4 Seasons N Sobriety started in the fall of 2020 with a promise between friends.
Lake Tahoe · Winter 2020
I had just come through treatment alongside a group of men who had become my brothers. We fought for our sobriety side by side. When treatment ended, everyone headed back to their own lives, their own cities and their own battles, and I didn’t want to lose them. I knew how easy it is to drift apart, and how dangerous it is for a man in early recovery to be on his own.
So I made a plan. 4 times a year, once every season, we would get together. Not a phone call and not a quick coffee, but a real trip: somewhere new, something we’d never done, all of us together and all of us sober. That’s where the name comes from.
4 Seasons. 4 times a year. 4 chances to see each other, check in, and remember why we fought so hard to get here.
Our first trip was Santa Rosa in September 2020. That winter it was Lake Tahoe. Then Temecula, the Kern River and Yellowstone.
Temecula · Spring 2021
Kern River · Summer 2021
Then something happened that I never planned. The trips became a reason to stay clean. When you know your brothers are waiting for you next season, you show up, and you show up sober. Nobody wanted to be the guy who missed the next trip. Without anyone saying it out loud, those trips turned into a promise we kept to each other.
Word got around. Friends of friends, men we met in recovery, guys who were sober but lonely and wanted more out of this life than just getting by. They asked if they could come, and we said yes. That’s when 4SNS was really born, and it grew past anything I ever imagined.
Yellowstone · Fall 2021
Big Bear · Winter 2022
6 years and 16 trips later, from Big Bear to Ensenada, Red Rock Canyon to Washington State, we’re taking the next step. 4 Seasons N Sobriety is becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Here’s why. Not every man who needs this brotherhood can afford it. Some of the men who need it most are just getting back on their feet. Going nonprofit lets us raise support so that money is never the reason a man misses out on real friends and a fun way to live sober.
The desert · Winter 2024
Around the fire · Spring 2021
Every trip is still built like that first one: a small crew of 8 to 10 men, a real adventure, and brothers who get it. If you’re a sober man looking for your people, there’s a seat for you.
No man should have to climb alone.
Ric Rhyne, Executive Director & Founder
There’s a seat for you.
Next up: Sequoia National Park, April 22–25, 2027. 4 days, 3 nights, a crew of 8 to 10 men.
