Brad Sowell’s professional detour has helped put a number of local men struggling with alcohol and drug addiction on new paths of their own. Sowell is now expanding his newfound career in the business of addiction recovery.

Sowell, a former attorney who is now executive director of Bowling Green’s Victory Lane Sober Living, is adding to the three men’s group homes he has established by adding a women’s home in a former fraternity house on College Street.

Victory Lane was approved at the June 9 meeting of the Warren County Board of Adjustments for a conditional-use permit to operate a recovery/sober living group home for up to 20 women at 1215 College St.

Sowell said the Victory Lane facilities are group homes that help patients struggling with addictions make the transition from an inpatient rehabilitation program into society.

The CUP application said the Victory Lane facilities are designed to help such individuals learn to maintain their sobriety in a supportive environment.

Sowell said Victory Lane group homes accept no violent or sexual offenders. People applying to rent space in the homes must pass regular drug tests and must find employment or be actively seeking employment.

Attendance at house meetings and Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings is required as well.

Although Victory Lane has no clear-cut graduation time, Sowell said “six to nine months” is the goal for getting residents incorporated back into society.

“A person’s chances of making it in recovery depends on their environment,” Sowell said. “We try to put guys in homes that are clean and safe, and we work with Fuller Life Counseling to provide therapeutic services.”

His work with Victory Lane grew out of Sowell’s own life experience.

A 2002 Bowling Green High School graduate, Sowell earned a law degree and practiced law for nearly a decade before his own addictions derailed his career.

Sowell is open today about his struggles with alcohol and drugs, and he said a failed drug test administered in 2019 by the Kentucky Bar Association “sparked a desire to change.”

That desire led Sowell to a job as residential program manager at the JourneyPure addiction rehabilitation facility in Bowling Green.

In July 2020, just a few months after losing his license to practice law because of that 2019 drug test, Sowell and his wife, Billie Jean Sowell, decided to open the first Victory Lane group home.

“I knew my wife and I could make a difference,” Sowell said.

Although he is now close to getting his law license reinstated and has been drug-free for more than three years, Sowell remains determined to make a difference for others who battle addiction.

“I’m about to get my law license back, but this (Victory Lane) is far more rewarding than any verdict I got for a client,” he said.

The College Street group home won’t be the last one he opens locally, Sowell said. He is already working on a second women’s facility on 11th Avenue.

He is continuing efforts to add to the three men’s homes as well. At the same meeting during which the College Street women’s facility was approved, Sowell’s application for a new men’s group home at 704 Glen Lily Road was voted down by the board of adjustments.

Six Glen Lily Road area residents testified against the Victory Lane facility, citing concerns about having a home for recovering addicts in a residential area.

“The Glen Lily Road community was not very supportive,” said Sowell, who saw that application defeated unanimously. “We had to kinda pivot. We’re now renting that Glen Lily Road home to graduates of our program.”

At that June 9 meeting, the board of adjustments gave unanimous approval to the CUP application of Mike Jordan and Nickie Jones to operate a short-term rental on a 3.16-acre property at 1898 Porter Pike.

The board also approved the CUP application of Dwight Burton of Purple Door Realty to operate a short-term rental at 452 Coombs Drive.

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.