When a man walks through the door at Tidal Forge, the medical team stabilizes his body. The house gives him structure. The brotherhood gives him company. But the actual work of recovery — the part where he figures out why he was using and how to live without it — happens in a room with a therapist. At Tidal Forge, the person responsible for every one of those rooms is Rachel Querry, LCSW, our Clinical Director.
This is the first post in a series introducing the people who run our six-bed men’s home in Huntington Beach. We’re starting with Rachel because she’s the one who designed how the clinical program actually works — and because when families ask us "who will my son be talking to?", she’s the answer.
The Credentials
Rachel is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), licensed through the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. She earned her Master’s in Social Work – Integrated Health from California State University, Long Beach, after completing a Bachelor’s in Sociology and Communication Studies at Chapman University. She is certified in EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — one of the most effective, research-backed treatments for the trauma that sits underneath so much male addiction.
She brings more than nine years in the mental health field and more than seven years specifically in substance use treatment. That experience spans the full spectrum of care: inpatient and outpatient treatment centers, and an inpatient psychiatric hospital where she worked with clients at their most acute. The result is a clinician who’s seen every stage of the disease — and isn’t rattled by any of them.
"I can teach a man a coping skill in twenty minutes. I can’t make him use it at 2 a.m. when nobody’s watching. That part only happens when he trusts the person who taught it to him."
How She Works: The Alliance Comes First
Ask Rachel what makes treatment work and she won’t start with a modality. She’ll start with the therapeutic alliance — the working relationship between a client and his therapist. The research is unambiguous on this: across every type of therapy, the strength of that relationship predicts outcomes better than the specific technique. Rachel built the Tidal Forge clinical program around that fact. Every man here has an individual therapist he sees consistently, in a house small enough that his therapist actually knows what kind of week he’s had.
Inside that relationship, she draws on a deliberately wide toolkit — and matches the tool to the man, not the other way around:
- CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) — identifying the thought patterns that lead to a drink or a pill, and rewiring them before the craving hits.
- DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) — skills for men whose emotions run hot or shut down entirely: distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and how to have a hard conversation without blowing up or walking out.
- EMDR — processing the trauma that most men have never spoken about out loud, so it stops driving the using from underneath.
- Solution-Focused and Person-Centered work — because a man who’s been told what’s wrong with him his whole life responds differently when someone asks what he wants his life to look like instead.
- Psychodynamic therapy and psychoeducation — understanding where the patterns came from, and understanding the disease itself well enough to stop taking it personally.
What She Actually Does Here
As Clinical Director, Rachel oversees every clinical hour in the house. She conducts biopsychosocial assessments when a man arrives — the deep intake that maps his history, his mental health, his family, and his goals into an individualized treatment plan. She leads process groups where six men learn to say true things in front of each other. She runs individual sessions. She supervises our clinical team, including our MSW intern therapists, so every clinician in the building is working from the same standard. And she coordinates with our medical team — Dr. Warren Taff and Mike Kelly, DNP — so that a man’s psychiatric care and his therapy are one conversation, not two.
She also serves as the clinical reviewer for the health information on this website. When you see her name at the bottom of a page about alcohol withdrawal or relapse warning signs, it means a licensed clinician read it for accuracy before you did.
Why a Men-Only House Suits Her Approach
Rachel believes in whole-person care — evidence-based treatment paired with an honest look at the man’s body, relationships, spirituality, and purpose. That philosophy is why holistic services like breath work, meditation, and yoga are part of the clinical week at Tidal Forge, not an optional add-on. It’s also why she’s a strong advocate for men-only treatment: in a room without performance, men drop the armor faster, and the therapeutic alliance she builds everything on forms in weeks instead of months.
Off the Clock
When she’s not in the house, Rachel is usually outside — hiking, bike riding, or dancing — or reading. Above all, she’s spending time with her husband and daughter. She’ll tell you that’s not a footnote to the work; it’s the point of it. She asks the men she treats to build lives worth staying sober for. She models what that looks like.
Meet the Rest of the Team
Rachel leads a clinical, medical, and operations team that we’re genuinely proud of — you can meet all of them here. Over the coming weeks we’ll introduce each of them in this series. If you have questions about our clinical program, or you’re ready to find out who your therapist would be, call (714) 794-2630. Free, confidential, 24/7 — and the person who answers can get you or your loved one in front of Rachel’s team this week.