Lucien Izraylov has lived a hard life for a guy under 30.  He has bounced in and out of recovery programs, done almost as many stints in jail and overdosed twice.

“They revived me in the hospital.  The second I came out the doors, I shot up.  I still had some heroin in my sock,” the 29-year-old Izraylov says, almost smiling on a life he’s been clean of since December 2003.  “That’s how sick this disease is.

“Around age 20,  I got introduced to heroin.  I didn’t like it that much, but I followed my friends whenever they did it.”

Today,  Izraylov runs three houses in Chicago dedicated to helping ex-addicts stay clean in a sober-living environment, and his plan is to one day help others like him own and operate their own sober-living homes.

“In early recovery you need a lot of support around you.” Izraylov said, speaking from experience at one of his houses complete with a large screen TV and computer with Internet, which all the residents can use.  “If you’re alone, you’re isolated, you relapse.”

His brochures read, “A Fresh Start…Sober Living Environment,” and show photos of rooms and common areas one wouldn’t expect from a halfway house. 

Izraylov said that’s why he calls his homes “three-quarter houses” because they have fewer restrictions and are for people who have had enough recovery to start working and who don’t need 24-hour supervision.

Izraylov explained that he screens his clients carefully to ensure that one of his 41 beds, which clients pay $135 a week for in exchange for signing a contract to keep sober and abide by a list of house rules, goes to someone who is serious about recovery.

“It takes anywhere from eight months to a year before you’re able to be alone with yourself without “obsessing” over drugs and alcohol.”

It was the right word.  “Obsessing,” he repeated again with a slight stutter.

“Addiction is addiction,” he said.   “I needed to use every time until it was gone,

“ I’d steal coke from my friends and punch myself in the face to show them the coke got stolen.  I left my own 21^st birthday party with a bag of coke, stiffed everyone with the bill.  That’s what addicts do.”

And every time he got too sick to find the money for his next fix, Izraylov would call his mother, Inna Azrikan, a native of the Ukraine who now lives in Northbrook, to help check him into rehab.

“We went through hell,” Azrikan said, expressing the battle with her son who always needed money to support his addiction and constantly manipulated her and his grandparents.

“If I myself could shoot all the drug dealers and get away with it,” she said, “I would.”

“We always wanted to believe him every time he said it was the last time,” she said, explaining how when he just returned from getting kicked out of rehab in California, he got high.  “I told him one more time and he’d be out of the house.

“He got high again at my parents’ house.  That’s when I decided to call the police.  It was the hardest thing I had to do.  I said either I’m going to bury him or have hope.”

Izraylov had promised his mother that if he used again, she could call the police, but he didn’t believe she’d do it.  He had outstanding warrants and spent several months in Cook County Jail, before being given the option of the Cook County Boot Camp in April 2004.  He said it was the best thing for him.

“I started to come out of my fog,” Izraylov said. “I never had over a month clean from age 15 to 26. 

“In Boot Camp you have no choice but to humble yourself because if you don’t, you’re thrown out and going back to prison.  I got yelled at and I couldn’t talk back.  I worked out. 

“After a while I started to feel great mentally because I was working out, I was releasing endorphins.  I needed humility, I needed structure,” he said.

"He's our star," said Marianne Kelly, a substance abuse counselor at the boot camp.  Kelly said that Izraylov told her he wanted to help ex-addicts when he attended her counseling sessions.  She told him he needed to stay clean on his own first.

When he left boot camp, Izraylov was determined after being clean for eight months while incarcerated, to stay clean.  He was also determined to start his own sober living facility. 

He experienced staying in such houses since he was in his early 20s and although he was once kicked out of a home on the North Side for throwing a dining room table through the window, he knew there was potential to earn money and help recovering addicts like himself.

“I thought wow, this is a great business.  You can help people and make money.”

He says he believes that respect and personal involvement make his houses better sober- living environments. 

“Everyone that comes in here is treated like an adult,” Izraylov said.   “They’re respected, but they’re screened very tightly.  I have no theft here.

 “I go out to the treatment facilities and actually sit down with people and find out who they are, what’s their family situation, where they have been.

“I’ll take in a guy straight from prison with no money if I feel that he really wants recovery.  I'll never turn anyone down from boot camp because that's where I got clean.”

Izraylov said that he has lost a lot of his emotions from constant drug use.  One advantage of this is that it enables him to stay firm with his clients.

 “I can look at someone if they use or drink, and tell them they’re out of here,” he said.  “My concern is the other people here.”

Clients, at his house on 2606 W. Potomac in Humboldt Park, say the environment is conducive to their recovery. 

Donald, who has been a client for a week, said, “It’s better than other places.  The others have people stealing clothes and money.  Some of them are using [drugs].

“All the guys here are dedicated to living clean and sober.  We talk about our problems, everyone gets a long.”

Rafal, a former BMX racer, who is Polish, said, “This is the Disneyland of recovery homes.  Most of the guys act their age, there’s no gang banging.”

Another client, Paul described how he relapsed while living at the house.  “Lucien said I could come back.  If you have two strikes and he takes you back, you’re lucky.”

Ed, who has been a resident and house manager since July 2006, started working with addicts at the Salvation Army. 

“Ever since I came here I was part of the staff,” Ed said. “[Lucien] opened his arms with great love.  My intention was to stay for a month. 

“Everyone gets along here, regardless of race, creed.” 

Izraylov said his family helped him finance the houses, and his mentors helped him set up his business.  One of them is Marco Jacome, the executive director for Healthcare Alternative Systems with eight facilities in Chicago.

Jacome explained the importance of any clean-living environment is to have strict supervision of people, to ensure there is absolutely no drug use and that when the relapse occurs, to have facilities for them.

 “Treatment works better with peer pressure, Jacome said.  “If they don’t work as a group the recovery is in danger.”

“Lucien is a very entrepreneurial guy,” said Jacome, who has been working in the field of social services for more than 20 years. “He’s a businessman.  When he went to all these places that weren’t as well-structured he thought he could do better.”

Still recovery is a day-to-day process.  Izraylov’s mother agrees, saying.  “To tell you the truth, I never have a 100 percent that he’s going to stay clean.  Hopefully, he’ll get his driver’s license back this year.  I still worry.

“Since he was a kid, he always worked.  He sold chocolate door to door.  Riding his bike to the country club to caddy. 

“He used to get upset, hit the wall with his hand and make a hole in it.  Now he has patience to talk to me.  I think that helping other people is rubbing off on him.”

Explaining his philosophy for success, Izraylov said,  “I love what I do.  I’m always around newcomers in recovery.  I’m not saying I love to see people relapse, but I love to be there to catch them before they hit bottom.”

He said the clients who live at the house say he and the place have a fresh vibe.

“They say it’s a happy place,” he said.  “You know how in a company if the boss is a certain way, everyone else is that way?  I know this is the way I’d want it to be if I was staying here.”