American Addiction Centers Reviews

The nursing staff was absolutely phenomenal. They were angels. But the other staff couldn't get a job in a third-rate Mexican prison. They were disgusting people. I asked for a box of tissues and I was told they didn’t have any. I said that I didn't believe him and he said, “I don’t give a damn.” I went to the nursing station, and one of those angels said, “That’s **.” And she went and got me a box of tissues. They also made the guy who told me he didn't give a damn come back and apologize. He didn't mean it, but hey.

Overall, it’s a horrible place. They should be closed. They are taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable state. I signed myself out of there on the third day. I had to threaten them with violence to get them to get me out. I told them that if I was not out of there by 9 o’clock tomorrow morning, I was gonna take the things that they put away for me. And if they would call the police, I welcome them. Amazingly, two hours later, they signed me out. When I left there, I called the township board of health, the county board of health, and the state board of health and filed complaints against them. They're terrible and there's no excuse for it.

Also, the place was really male-dominated. It was really bad because they would become very violent when having seizures. Women would not be as violent but they would be kinda trapped in a cage and not know what to do. I did not sleep for 10 days and checked myself out against medical orders. They equipped me with nothing and now I have nothing but a desire to find someplace else. I have been unlucky in finding other places.

Other than that, my last sponsor there got to step 3 with me. But my other sponsor got me a drink. I’ve been to 50 treatments after that and they all hate me now. But the staff at the Laguna Treatment Center was decent. I don't like the staff in general though as I always knew 10 more things than them and it pisses them off, so we just never end up talking. Besides that, the food was better during my second time there and the staff learned very quickly just to leave me alone, so that was cool. They'd usually kick me out before they even know me and that’d be a headache because I’m a headache. But so far, I’m straight.

When I was at Greenhouse, all the BHTs that watch us and nurses were great. The therapists are nice as well. But I had had interactions with the people that are above them and a lot of them tend to be snobby. If we had an issue and it was one of those things that we were told by a therapist or by a nurse or by somebody to go to somebody higher than them 'cause that's who could fix it. But they always had this holier than thou type of comeback to our questions. It makes use to feel bad about being there.

The first time I went, I only did a 30-day stay at the Greenhouse main. But once I've been there about a week and a half, I have every worksheet that they're gonna pass out. I've already done everything and it got to the point where I could literally quote what we were gonna talk about that day. I was doing 30 days so 20 of those days, I was not gaining any knowledge. Then I went to GHOP and I went to Resolutions and did 30 days there. They just got me clean and then they told me what makes me an addict. I learned that, how my brain is different than everybody else's, and I can't ever use drugs or drink again. They also stepped up a lot over. That's where I really learned how to be by myself and still be sober 'cause there was a lot of anxiety about that. It's easy to stay clean in rehab but once one gets out and gotta be an adult, that's when it's hard. But they really help me test that.

I also like the step system where when I first get there, I can't go out or own any passes. But then, over time, as long as the therapist approves, I can go out on passes. I can walk down the street and go sit at a restaurant and eat something. Before I actually leave, they test and see how I'm gonna feel when I'm out in the real world. I really loved all the therapists that are there at the Greenhouse main. They really care and they really want to try and switch things up but they don't have the say-so to do it. The people that do don't care. But to the therapists, I've seen them cry because they want to be able to help us but they just can't.

I’m doing fine for other reasons, but I don’t think my experience with the center equipped me at all. It was not helpful. I needed the time in detox and that was helpful, but it was really helpful despite them rather than because of them. They did a pretty bad job of taking care of my belongings, and quite a few belongings went missing. These were toiletry items that I asked for during my stay there. They continually told me they were looking for them and they didn’t. And then when I got back home, I discovered there were more stuff missing.

The arrival went fine. It was very late at night. But then, upon looking at my personal belongings that were in a safe later on, there was $100 missing. I filed a report about it and heard nothing for two weeks. And the only reason why I heard something was because I found proof that I did have the money that I stated I have. I was spoken to very disrespectfully by the person in the office telling me not to get an attitude with her after she accused me of lying. I was really upset about that. The only reason why I finally was able to prove it was because they did write the amount down on the piece of plastic back that stored all my money and credit cards. But I hadn’t noticed that until two weeks had gone by. They offered me a gift card back, not the $100 cash that was missing, which was wrong. If I lost cash, I should have been able to be given cash back.

Some of the staff were wonderful and some of them sucked. I was told that I couldn’t have the blankets that I needed because it was cold there because other patients might be cold, and it wasn’t fair for me to have more blankets. A solution to that was to buy more blankets. Why should I have to be uncomfortable because others might be uncomfortable? They need to supply enough blankets if they can’t have heat at a reasonable temperature. They tried coming in and covering the vents that the cold air comes out of. Unfortunately, it just pushes it out of other different places like on the casement of the door where the latch would go into. The cold air flew out of there instead when they covered it up. And that’s also the same vent that the heat’s supposed to come out of. So, that was a loss.

Then, another day, I came up after working out, and there was no clean towels anywhere to be found. So, I couldn’t take a shower after being sweaty and gross, and had to continue on with my day with groups, stinking, after doing an hour in the treadmill. They should buy more towels. The groups and everything were fine. But they were just really focused on addiction and nothing to do with anybody who has depression or anxiety. It’s all addiction, recovery, recovery, recovery, addiction, recovery. I had to stay sober. How do I stay not depressed? How do I build my self-esteem? They should consider that.

You need to be able to do more outings because you start to go stir-crazy if your minding is standing. They're not doing any more passes where people can go out for two hours on their own, which for me was the only thing that saved my life. That would have been absolutely nuts in there for that long a time because you're not allowed to bring in candy or things like that. And when you go out in the outings, that’s really nice but you're not allowed to bring any money. You’re not allowed to spend any money unless you happen to have maybe a wallet in your phone. That would be nice.

They may have implemented a little store, but it’s not the same as going to Walmart or similar and being able to buy some sweatpants like I had to when I went out on pass because it was too cold. I had to spend a lot of money on warm clothing because it certainly never expected to be freezing. I had to buy three sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants. This was in California. I expected everything to be really warm. I never expected to be freezing. I didn’t know what winters were like because I come from Connecticut. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend the center for somebody who’s struggling more with mental illness than addiction, but I'm happy enough with my experience.

There were a lot of people who wanted to be there because they had experienced addiction, and there were also some people who did not want to be there, like those who were court-ordered, and it showed in their behavior. But, for the most part, it was a good experience for me. They taught us to stay in the program and to have the tools to work the program. It was important that the person had to want to. While the building is old and dusty, I love it. If you dwell on the broken and dirty, then that is what you will get out of the program. If you dwell on the positive and what you get out of the course, you will do much better.

Aside from that, their reps were understanding and they knew what was going on. I had a therapist, a case manager, and the psychiatrist. I didn't get that familiar with the psychiatrist, but I did with his PA. She was very kind and we had a lot in common. Everybody was knowledgeable, encouraging, and helpful. In the end, my experience with them helped me be successful in weaning off of two sleeping medications.

The staff were pretty nice for the most part. But there's a lof of inconsistencies with the protocols and procedures and who you talk to and who you are. So the treatment was different. I come from a professional background. So I could tell and see it. But it was okay for my needs. I pulled myself more out of it than their treatments. Their counseling was just tell your story and I don't know what they really got of it. As you move up to the floor to the next level of treatment as the hospital is transitioning from treatment just to detox, you could kinda see how it was transitioning where they didn't really care to treat you. They have different floors. One is the detox floor and then the upper level was a more of a treatment floor which was much better. But I didn't really care for the first floor at all. I wouldn't go back if it was to happen. In the future, I would go for a facility-geared to my lifestyle.

The money is not there to sit there and do counseling. The money is there to do the detox. That's where the big bucks are. From what I was gathering, both the floors were coming up onto the complete detox and some therapy to throw in there, and then they ship you out to a secondary hospital or a treatment center than a step-down unit. I didn't know we were in the Bible Belt treatment centers in California. When I called the call center, I didn't know they were commissioned on shipping you over either. I didn't even know that the hospital is in Laguna, which is not even Laguna. So it was a false advertisement on top of that.

You think you'd be by the beach but you're not even close to the beach. It looked more pampered than it was, and then you're already stuck like Chuck. You could walk out, but if you walk out, the insurance ain't gonna cover you up. So you get back in the treatment. It was a complete learning experience to me for this whole situation. They do whatever it takes to get into a treatment facility that they're networked through. It's a crazy, big money-making racket.

Then when I called and I self-paid, someone said I should have bargained. I don't know about it. This was the first rehab I'd ever gone to. It's kinda upsetting that people had no money and homeless come in at American Addiction Centers for charity and they're getting it for free then I'm a middle class American and I take $15,000 out of my savings. I'm a nurse and it's not like a super person there. I know it’s a money-making thing, but they should not take advantage of somebody that has money. I was very disappointed with that. It’s not fair. They need to give me a reimbursement. I talked to my staff, Sarah, and this one girl, Stephanie who’s sober like me and they haven’t gotten back to me.

But I had some money issues when I was there. I signed some stuff not seeing what I was signing, then at the end of the voyage, they said I owed them a bill of maybe $1000. I didn't understand it and I put that in God’s hands. I know it was straightened out though and right now, the blessings are coming in hand-over-foot and I’m grateful.

Then they kicked us out with not even one day’s notice. We were supposed to be going from one place to another because we didn’t wanna do the in-patient there. We were gonna finish the detox out there then go to another place, and they found out that the other place couldn’t take us until Thursday. So they said that they were gonna keep us there until that Thursday. But come that Monday, they pulled us into the office and said that we either had to go downstairs into their in-patient program and stay here, or we gotta go. Luckily, my parents were able to come and pick me and my fiancé up. Otherwise, we would have been on the street. That was kinda rude. Plus, I had just lost my brother two weeks prior to that, so I was in a really shaky mental state but they didn’t really care.

I also felt the staff were a bit pushy. They were very much on a side themselves. I then went back to the place where I graduated from last summer. And while I was there, I had a heart attack. So, I’m in the hospital now. I read about American Addiction Centers online and then Felicia, the lady who sold the program to me, worked her ass off to get me into rehab. I have nothing bad to say about her. She was persistent, very kind, and it was not her fault. That was the information that was given to her. It was my policy and it was sad that I had to use the policy.

I was also told over the phone that I would be there for 30 days and most of us there flew from all over the country to go there thinking they were gonna be there for 30 days. They gave their jobs and apartments up, just like I did. As for me, I came from eight hours away from home to go to the treatment facility that I was sent to by American Addiction Centers. But when I got there, they said it was just a detox facility where the second floor was for detoxing, then as soon as you were done detoxing, you would move up to the third floor for residential. But they said that they do not keep people for 30 days. Instead, they keep people on average from seven to 10 days. American Addiction Centers should update their information on that. On the last day I was there, some lady came all the way from Tennessee but they told us she was only gonna be there for seven days and the poor lady was crying.

I was there for 17 days before they told me that my insurance would stop paying and I would have to go and pay for another 30-day rehabilitation center. So I left there and went to another place. And in the end, it was $48,000 for 17 days of treatment, which is ridiculous and not what I was promised. On top of that, in the 17 days that I was at the facility, they had three people bring in drugs and they had male staff walking into female's rooms with no shirts on. They didn't do any kind of med checks to people who were being given the wrong medication and they were violating HIPAA laws. They were saying first, last name, drugs that you were on, and doing assessments in front of a whole bunch of people, which is illegal.

Also, when I got home and I talked to my primary care provider and my psychiatrist, they said in no way do you send people to a detox facility for this drug that I was on. I was taking it as prescribed but so many professionals will tell you to never send people to a detox center for this drug. It is extremely dangerous. I talked to my insurance as well and I have filed grievances for my insurance to not pay the bills.

Now, I'm home and I'm on all of this medication. But I started to research and it turns out that these are medication that cover up your withdrawal symptoms and they keep you drugged up enough so you can go to their groups, which is how they make their money. They don't even give you a three-day period or any kind of period when you first get there to relax, try to come off of the drug, and focus on yourself. They make you get up right away, go to four hours of groups a day, and an hour of meetings from the first day that you are there.

Aside from that, I wasn't being assessed by doctors. In the 17 days that I was there and for the amount of money paid for my treatment, I saw the primary care physician two times. I'm going to hopefully not pay because I've been talking to a lawyer. When I got home, my doctors were supposed to contact my work from the facility to get my FMLA paperwork fixed but they never did any of that. I ended up losing my job. But that was my biggest concern in the beginning and American Addiction Centers promised me I would have a case manager that would take care of all of that. They said I wouldn't have to worry about a thing but that was not at all what happened. I was there for eight days before I even saw a case manager.

Before, I made $100,000 a year and now, I lost my job just trying to get better. I have also been broke, I haven't gotten any disability money, and I haven't gotten any kind of help. This has been the worst thing that I've ever done. I have stayed clean until this point, but I do not understand how they expect people to move on from this. I saw people relapse inside of that facility because of the drugs that were being brought. Also, they were able to take me off of this drug so quickly and the way they did it is inhumane. It can kill somebody and the suicide rate for doing it like that is high. This experience has been terrible and I never want anybody to ever have to go through what I went through. I made the choice to do this and it has destroyed my life even worse than before when I was a drug addict, and that is hard.

All in all, what American Addiction Centers do is great and I appreciate them for what they do. But they were the middle person in-between connecting me to these programs and all the information that they told me was pretty much false. I didn't get the help for the drug that I was most worried about and for a year and a half I've been struggling to get help for. I am off of the drugs now, but it's by the grace of God that I'm still alive. Other than that, I am now getting some bills from the American Addiction Centers and I don't understand why. On top of the money that my insurance paid, I'm still gonna pay a good $10,000 to $15,000 out of pocket for this.

They teach some basic information there. I think that they need to incorporate some more realism. I tried to get some attention to medical priority I need. They did that Myers Briggs self-assessment test so you can evaluate your needs once and how to identify your weaknesses to turn them into strengths. They have some really intelligent, really cool people there and it doesn’t mean that they can’t retain the information. If they know more about themselves, it has all to do with self-determination, how you see yourself and what kind of man or woman you wanna be for your family and for yourself. Those are some of the things that I wanted to incorporate.

They need to develop some more programs. After the second week, I felt like there wasn’t anything else I can learn. I was beginning to put into practice the things that I had learned and the third week was when I really retained most of it. But that fourth week, it was a little onerous. They start recycling the program lectures at three and a half weeks. If Sunrise House went a little bit outside of that, some of the guys that’s gonna be there longer may be given a wider spectrum of understanding.

The staff was very good. Nurses were nice and I love all the techs. In detox, they listen and were caring and accommodating. They try to help as much as possible. I loved my therapist there as well. His name is Dustin and he was great. I was in treatment and the people there were good too. However, I ended up leaving not because of relapse, but they kept trying to take more insurance money. I have 30 days of PHP and I’m supposed to graduate to IOP, and they extended it 15 more days. I did the 15 more and they extended it 15 more to 60 days of five days a week. I said, “That’s not happening.” And they said, “Well, you’re gonna have to leave then ‘cause we’re doing all of the days or none.” So I left and now I go to a different treatment center.

Cheryl, the intake person there, asked what was more important, my sobriety or the money. I said, “My sobriety." I didn't wanna leave. I was scared and very discouraged about the situation. Recovery First shouldn't threaten someone new in sobriety. I was grateful that I had the money so I didn’t have to move away from my therapist, the doctors, and my group, which were my safety net. But by the grace of God, I am celebrating 69 days of sobriety. I have a sponsor and I have a job. I also have a homegroup. I’m doing everything that my sponsor tells me to do. We meet once a week and I have a man who calls me from alumni, and so, things are good.