FIGHTING ADDICTION
Legendary coach’s son ‘good guy’ in drug fight
Long before the U.S. was gripped in its current opioid epidemic, Tim Schnellenberger had battled — and recovered from — his own substance addiction.
Now 50 and recently married, Schnellenberger — one of legendary football coach Howard Schnellenberger’s three sons — attained sobriety in 2000 and has been on a mission ever since to help others get sober. Tim’s brother, Stephen (who died in 2008 of Hodgkin lymphoma), also battled substance addiction.
“After I got sober and watched my brother fall into addiction again and again, it was awful,” says Tim. “He was living with my parents for a few years and then he would go into and out of treatment facilities. The experience of watching what my parents went through drove me to help other addicts and their families.”
In 2002, Tim founded the male-only Healing Properties Halfway House and Sober Living (healingproperties.org). The Delray Beach facility started with five beds and now boasts 48 — as well as a sterling reputation.
In a Politico report last year on Palm Beach County’s heroin crisis and dubious sober home industry, Healing Properties was cited as being a “reputable … well-run sober home” and Marc Woods, a Delray Beach code enforcement officer, said that Tim was “one of the good guys” in an industry rife with fraud and shady proprietors.
In 2015, Tim added a treatment-counseling component called Recovery Boot Camp to Healing Properties’ program. Earlier this month, he, along with his parents Howard and Beverlee, launched the Schnellenberger Family Foundation, whose mission is to provide financial support to the families of addicts.
‘This is a family disease’
The Schnellenbergers know all too well how much everyone is impacted by an addict’s disease.
“This is a family disease. Everyone is affected emotionally and financially. My parents had to pay a fortune — literally, millions — because of my addiction and Stephen’s addiction,” says Tim.
“We didn’t realize we were doing it, but we enabled Stephen and Tim when they were younger,” recalls Beverlee. “Through our foundation, we hope to help not only the addict get better, but also the family. Relatives may not understand how their enabling contributes to their own suffering — and prevents the addict from truly recovering.”
“We have been blessed by good health, strength and the ability to coach football,” says Howard, of a career that spanned more than 50 years and included Super Bowl victories with the Miami Dolphins, a national championship at the