""My life is so different now," he mused to himself, remembering how hard he had partied as a young adult, before giving up alcohol and drugs at the age of 24 and focusing on physical fitness instead. "

""I thought, 'This is such a better alternative. Why not try to turn other people on to it?"' "

"Today, at 34, Strode is doing just that, as founder of Phoenix Multisport, a nonprofit organization that uses recreational sports to help ex-addicts "develop and maintain the emotional strength they need to stay sober." "

"In essence, it's a support group that meets not in church basements but at climbing gyms, on bike trails and in swimming pools. "

""It's a great way to be with people who want to do healthy things, as opposed to bad things," says Michelle Smith, 36, one of about 45 members who have joined since the program got rolling earlier this year. "

""It's also an opportunity to learn new sports," she adds. "The best thing about it is being challenged. You find out that things that once seemed impossible are within your reach." "

"As the head coach and spiritual leader, Strode is one impressive role model. A strapping 6-foot- 3 and 210 pounds, he has climbed high peaks in the Himalayas, the Andes and Alaska, and has completed six Ironman-length triathlons, probably the most demanding one-day competitions in all of sports. (He's now training for a seventh, in Wisconsin in September.) "

""I didn't do a 12-step program. I started out by going into a gym and boxing, and what I found was that they were there seven nights a week. That became my 'meetings,"' says Strode, a Pennsylvania native who was living in Boston when he first embraced sobriety. "

""But I wasn't a very good boxer. I thought, 'This is a sport you should excel in or get out.' It's not like tennis, where you can be mediocre and still have fun." "

"Mountaineering suited him better, he concluded on numerous trips to the White Mountains of New England. "But I got sick of the drive, so I decided to live in the mountains," he says. "And what better place to do that than Boulder?" "

"As head of Phoenix Multisport, Strode hosts several outings in a typical week, from a climbing session at the Boulder Rock Club on Tuesday night to a social gathering at Cafe M on Wednesday night to a road-biking excursion from Bicycle Village on Saturday morning. "

"In early May he took 10 of his charges on a camping trip to Moab, Utah, where several members went mountain-biking for the first time, four were introduced to serious rock-climbing and nearly all made the hike to the iconic Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. "

""When you're on a rock wall you're not thinking about drinking or all the things you regret from when you were drinking. All you're thinking about is what you're accomplishing," says Dawn Taylor, 36, a massage therapist and bookkeeper who's been sober 10 years and serves as Strode's assistant director. "

"Alvin Gregorio, a 33-year-old artist who joined the group about two months ago, makes a similar point. "

""One of the reasons I started drinking, in maybe the seventh grade,
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