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Meet Timothy Schnellenberger of Recovery Boot Camp in Delray Beach

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Schnellenberger.

Timothy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Long Beach, CA while my father; Coach Howard Schnellenberger, was Offensive Coordinator for the LA Rams Football Team. We moved to Miami Lakes in 1969when my father was hired to work with the Miami Dolphins. I had a great childhood growing up in Miami Lakes with the other Dolphin’s Coaches kids. I graduated Christopher Columbus High School and then went on to study Sports Management at University of Louisville, KY and later at University of Colorado in Boulder.

At 14 years old, I was recruited as a model and actor. After my first 2 years of college I was cast in Calvin Klein’s Obsession campaign. I decided to follow that path and left for Europe. I wound up having a successful career, which spanned almost 13 years. Working in campaigns such as Calvin Klein’s Obsession and Armani as well as many others. I had the opportunity to work all over the world including Europe, Japan and South Africa. In tandem with modeling, at 19 years old, I received my license in Real Estate following in my mother, Beverlee’s footsteps. In my 20’s, my struggle with drug and alcohol addiction began. After years of struggling with addiction and spending time in and out of Treatment Centers and Sober Homes, I finally found sobriety. I returned to Delray Beach in 2000 to continue my dream of owning investment properties.

In March 2002, I fulfilled that dream. I opened Healing Properties Delray Beach (www.HealingProperties.org) a sober living facility to help suffering alcoholics and addicts have a safe, supportive place to recover from their addiction. I found through my own experience and my work with those in recovery, that long-term treatment provided the highest chance of success for recovery. In 2015, I opened Recovery Boot Camp Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center for Men (www.RecoveryBootcamp.com), a 90day long-term Treatment Center. With the success of Healing Properties and Recovery Boot Camp, I found there was one more component for success in helping alcoholics and addicts achieve long-term sobriety. It was the health of the family.

This past year, with my parents, Howard and Beverlee Schnellenberger, we founded the Schnellenberger Family Foundation (SchnellenbergerFamily.Foundation). It is a non-profit designed to help families heal and recover. As my own family has discovered, when the entire family heals it also helps the addict to heal.

The Schnellenberger Family Foundation provides a free Educational Weekly Webinar series for parents and for all those affected by addiction. It also provides a Family Weekend for the parents of the clients of Recovery Boot Camp to have a therapeutic and educational weekend with their recovering loved one free of charge. The Schnellenberger Family Foundation also provides a Family Retreat open to all of those affected by addiction that will be visiting cities around the country.

On my 50th birthday, last November, I proposed and married my now wife, Anyssa Schnellenberger and now live with my wife and 2 happy pups in Delray Beach, FL.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not always been a smooth road. I had hoped to work as a sports agent, but my father strongly deterred me from that path early on. Married at 20 years old and a quick divorce from my first marriage, my drug and alcohol addiction reared its head. I struggled for 5 long years and after achieving long-term sobriety in 2000, I returned to Delray Beach. I worked selling real estate but had just missed the boom in development that happened in Miami. I followed the northern sprawl and business was good for many years. In 2009 the economy crash hit Florida and I lost all the real estate I had worked so hard for. In 2012 I moved out to California to regroup. It was there that I developed the idea and mission for Recovery Boot Camp. It dawned on me that I was missing the critical turning point in working with Alcoholics and Addicts. By the time they came to me at Healing Properties, they had already been lost their willingness to do the work that ensures long-term sobriety. By introducing them to the AA Step work in their first 30 days, while they still have the willingness to do that work. I returned to Delray Beach to open my Addiction Treatment Center for Men, Recovery Boot Camp.

Please tell us about Recovery Boot Camp.
As the founder of Recovery Boot Camp and Healing Properties Sober Living, I would like to tell you about what inspired me to work in addiction treatment, and what makes Recovery Boot Camp so unique.
In March 2002, with a year and a half of sobriety, I fulfilled a dream that I had tried to achieve multiple times before sobriety but, as a result of my alcoholism and drug addiction, I failed to realize. At 19 years old, I started my career as a real estate salesman, and my dream was to own investment properties.
As I planned my purchase, I came to realize Delray Beach was becoming the sober living capital of the world. Given the fact that I had spent significant time in many different halfway houses and sober living communities throughout my addiction, I felt opening a halfway house would be a wonderful way for me to meld my two passions: real estate and sobriety.

Soon after making this decision, I opened the doors of my new halfway house determined to beat all the competition in the quality of the facility and sobriety. The first six months after opening our doors were the most difficult. I quickly realized I had no idea of what I was getting into! As a young businessman, my goal was to make it work financially with five beds, but also to supply a home where recovering people could get sober. How naive I was to think that everyone in a Delray Beach halfway house wanted to get sober and would be working a Twelve-Step program. At my first house meetings, I would pull out my copy of the “Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous” and, to my horror, my tenants would look at the book as if they had never heard or seen it before. I was amazed and saddened that these men had never been exposed to “the Solution” to their problem.

It was at that time that I had to make a decision. From that moment forward, the whole focus of Living shifted away from the business aspect and towards introducing my halfway house tenants to the power and the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous. I felt that my own sobriety would be threatened if I did not help these suffering alcoholics the way that I was so freely helped. The success of Properties is the most powerful testament in my life to the power of sobriety through the Twelve Steps, and it’s because of this success that I founded Recovery Boot Camp, in 2015.

I believed (and still believe now) that if as long as my focus remains the sincere desire to help those who come through Properties and Recovery Boot Camp’s doors, God will take care of each entity financially. Every decision that we make in regard to the status of our clients is in their best interest (drawn from my own experience with sobriety and newcomers) and is never guided by financial considerations. We are committed to ensuring that all of our clients will have heard the Solution of Alcoholics Anonymous at least one time in their lives! At a minimum, it will be during their time with us here in Delray Beach.

Over the past several years, I have witnessed how the power of God, Alcoholics Anonymous and our program’s philosophy works in so many lives. Miracles happen every day around me. At Recovery Boot Camp and Healing Properties, we strive to create an environment for success. In addition to formulating an effective philosophy and set of rules, I have organized the financial requirements for admission into our programs in the fairest way possible.

At Recovery Boot Camp and Healing Properties, we admit clients that are dedicated to our philosophy and the goal of long-lasting sobriety. We have an amazing group of men working through the Twelve-Step program. I firmly refuse to endanger any of our clients’ sobrieties by introducing someone who may bring chaos into their lives just, so we can fill a bed. Maintaining the integrity of our recovery community in both of our programs is our top priority.

What I needed most in my life when I became sober were structure, accountability and responsibility. As it says in our book, “…alcoholics are undisciplined, so we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined [i.e. Step Work] …” (page88). By working through the Twelve Steps, I developed the discipline needed to live a life beyond my wildest dreams. This is why the programs at Recovery Boot Camp and Healing Properties are structured as they are. The rules that we have established are no different than if one was living the principles of the Twelve Step program independently in their lives.

Together, Recovery Boot Camp and Properties work together to create the most effective recovery journey for men. After working through our treatment program at Recovery Boot Camp, men can move to a sober living environment at Healing Properties, a place where men can try out life on life’s terms with new “sober shoes”. Both of our programs are focused on creating a sense of community and camaraderie among our clients, creating a supportive, safe place where men can share in each other’s struggles and encourage each other in sobriety.

I believe wholeheartedly in the final product of our programs. In fact, I believe so much that my entire staff consists of program alumni. Today, I am surrounded by my staff who have a deeply rooted allegiance to Recovery Boot Camp and Healing Properties, and how each of these programs transforms lives. This results in an undying dedication to the success and quality of our programs, more than I could have ever dreamed. We love our programs, we love our sobrieties and we love every new client that we admit into our program.

South Florida is a great place for Recovery and Treatment, but that was not always true. South Florida has been known as the “Recovery Capitol of the World”. There were a lot of “bad actors” out there because there was a lack of regulation and oversight. Now we are leaders in the country with the Sober Task Force, associations like FARR, JHACO and others. My hope is that in the future there will be a National Licensing to set and maintain industry standards.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
In my junior year of high school, my father’s team, the University of Miami, was heading towards the national championship. Every weekend was and amazing rollercoaster. Week after week; anxiety, relief and then elation. One week built on the next. When it came time for the final game with Nebraska, the whole town was in a frenzy. For those 4 hours during the game, I, and the whole of the city of Miami went through the most intense and gratifying feelings that we had ever had and dare I say “will ever” have for the rest of our lives. Especially that last play… that last play.

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Image Credit:
Random Friends, 5 Star Production

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