Unwilling to stuff envelopes or go off quietly to the sidelines, thousands of innovators in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond are combining their creativity and experience to address big social problems. These change-makers are taking matters into their own hands and fashioning a new vision of the second half of life, one in which the expertise and talent of a lifetime is refocused on finding solutions to challenges in our communities, our country, and the world.

Colorado Springs resident Don Coyhis won a 2009 Purpose Prize and a $100,000 cash investment to advance social innovation.

Here’s his story to inspire your own renewed sense of purpose.

Coyhis flies about 125,000 miles every year, delivering his message of sobriety to other Native Americans. But recently, the impact of his 20-year mission touched him in his own backyard.

Coyhis, who has been sober for 30 years, was sitting quietly, at recovery group meeting in his hometown of Colorado Springs. A woman was telling of her recovery when she said, “My wellbriety date is…”

Wellbriety.

Coyhis smiled. That’s the word, the concept, which he has nurtured since starting White Bison Inc. in 1988. Wellbriety, as Coyhis defines it, means “to be both sober and well. It means going beyond survival to thrive in one’s own life and in the life of the community. It means living by the laws and values of traditional Native American culture.”

The woman didn’t know that the anonymous, ponytailed man in her meeting had started the Wellbriety Movement and spread it across the country. And Coyhis, having never met the woman, does not know how she came to learn of it.

“It has taken on a life of its own,” he says.

Over the past 50 years, alcoholism has ravaged the Native American population. A government study last year found the rate of alcohol-related deaths among Native Americans is more than three times that of the general population.

Coyhis, 65, has trained thousands of people in the Wellbriety ways — both in person and through videotaped sessions, books, workshops, and even YouTube clips. He does all this with a five-person staff that works in what could pass for a dentist’s office, except for the Native American artifacts hanging on the walls.

Coyhis himself could pass for a corporate executive, with his to-do list spelled out on a whiteboard, his cell phone clipped to his pants, his laptop open on his desk. But, unlike other execs, tears spill freely as Coyhis shares stories of the people he works with today.

Coyhis grew up a troubled child to troubled parents on a Mohican reservation in Wisconsin. Drinking was the way of life. As an adult, Coyhis left the reservation — and his culture — for the business world, eventually landing a lucrative job at Digital Equipment Corp., among the mountains and big skies of Colorado Springs.

He was a husband, father, and senior manager. “My wall was full of plaques,” he says.

But drinking threatened to destroy everything. After Coyhis made a mistake at work, his supervisor told him that he either had to get help or go.