Why YSB
Our Story
YSB Addiction Treatment opened on Buckeye Road in 2010 because its founder needed it to exist twelve years earlier. Marco Esquivel had spent fifteen years in active opioid addiction — from a back injury at 22, through three failed treatment attempts, to the long, uneven climb to sobriety that finally took. By the time he had four sober years, he was working as a peer counselor at three different Phoenix-area programs — and watching the same problem on repeat.
The problem was not the clinical work. It was the four-week window after discharge when families had no idea what to do next. Spouses came to family days having been told nothing all week. Parents picked up adult children who had been "fixed" without anyone ever asking what home would look like. Whole households got handed back to themselves with no roadmap.
Marco founded YSB to be the program he wished his wife had had access to during his own recovery — one where the family was in the room from the first phone call, not the third week. Sixteen years and 4,500+ alumni later, that founding commitment still defines us. Marco serves as Executive Director, two of his early peers from those Phoenix programs sit on the clinical advisory board, and the family-systems work has only deepened.
Our Mission
Everyone deserves a second chance — and a third, and a fourth, for as many tries as it takes. YSB exists to make sure that the door stays open at every attempt, that the family is supported alongside the resident, and that no one in the West Valley has to leave their neighborhood, their job, or their kids to begin recovery again. We measure ourselves by sustained sobriety, restored relationships, and the alumni who come back as peer mentors — not by referral volume or marketing reach.
Treatment Philosophy
Three commitments shape every treatment plan. Community reintegration, because residents need a tangible plan for school, work, and the neighborhoods they will live in after discharge — not a generic discharge packet. Peer accountability, because the alumni mentor relationship is the single intervention with the strongest one-year outcomes in our data since 2018. And motivational enhancement, because confrontational interventions rarely move the needle — meeting residents in their ambivalence does.
Our Team
Marco Esquivel, CADC II
Executive Director & Founder
Marco founded YSB in 2010 after fifteen years of his own active opioid addiction and four years of clinical work as a certified addiction counselor across three Phoenix-area programs. He leads day-to-day operations, the alumni mentor network, and the family-systems training curriculum that every YSB clinician completes during onboarding.
Dr. Priyanka Joshi, MD
Medical Director
Board-certified in addiction medicine and internal medicine, Dr. Joshi oversees YSB's medical detox protocols, medication-assisted treatment, and psychiatric care for dual-diagnosis residents. She trained at Banner University Medical Center Phoenix and spent six years in Maricopa County's overdose response program before joining YSB in 2018.
Dr. Tobias Reinholt, PsyD
Clinical Director
A clinical psychologist trained at Arizona State University and the VA Phoenix Health Care System, Dr. Reinholt built YSB's trauma-focused CBT and motivational interviewing curriculum. He supervises clinical staff training and leads the Saturday family-systems intensives that have run continuously since 2014.
Lucia Vargas, LCSW
Family Programs Director
Lucia leads YSB's family-systems track — the spouse and partner support group, the parents' weekly meeting, and the adult-children-of-alumni alumni network. She speaks English and Spanish and built the West Valley's only addiction-focused family-mediation curriculum, now used by two other Arizona programs under license.
Voices From Our Alumni Network
— Reginald T., Residential Alumni, March 2026"I was the resistant one. My mother and brother basically forced me into the car. I assumed YSB would be another bunch of strangers telling me I had to admit I was powerless. Marco sat down with me on day three and just told me his own story — same drug, same timeline, same denial. That conversation was the turning point. Nine months later, I am applying to nursing school."
— Sandra J., Parent of YSB Alumni, February 2026"As a parent, I had been to two previous family days at other programs — both felt like obligation, not inclusion. YSB's Saturday family-systems intensives are different. Lucia and her team built something where I could actually grieve, learn, and start figuring out how to show up differently for my son. He has been sober fourteen months. I am still going to the parent group. Both of us are still healing."