We Accept MediCal

From Client to counselor, Keith Cezario is in a good place. "I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing," he says. "How can I go wrong when I get up every morning and I'm not complaining about everything — I'm just happy to get out the door and go to work? That purpose was something that was completely missing from my life before. Now I have purpose: be a good father, be a good husband."

His days at Waterfront start early and stay full. "I start at eight in the morning with assessments and screenings for new intakes, then I run a group — though I don't run as many as I used to since I have a lot of clients now, and a lot of paperwork. The rest of the day is rounds — we transfer people from detox, sometimes we get residential intakes, and Becca and I decide who takes on which clients. Then it's making sure my documentation is up to date, usually a one-on-one somewhere in the day, and getting UAs done — drug testing everybody and following through on that."

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It sounds like the schedule of someone who's always worked this side of the desk. He hasn't. Cezario's training as a counselor didn't begin in a classroom — it began as a Waterfront client. "I actually went through treatment here myself — this was my second time around, and I completed 60 days," he says. Before then, there wasn't much of a plan for anything. "Leading up to that, I really didn't have any goals — 30 years as an alcoholic will do that to you."