Recovery Coaching & Sober Mentorship. The right mentor changes everything.

A recovery coach is a non-clinical professional who works one-on-one with someone in or after addiction recovery, providing accountability, structure, and day-to-day support, distinct from a therapist's clinical treatment or a sponsor's peer-based 12-step relationship. At Epic Journey, that means working directly with founder Preston Durnford: multiple touchpoints a week, real-time access between sessions, and coordination across your whole care team. Epic Journey is a coaching and advocacy practice, not a licensed treatment facility, and Preston does not diagnose or treat. He refers into Epic Journey's vetted network of licensed therapists, psychiatrists, and other clinicians for anything that requires a license to provide.

A therapist is a licensed clinician who diagnoses and treats mental health and substance use conditions, usually in a scheduled weekly session. A recovery coach works alongside that clinical care instead of replacing it, helping with the accountability, structure, and real-world decisions, career, relationships, family, daily life, that happen between sessions and often decide whether treatment actually sticks. Epic Journey is a coaching and advocacy practice, not a clinical provider. Preston coordinates with, and refers into, a vetted network of licensed therapists and psychiatrists so clients get both the clinical care and the daily support in one coordinated plan.

A sponsor is a fellow member of a 12-step program who shares their own recovery experience informally, usually without pay, training, or structured availability. A recovery coach is a trained professional with a defined engagement, which at Epic Journey means multiple touchpoints a week, real-time crisis access, and an individualized, structured plan built around career, family, and life direction, not just step work. The two aren't competing. Many Epic Journey clients keep a sponsor for the fellowship side and add a coach for the structure, accountability, and coordination across the rest of their life.

A sober companion typically provides close, hands-on presence during a specific high-risk window, early sobriety, travel, a transition, focused on keeping someone safe and substance-free day to day. Recovery coaching, as Epic Journey structures it, is built for the bigger picture: multiple touchpoints a week, real-time access when it's needed, and ongoing work on career, relationships, and family coordination that makes sobriety hold long after that high-risk window closes. Epic Journey offers sober coaching and companion support as its own service alongside 1-on-1 recovery coaching, and some clients move from companion-level support into longer-term coaching as their stability increases.

Most of Epic Journey's executive and founder clients work with Preston entirely virtually: secure video and phone sessions, available in all 50 states, with the same direct access and continuity as in-person coaching. Nothing about it requires stepping away from the office or explaining an absence. Engagements are cash-pay only with no insurance billed, which keeps the relationship private and off any claims record. Research has also associated virtual recovery support with a 39% reduction in relapse odds, so working this way isn't a compromise, it's a fully validated version of the same 1-on-1 model.

There's no guarantee in recovery, results always depend on the work a person puts in, but sustained, individualized support after the first 30 days is widely recognized as a stronger predictor of long-term recovery than the initial stay itself. Epic Journey is built around exactly that: consistent, real-world support instead of a once-a-week check-in. Research has associated adding virtual support to care with a 39% reduction in the odds of relapse. Preston has worked one-on-one with hundreds of clients directly, and with thousands more across his treatment centers and professional network, and performed 500+ successful interventions over more than 11 years in practice.