Choose the destination
Set Your Course
Clarify what matters, where you want to go, and why change matters now.
Peer-centered • Skills-based • Secular & inclusive
Anchor your strength.
Chart your freedom.
Brave Harbor Recovery creates structured, respectful spaces where people can speak honestly, learn practical tools, and build a recovery path that belongs to them.
- Inclusive brave spaces
- Original recovery tools
- Online-first access
Safe & welcomingEveryone has a place here.
Secular & inclusiveNo religious participation required.
Judgment-freeSpeak honestly without shame.
Growth-focusedProgress over perfection.
Responsibility-centeredYour recovery remains yours.
What Brave Harbor is
Recovery with a map—and a place to land.
Brave Harbor is an independent peer-support and recovery-education community for people changing substance use, compulsive patterns, and other behaviors that no longer fit the life they want.
We combine honest conversation, practical exercises, personal responsibility, and community connection. No labels are required. Passing is always allowed. Listening counts.
Not faith-based. Not therapy.
Brave Harbor is secular and welcomes all beliefs and no belief. It does not diagnose, provide psychotherapy, manage detoxification or medication, or replace licensed medical, mental-health, crisis, or emergency care.
The Brave Harbor framework
Set your course with SAILS.
Five memorable stages turn “I am overwhelmed” into “I know my next safe step.”
Read the conditions
Assess the Weather
Notice urges, triggers, thoughts, emotions, stress, and changing conditions.
Steady the helm
Intentional Steering
Pause, examine the moment, and choose the next helpful action.
Use the crew
Lean on Your Crew
Build support, communicate needs, maintain boundaries, and accept help.
Build a safe harbor
Strengthen Your Harbor
Create stability, routines, purpose, balance, and a life worth protecting.
Ways to enter the harbor
Support that meets people where they are.
Programs are designed for individuals, families, facilitators, and community partners, with clear boundaries and participant choice.
Live Peer-Support Meetings
Facilitated online groups with check-ins, guided discussion, practical tools, and respectful boundaries.
Explore meetings →Workbooks & Worksheets
Original SAILS tools for urges, triggers, choices, shame, support, relapse prevention, and planning.
Browse resources →Family & Loved-One Education
Support without rescuing, controlling, diagnosing, or losing personal boundaries.
Learn more →Facilitator Development
Meeting structure, original materials, ethical boundaries, and quality standards for responsible delivery.
Partner with us →Tools for real life
Practical enough to use in the middle of the storm.
Every tool is designed to strengthen awareness, choice, accountability, and connection—without turning a setback into an identity.
Explore the tool libraryStorm Map
Trace the path from trigger to thought, feeling, urge, choice, and consequence.
Anchor Pause
Slow the surge, create time, and lower emotional intensity before acting.
Compass Choice
Compare short-term relief with the longer-term direction you want.
Safe Harbor Plan
Identify people, places, routines, boundaries, and emergency steps that protect recovery.
Return to Port
Review setbacks with accountability, curiosity, self-respect, and a plan to recommit.
“We do not sell perfection. We practice returning.”
Small steps beat perfect intentions.
Our brave space
Be B.R.A.V.E.
Belonging
People deserve a place to land.
Responsibility
My recovery remains mine.
Action
Progress is built through choices.
Vulnerability
Honesty without deliberate harm.
Empathy
Support without rescuing.
Founder & program director
Built from lived experience—and designed for responsible growth.
Jose Venegas Padilla created Brave Harbor Recovery to turn recovery from a vague idea into a visible course of action: one meeting, one tool, and one decision at a time.
The vision is online-first and broad enough to serve English- and Spanish-speaking communities, collaborate with established organizations, train facilitators, and publish original recovery resources.
Read the founder story →What you can expect
You do not have to perform recovery here.
People can show up honestly, participate at their own pace, and use what helps.
Your choice matters
Participation is voluntary. Passing is allowed. Advice is not forced.
Your story stays yours
We encourage confidentiality while being honest about its practical limits.
Your beliefs stay yours
No religious belief, prayer, or spiritual language is required to participate.
Questions before you join
Know what the harbor is—and what it is not.
Clear expectations protect participants, facilitators, and the integrity of the program.
Is Brave Harbor faith-based?
No. Brave Harbor is secular and inclusive. People of every faith, spiritual perspective, and no faith are welcome, but religious participation is never required and meetings are not built around religion.
Do I need to identify with a label?
No. Brave Harbor focuses on behaviors, choices, tools, values, and goals. Participants choose the language that fits their experience.
Is Brave Harbor therapy or treatment?
No. Brave Harbor provides general recovery education and structured peer support. It does not provide diagnosis, psychotherapy, medical treatment, detoxification, medication management, or emergency response.
Do I have to speak in a meeting?
No. Participation is voluntary. Passing is always allowed, and listening is a valid form of participation.
Can organizations partner with Brave Harbor?
Yes. Brave Harbor can support partner programs through original materials, facilitator development, structured groups, and quality standards.
Take the next safe step
Let’s chart your freedom together.
Ask about meetings, resources, facilitator development, family education, or organizational partnerships.