Blake Beckner

I spent nearly eight years in prison.

When I was released in 2018, I knew I never wanted to go back to the life I had been living. But at the time, I don't think I fully understood what God was preparing me for.

During my final year of incarceration, I was sitting on the top bunk of my cell reading Proverbs 27:17:

Sitting in that cell, I started thinking about what happens when you put men together who are actually trying to change their lives. Men holding each other accountable. Men encouraging each other. Men calling each other out when needed. Men helping other men become better.

That's where the name Better Together Recovery came from.

I had the vision before I ever walked out of prison. I just didn't know exactly what it was going to look like.

Then God put my wife, Lovie Beckner, in my life.

Lovie gave me hope. She believed in me, but more importantly, she helped me believe that what was sitting right in front of us was the opportunity I had been praying for.

I had prayed for direction. I had prayed for purpose. I had prayed for God to use my life.

And then the opportunity showed up.

Sometimes we spend so much time praying for God to open a door that we don't recognize it when we're standing right in front of it.

Lovie helped me recognize the door.

One month after we got married, we stepped out in faith and opened our first Better Together Recovery home on June 1, 2020.

We didn't have some huge organization behind us. We didn't know that one house would eventually become seven.

We just knew God had put something in front of us, and we were willing to say YES.

Today, Better Together Recovery has grown from that first house into seven homes serving 86 men.

But numbers have never been the mission.

Changed lives are the mission.

I don't want to just see a man stop drinking or using drugs. I want to see him become the man God created him to be.

I want to see families restored.

I want to see fathers become fathers again.

I want to see men learn how to work, manage money, keep commitments, serve others, strengthen their faith, take responsibility for their lives, and become leaders in their homes and communities.

Because there's a big difference between simply being sober and actually having purpose.

My past could have been the reason I gave up on my future. Instead, God used it to prepare me for it.

I went from sitting on the top bunk of a prison cell reading Proverbs 27:17 to watching that scripture come alive every single day through Better Together Recovery.

Seven homes. 86 men. Countless families affected.

And it all started with a scripture, a vision, an answered prayer, a wife who believed in what God was doing, and the willingness to walk through the door when it opened.

We're still growing. We're still learning. And we're nowhere close to finished.

Because at Better Together Recovery, getting sober is just the beginning.

Our mission is to help men move from sobriety to purpose.