Most people who get sober find out the same hard thing in the first month: the hours are the problem. Treatment ends, the meeting ends, and there is a Saturday afternoon with nothing in it. The old life had a schedule. The new one doesn’t yet.
The Phoenix was built for exactly those hours. It is a national nonprofit that runs free, substance-free activities — climbing, hiking, yoga, CrossFit, boxing, biking, running, book clubs, art, music, meditation, coffee, dinner — for people in recovery, people choosing a sober life, and the friends and family who stand with them. There is one requirement to walk in the door: 48 hours substance-free. No fee, no membership card, no proof of anything, no paperwork.
For Idaho’s recovery community, it fills a specific niche that treatment, mutual aid, and recovery community centers each fill only partly: it gives people something to *do*, with other sober people, that is genuinely fun.
Where it Came From
The Phoenix begins with one person’s story. Scott Strode got sober on April 8, 1997. What carried him was not only meetings and counseling but movement — boxing at a local gym, then climbing, cycling, mountaineering, triathlons. In the gym he found what he had been missing:group of people who expected him at 6 a.m., who knew him as a climber rather than as a person with an addiction, and who gave him a new answer to the question “who are you?”
In 2006 he turned that into an organization, starting in Colorado — Boulder and Denver — under the name Phoenix Multisport. The idea was simple and, at the time, unusual: instead of building another program that treats people, build a community that includes them. Bring the gear. Make it free. Ask nothing except that people show up sober.
It grew, and then it grew differently. The early model was brick-and-mortar — a Phoenix gym in a city, with a chapter manager and a class schedule. Over the last decade, the organization moved toward a lighter, more distributed model: volunteer-led activities that can happen at a trailhead, a partner gym, a park, a climbing wall, or a living room, in places that could never support a dedicated building. That shift is what let it reach small and rural America.
The Phoenix Milestones:
– 2019 — The organization is running in dozens of cities, including Boise, with a strong push into corrections reentry and veterans’ programming.
– 2020–2024 — Virtual and hybrid programming expands enormously; a Phoenix app puts classes and community online.
– 2025 — The Phoenix launches NewForm, a digital platform extending the community model online, and in October 2025 announces it has directly reached more than one million people. At that point, it reported programs in all 50 states, roughly 4,000 volunteers, and 125 full-time staff.
– 2026 — The organization approaches its 20th anniversary, launches its most ambitious research project to date (the “Belonging and Becoming” longitudinal study), and is featured in a documentary, SOBER. Founder Scott Strode has stated a goal of reaching 10 million people by the end of the decade.
The Philosophy
The Phoenix publishes a four-part ethos, and each piece is a deliberate design choice.
It honors sobriety — with the lowest possible bar. Forty-eight hours. Not 30 days, not a completed program, not a sponsor, not a clean drug screen. The threshold is low on purpose, meant to be reachable by someone who’s barely hanging on. It’s also strictly held — no substances at events, including no smoking or vaping — because the safety of the space is the whole product.
It welcomes everyone. People in recovery, people who simply want sober spaces, and allies, family, and friends. There’s no pathway requirement. You can be in a 12-step program, on medication for opioid use disorder, in SMART Recovery, in a faith-based program, or in none of the above. In a state like Idaho, where secular and religious pathways both run deep, that neutrality matters.
It builds psychological safety on purpose. Classes open in a circle: names, a fun fact, the ground rules, so a first-timer knows exactly what’s about to happen. The organization’s own research points to psychological safety as the mechanism through which attendance turns into recovery outcomes. People come back to places where they aren’t braced for judgment.
It treats members as contributors, not clients. The model is peer-led — most instructors and organizers are in recovery themselves, and a newcomer at their third class is already being asked to help welcome the next one. Being needed is a recovery intervention in its own right.
The Phoenix’s research team frames its short-term outcomes as CHIME-B — Connection, Hope, Identity, Meaning and purpose, Empowerment, and Belonging — which, it argues, lead to sobriety and improved physical and mental health over time. It’s a useful frame for anyone doing recovery work: it names what a hike actually delivers.
Does it work?
The research base is young but real, and worth taking a look at.
- The Phoenix’s own 2024 data reports that more than 80% of members remain sober after three months of participation. That figure comes from the organization’s internal study of its own members — a self-selected group — so it should be cited as what it is, not as a clinical trial result.
- Peer-reviewed work is accumulating. In 2025, studies on The Phoenix appeared in Scientific Reports (Nature) and JMIR mHealth, covering social connection and mental wellbeing, support provision among members, flourishing across recovery stages, and psychological safety. The Recovery Research Institute at Harvard/Mass General, led by John Kelly, is a named research partner.
- A Texas A&M study cited by the organization found that sober communities of this kind provide an effective environment for developing the social connections that support healing.
- A longitudinal study launching in 2026 will follow new members whether or not they stay engaged — a stronger design than anything published so far.
The fair summary: the evidence that exercise plus sober social connection helps recovery is solid; the evidence for this specific organization is promising, largely observational, and about to get much better.
One thing The Phoenix is not: it is not treatment, not clinical care, and not a substitute for medication for opioid use disorder or for a crisis line. It’s a community. It works alongside those things.
The Phoenix in Idaho, today
Idaho has been part of this for years — but the shape of it has changed. The Boise chapter no longer operates its own physical gym. Instead, participants find and register for in-person events across the Treasure Valley and beyond through NewForm, The Phoenix’s app, or directly on the website.
That’s a real shift from a few years ago, when the Boise chapter ran out of a dedicated space with roughly 800 members, a gear library, and a set weekly schedule. What’s replaced it is more flexible: instead of one location, there’s a rotating calendar of hikes, climbs, workouts, and social events hosted at partner gyms, trailheads, parks, and community spaces around the valley — discoverable wherever they happen to be that week.
To find a Boise-area event:
- Browse in-person events near Boise directly at The Phoenix’s Explore Events page, filtered to in-person activities within 100 miles of Boise.
- Download the NewForm app and search “The Phoenix” to register for events, join community groups, and track your own milestones — this is also the best option for anyone outside the Treasure Valley.
- Because the calendar changes week to week, the app or web site — not this article — is the source of truth for what’s running and where.
Two Idaho partnerships from the chapter’s earlier, brick-and-mortar era are worth noting as history, even though neither is active today: The Phoenix previously ran classes inside Idaho Department of Correction reentry centers, giving residents a sober community that already knew their name on the day they walked out, and partnered with the VA to connect Idaho veterans in recovery with sober peers. Both partnerships were tied to the chapter’s dedicated gym space and ended when that model did. Given how much of Idaho’s substance use burden runs through the justice system, a reentry-focused partnership is exactly the kind of thing worth raising with The Phoenix as a possibility under the new, distributed model.
The Phoenix is also listed as a community resource by Idaho recovery organizations. How it fits with the rest of Idaho’s recovery ecosystem. It’s easiest to see The Phoenix as one layer among several:
Crisis Immediate safety 988 Idaho crisis centers
Treatment Clinical care, medication IBHP / Magellan of Idaho, licensed providers |
Mutual aid Structured peer recovery programs AA, NA, SMART, faith-based programs
Recovery community centers A physical home base, peer coaching, resource navigation The RCCs listed on this site
Sober active community Something to do, with people, that’s fun The Phoenix
The Phoenix doesn’t replace a recovery community center, and it isn’t one — it doesn’t do peer coaching, resource navigation, or case management. What it adds is the part of a life that recovery is supposed to make room for.
The honest gap: Idaho is 83,000 square miles, and The Phoenix’s in-person events are still concentrated in and around the Treasure Valley. For someone in Salmon, Bonners Ferry, or Soda Springs, the practical answer today is virtual programming through NewForm, plus whatever local activities volunteers choose to start. And that points at the real opportunity — the model is volunteer-led, so an event calendar isn’t something you wait for. It’s something someone starts. A weekly hike out of Moscow or a Saturday climb in Coeur d’Alene is within reach of any RCC with two committed volunteers willing to organize it through NewForm.
How to get involved
If you’re in recovery, or you just want sober company.
1. Find an event. Search [thephoenix.org/explore-events] for what’s running near you — the Boise-area link above is a good starting filter, but events and locations change week to week.
2. Download NewForm. The app carries event registration, virtual classes, on-demand content, and community spaces — the best single answer for most of Idaho, in or out of the Treasure Valley. [thephoenix.org/app]
3. Just show up. You don’t need to be athletic, and you don’t need sober time beyond 48 hours. Bring nothing; gear is provided.
4. Bring someone. Allies, family members, and friends are explicitly welcome. If someone you love is early in recovery and won’t go alone, go with them.
If you want to give time. The Phoenix runs on roughly 4,000 volunteers nationally, and its distributed model depends on them more than ever — volunteers lead activities, welcome newcomers, and organize socials, and the organization trains them. Start at [thephoenix.org/volunteer]. If you have a skill — you’re a yoga instructor, a climbing guide, a cyclist, a cook, a musician — that skill is a program waiting to happen.
If you run a recovery organization, gym, or clinic in Idaho. The most useful thing you can do is host or refer. A partner gym donating two off-peak hours a week, an RCC lending a room for a Phoenix-organized meetup, a treatment provider telling every discharging patient there’s something free to do on Saturday — these are low-cost, high-yield moves. Organizational partnerships go through [thephoenix.org/contact-us].
If you want to give money. The Phoenix is funded by grants, donations, and fundraisers, which is what keeps every event free: [thephoenix.org/donate].
And if you’re not sure what you need yet. In Idaho, start with a person, not a website. Your local recovery community center will talk to you, free, and help you figure out the next step — treatment, a meeting, a coach, or a Saturday hike. If you are in crisis, call or text 988. For substance use treatment access through the Idaho Behavioral Health Plan, the Magellan of Idaho line is 855-202-0973, 24/7.
