Noel A.’s story is one of seasons—of shifting landscapes in both heart and home. He speaks calmly, but with the weight of a man who has seen many dawns and weathered many storms. His voice carries the quiet determination of someone who knows life is both fragile and fiercely alive. A man of many hats—more than most wear in a single lifetime—and a father to three gifted children, he is living proof that talent, drive, and resilience can survive the fire and rise again.
He grew up in New York, but it was the Southern California sun that shaped his adolescence. A kid with quick feet and sharper instincts, Noel found early love in soccer—a sport of rhythm and movement, of team and tempo. But while the field gave him structure, home was more abstract. “My dad coached us, and he always showed up. He was very supportive. My mom wasn’t really around—she left when we were young to go to India to do yoga and meditation. She wasn’t really built for motherhood. My dad wanted five kids, she wanted none. They ended up with three, though there were two miscarriages. It’s a miracle any of us are here.”
Noel’s family story echoes with both love and loss. His brother, now his biggest supporter, lives in Marina del Rey. His sister, who struggled with bipolar disorder, passed away. They were close. Her loss is a wound he carries quietly.
By the time adolescence kicked in, so did anxiety. The pressure to perform, to fit in, to be okay when he wasn’t, drove him toward what felt like relief. “I didn’t realize I was heading down a path like this,” he says. “It was just something that helped me escape.” He started drinking and using around 13 or 14. “You know, middle school parties—someone hands you a joint or a beer.” From the very beginning, it wasn’t casual—it was a dive headfirst into oblivion.
High school brought escalation. College brought chaos. Weed, alcohol, acid, mushrooms—it was all on the table, and usually all at once. Outwardly, he kept it together. Inwardly, he was splitting in two. “I was doing okay on the surface, but inside, I was struggling with things I couldn’t fully name.” School was a double-edged sword. He was smart, but addiction dulled his edge. “I tried to keep up, but the hangovers, the cravings—they made it hard…By 20, I had my first manic episode and decided to get sober for the first time.”
Sobriety brought clarity, but not a cure. The bipolar diagnosis was still unfolding. During a trip to Israel with his first wife, Noel met a professor specializing in military psychology. That spark pushed him to shift majors and eventually pursue graduate school in both psychology and education.
The next decade from ages 20 to 30, Noel managed to hold sober ground, embedding himself in the California school system, doing meaningful work in Long Beach—crisis response, suicide prevention, alternative education programs. He wasn’t pulling kids from homes—he was helping them stay in school, stay alive, stay connected. “That was my first real sober stretch, but I wasn’t working a program. I was what you’d call ‘dry.’” Still, he was doing well. But life didn’t stay calm for long.
When he transitioned into hotel project management he inherited five properties, five deadlines, and five levels of stress. He was living in Laurel Canyon with his second wife, trying to hold it all together. “I thought I could handle five hotels at once. I was wrong.” When the pressure cracked and a skin cancer scare hit, he spiraled again. Prescribed an SSRI, his mania roared back to life. “I jumped on a plane to Barcelona, ended up in Milan, met a bartender who handed me a beer…and that was it.”
What followed was a storm of relapse. Seven tequilas in the afternoon. Cocaine by night. “I can’t drink like a normal person. There’s no such thing.” COVID brought more unraveling—job gone, relationship over, couch surfing through casino hotels in Vegas, drinking strangers’ half-finished cocktails, chasing numbness in all the old places.
When San Francisco called, he answered. Restaurants became both escape and entrapment. By day, fine dining. By night, magic-themed cocktails with dry ice and costumes at a Harry Potter Themed bar. “I was on drugs, drinking, and completely burned out.” Eventually, even that fell apart. He walked out of his apartment, landed in Vegas, and nearly landed in jail. “It was dark. And it didn’t fit. I knew it didn’t fit.”
Then came Valentine’s Day. Noel picked up the phone, called his brother, and said the words that would change everything: “I’m ready to go to any lengths to get sober.” On March 3rd, he entered Beit T’Shuvah.
Here, everything started to click. For the first time, his recovery was rooted in a model that treated both his addiction and his mental health together. “It’s the first time I’ve been willing to take medication even when I’m better,” he says. With time, space, and support, Noel learned to name his triggers, take rest seriously, and own his truth. “Now I can say, fully, I believe I’m an alcoholic. There’s freedom in that.”
Community became his anchor. “What keeps me sober is being around other sober alcoholics, doing stuff together, having camaraderie.” He jumped into Beit T’Shuvah’s vibrant rhythms—hikes, Torah study, basketball, and beach days. “It all blew my mind.”
His spiritual compass is guided by the Prayer of St. Francis—a prayer he recites word for word in full with quiet intensity, a living mantra of humility and service. “If I’m in that mood, everything is perfect. I’m in the flow of life.”
And then, there are his kids—the deepest tether to his heart. When he got to Beit T’Shuvah, he hadn’t seen them in six months. Now, it’s every other weekend. “My kids kept me grounded, even when I wasn’t at my best. I missed a lot of moments, and that hurt me.”
When his eldest, Nathaniel, visited the Zen garden, he joked about commune life. Noel looked around and said, “I think I’m home.” Nathaniel, 26, is into yoga, meditation, and sound baths. Gabriel, a successful personal trainer, has his own business. Griffin, just 15, is in marching band, jazz band, and runs marathons. During Noel’s first month at BTS, he made it to the LA Marathon where Griffin was running. “I didn’t see him, but I knew he was out there—and that meant something.”
Today, Noel is immersed in a culinary program—knife skills, braising, food safety. He hopes to eventually cook for the community. But it doesn’t stop there. “I’d like to run a restaurant with a sober community working with me. And as a side hustle, I want to counsel a few people each week on their recovery journeys.”
He knows sobriety is more than abstinence. It’s presence. It’s transformation. “Working the program made a massive difference. I understand myself better, relate to others more clearly, and I don’t feel like the world is out to get me.”
Noel’s story is one of relentless reinvention—of grace earned, of struggle confronted, of darkness transmuted into purpose. Today, he dreams in Technicolor, Southern California sunshine, fresh plates served hot with second chances, and healing—dished out in equal parts nourishment and compassion. He mentors, he serves, he shows up—for his kids, his community, and himself.
He’s not just recovering. He’s building a life with flavor. With flair. With fire.
And this time, the recipe is his.