Founder & CEO Mitch Prager shares the deeply personal story behind Soberman's Estate, the loss of his brother and best friend, and why he set out to build a different kind of residential treatment center for men.
People ask me from time to time why I decided to build Soberman's Estate. The truth is, I never set out to own a treatment center. If my goal had simply been to start another business, I would have chosen something much easier. Soberman's Estate wasn't born from an entrepreneurial idea. It was born from loss, from frustration, and from the realization that the men I loved most never had access to the kind of place they actually needed.%20%20-%202026-10-01T144706.401.jpeg?width=672&height=480&name=(672%20x%20480%20px)%20%20-%202026-10-01T144706.401.jpeg)
In 2010, I lost my brother Jeff to an accidental opioid overdose. He was only sixteen months older than me. At the time, I had already been sober for twelve years. I had every tool that recovery had given me, and I used every one of them trying to help him. It wasn't enough. Two years later, I lost my best friend Jerry, an ear, nose and throat surgeon whom I had sponsored for five years. Jerry was brilliant, successful, respected, and deeply loved. Alcoholism didn't care. It took him anyway.
Those are two losses that have stayed with me through the years and still do. I found myself asking the same question over and over again: If Jeff had found the right place, would things have been different? I don't know the answer, and I never will. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty—I hadn't seen a treatment center that was truly built for men like Jeff and Jerry.
After they died, I traveled the country visiting treatment programs. I wanted to understand what worked and what didn't. Most of the people I met were doing good work, but I kept seeing the same problem. Professional men—doctors, attorneys, executives, business owners, pilots—were often being treated in programs that simply weren't designed for them. They were sharing space with teenagers discussing drugs they had never even heard of. They were in environments that felt institutional instead of restorative. Many couldn't relate to the people around them, and when a man can't identify with the people beside him, it's much harder for him to believe recovery is possible for himself.
That's when the vision for Soberman's Estate started to take shape. I didn't want to build a nicer rehab. I wanted to build the place I wish had existed for my brother. A place where accomplished men could keep their dignity while doing the hardest work of their lives. A place that felt more like a private home than a hospital. A place where hospitality wasn't a luxury—it was part of the healing.
My background wasn't in treatment. It was in hospitality and executive recruiting. I spent more than twenty years learning how to create exceptional guest experiences and how to build world-class teams. Recovery taught me everything else. I simply combined those three parts of my life and asked myself one question every day: What would give this man the best chance to go home and stay sober?
One of the biggest lessons I've learned in nearly three decades of recovery is that there is no single path that works for everyone. I often say alcoholism is a lot like diabetes. A diabetic can live a long, healthy life if he takes his insulin. The same is true for alcoholism. Every man has an insulin—his own combination of tools that keeps him healthy—but it's different for everyone. Our responsibility isn't to tell a man what his insulin should be. It's to expose him to enough evidence-based therapies, experiences, and support that he discovers it for himself. That's why every man who comes to Soberman's Estate leaves with his own individualized Continuum of Care Plan instead of a cookie-cutter recovery plan.
People sometimes notice theprivate rooms, the chef, the beautiful five-acre property, or the fact that we allow men to keep their phones and laptops. Those things are important, but not because they're luxurious. They're crucial because helping men keep their dignity is important. When a man feels respected instead of punished, when he feels like a guest instead of a number, he begins to lower the walls that addiction has spent years building.
Today, when I walk through Soberman's Estate, I don't see a business. I see the place I wish Jeff could have walked into. I see the place I wish Jerry could have experienced. Every man who comes through our doors reminds me why we built it. We've had the privilege of helping hundreds of men reclaim their lives. I remember every one of them. They remind me that this work has never been about filling beds or growing a company. It's about doing the next right thing for the man standing in front of us today.
That's why I built Soberman's Estate.
Not because the world needed another rehab.
Because men like my brother deserved something better.
Founder & CEO, Soberman's Estate
