The last drink
Two arrests in one week, multiple DUIs, five years of prison on the table. A priest walked me into the rooms. I haven't had a drink or a drug since.
Pacific Palisades, California
Recovery Coach · Founder · TEDx Speaker
I lost everything. Then I rebuilt.
Twenty-nine years sober. Founder of Start Up Recovery. In January 2025 the Palisades fire took our home, three properties, and most of the company — we reopened thirteen months later, stronger.
29+
Years in recovery
200+
Alumni coached
13
Months to rebuild
#26
Sun Devil 100
GC
Add portrait
#26 Sun Devil 100
29 years sober
The Recovery Playbook®
I started using at thirteen. By my early twenties, I’d been arrested twice in one week, had multiple DUIs, was dealing drugs, and was facing five years in prison. My mother sent me to confession. The priest, Father Bill Wilson of La Jolla, turned out to be my stepfather’s first AA sponsor. He became what they call an Eskimo in the rooms, the one who guides you in for the first time. I haven’t had a drink or a drug since.
For the next fifteen years, I built a branding career working with Gap, Mattel, Doritos, Pokemon, NIKE, NBC, FOX, and Fox Sports. I started my own media company. I taught entrepreneurship at USC Marshall and was named Mentor in Residence at the Lloyd Greif Center.
Champion, you know two things really well. Recovery and Start Ups.
Patrick Henry · USC Professor · The Conversation That Named the Company
That sentence became the name of the company. In the fall of 2017, my friend Jeffrey Vann and I opened Start Up Recovery with one luxury residence in Pacific Palisades. We treated every client as a unique startup or a turnaround. We built a curriculum I called The Recovery Playbook. And then, eight years later, the fire came.
The Arc · One Continuous Line
1996
01 / 05
Fifteen years in brand
Gap, Mattel, Doritos, Pokemon, NIKE, NBC, FOX, Fox Sports. My own media company. Teaching entrepreneurship at USC Marshall.
Start Up Recovery is born
"Champion, you know two things really well — recovery and start ups." That sentence named the company. One luxury residence in Pacific Palisades.
The fire
A hundred yards from the door, a firefighter stopped me: "If you go any further, you will die." The fire took our home, three properties, and eighty percent of the company.
The rebuild
Thirteen months later: every staff member kept, every bill paid, clients relocated within days. We held the Grand Reopening of the new Main House — and jumped twenty spots on the ASU Sun Devil 100.
- 01 1996 The last drink
- 02 2002–16 Brand years
- 03 2017 Start Up Recovery
- 04 2025 The fire
- 05 2026 The rebuild
START
TODAY
The Receipts
Numbers that don't lie.
0+
Years sober — since my early twenties. Every method I teach, I have lived first.
0%
Program completion rate, against the SAMHSA national average.
#46
#0
Jumped twenty spots in a single year — the year of the fire.
0+
Alumni in the Start Up Recovery family.
0+
Millennials & Gen Z career-coached into their first roles.
0 months
To rebuild the company after losing eighty percent of it in the Palisades Fire.
Twelve plays. One framework. Thousands of hours of coaching, mentoring, and helping people push the reset button on their life. Built for anyone who is ready to shift their addiction into their passion, whether that addiction is to a substance, to a job, to a relationship, or to a version of themselves that no longer fits.
PLAY 01The 10 Intentions
PLAY 02Post It · Word of the Year
PLAY 03The Right to Write
PLAY 04The Backpack of Shame
PLAY 05Shifting Addiction Into Passion
PLAY 06The Mask You Live In
PLAY 07What I Don't Want
PLAY 08The Mantra
PLAY 09The Digital Scrub
PLAY 10The Lies We Tell Ourselves
PLAY 11Character Defects
PLAY 12A Values Exercise
January 7, 2025 · Paseo Miramar
The fire took everything.
The work took it back.
“If you go any further, you
will die.”
A Firefighter · Paseo Miramar · January 7, 2025
I was a hundred yards from the door of Start Up Recovery when a firefighter stopped me. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t breathe. My staff had already gotten every client out. I turned around, packed my wife, our three girls, and our two dogs into the cars with the clothes on our backs, and we ran.
The fire took our home, three properties, and eighty percent of the company. For thirteen months, FOX 11’s Christine Devine followed the rebuild. We relocated clients within days, kept every staff member, paid every bill — and in March 2026 reopened the Main House, jumping twenty spots on the ASU Sun Devil 100.
80%
Of the Company Lost
13
Months to Rebuild
+20
Spots on Sun Devil 100
Rise
Rebuild · Return
Work With Me
Four ways to begin.
Whether you are in the first ninety days of sobriety, the first ninety days of grief, or the first ninety days of figuring out who you want to be next, I've built four different doors. Pick the one that fits.
01 · ONE TO ONE
Private Recovery Coaching
Long-term one-on-one work for people in early sobriety or anyone with ten-plus years who feels stuck and needs a breakthrough. We work The Recovery Playbook together. Clients range from C-suite executives to artists to empty-nesters to twenty-somethings.
Inquire →
02 · FOR FAMILIES
Family Interventions
When someone you love is in active addiction and refuses help, families regularly call me in as an interventionist. I bring twenty-nine years of lived experience, a clinical network across Los Angeles, and a calm that comes from having been on the other side of the door.
Inquire →
03 · FROM THE STAGE
Speaking & Workshops
TEDx, USC, ASU, Pocket Rehab, treatment centers across the country, and corporate audiences who want a keynote on resilience that doesn't sound like a keynote on resilience. Topics include shifting addiction into passion, recovering as an entrepreneur, and rebuilding from total loss.
Book Me →
04 · FOR PROFESSIONALS
Playbook Certification
The Recovery Playbook is now licensed to therapists, interventionists, sober living owners, and recovery coaches who want to bring it into their own practice. A multi-day workshop, branded coaching materials, and a full certification. Limited cohorts each year.
Get Certified →
In Their Words
What the people who use it actually say.
An introspective set of actionable tools that get results, fast. Gregg has a unique gift to motivate others. His passion and vision are unparalleled. The Recovery Playbook is the book I never knew I needed. I have used it in some fashion with all my clients. Effective results guaranteed.
Shayne Anderson
Interventionist · Sober Companion · The Kusnacht Practice
Over the last seven years, Gregg's influence has taken me from a disgraced, expelled college student to a hardworking graduate student and a proud sober living owner. The value of The Recovery Playbook and his guidance is intangible. I am now paying it forward to my clients.
Jack Shain
Co-Owner · Hyperion Sober Living · Recovery Coach
The Recovery Playbook training program created by Gregg has been invaluable to my private practice. It is a step-by-step journey for the client in recovery, the client striving to be their best self. A brilliant approach to defining and achieving your goals. A must-do training.
Dr. Rebecca Udell
LMFT · CSAT
Gregg designed a process that invites you to get honest with yourself. Uncover, discover, and discard your past shame to design a life of passion and purpose. This call-to-action method leaves everyone feeling motivated to move forward as they ponder, if not now, when?
Joelle Jacobson
MA · LMFT · PPS
The Ecosystem
One mission. Three doors.
01
Start Up Recovery
The transitional living center. Founded fall 2017 in Pacific Palisades. Ninety-day residential programs for professionals, executives, athletes, artists, and anyone ready to reinvent their life. Every client gets their own individualized recovery playbook.
Residential02
Start Up Apartments
Opened January 2020 in Santa Monica. A fifteen-unit fully furnished independent living recovery community. The aftercare layer where alumni rebuild daily life with continued access to the Playbook and the mentor network.
Aftercare03
Start Up Wellness
Launched 2023 in Santa Monica. Clinical therapy integrated with Eastern modalities, acupuncture, reiki, Qi Gong, and biohacking technology including bioresonance, electromagnetic, and red light therapy. Open to private citizens, not just program clients.
Wellness
Begin Your Reset
If not now, when?
Whether you are calling for yourself or for someone you love, I answer. Personally. The line below rings twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No call center, no intake script, no one passed to a coordinator. Just me, or someone I trust completely.