out, you tell us what's changing for you, and we'll tell you honestly what we can and can't do. Asking costs you nothing and obligates you to nothing.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988. Free and confidential, 24/7.
SAMHSA National Helpline — 1-800-662-4357. Free, confidential, 24/7, 365 days a year.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. We are a small non-profit program and we are not an emergency service.
Yes. It is genuinely free — you are not billed, and there is no insurance requirement. Free transitional counseling is one of the programs of Empower Next Project, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit, and it is funded by donations and by the sober living homes that support the non-profit. There is no cost to the person receiving the care.
It is licensed, clinically-grounded counseling aimed at a specific moment rather than at your whole life: the transition. Moving into a sober living, stepping down from treatment, or starting over are among the most vulnerable points in recovery, and the purpose of this program is to put a professional alongside you while you cross that gap.
People in early recovery who are in a transition — moving into a sober living home, stepping down from a treatment program, or starting over after a hard stretch. You do not need to be a resident of a particular home, and you do not need a referral from a treatment center to ask.
No, and we would rather say so plainly. Capacity is limited, so we cannot promise a slot to everyone who reaches out. If we cannot help you, we will tell you directly rather than leave you waiting, and we will point you to real alternatives such as the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 and findtreatment.gov.
No. This program is not emergency care, not detox, not medication management, and not a replacement for a doctor or a treatment program. If you are in danger or in a medical emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For withdrawal, medication, or any medical question, talk to a doctor or emergency services.
Call (213) 321-6518 or email info@empowernextproject.org. There is no form to fill out and no application to complete. Tell us what is changing for you and what kind of help you are looking for, and we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot do.