Co-Founder And Co-Director Pax Prentiss' Statement

For ten years I was an addict and alcoholic hooked on heroin, cocaine, alcohol and a variety of other prescription and street drugs. During those ten years I did things that I never thought I would do in order to get drugs. I lied, thieved and cheated my friends and loved ones. No one was safe in my presence. I would go to any extent to obtain drugs, even if it meant putting my life in danger. I pawned everything in my house of any value, cheated credit card companies, and passed bad checks. Eventually those methods stopped working, and I had to do something else to get money. I chose to do one of the scariest things of all - stealing drugs from drug dealers. Eventually I was caught and beaten to the point where I was hospitalized. You would think that coming out of the hospital, my jaw broken in two places, my teeth wired shut, sifting food through my teeth and bruised all over, that I would stop using, but I didn't. I continued, year after year, until I had no friends, my family was exhausted, and my health was in severe danger. I remember a time near the end of my ten-year run when I was standing in the street, trying to sell my shoes for ten dollars to buy heroin.

During this dreadful time in my life my dad and I were trying everything we could to get me off drugs. My Dad sat by my side many times while I detox at home, and I can remember him asking me each time if this would be the last time I would use drugs, which I assured him it was. Always it was not and within a small amount of time I would always relapse. After many failed attempts we decided to go to a cabin in a remote location and live there. We stayed there for nine months thinking that this would certainly break the cycle of my drug addiction. Unfortunately it did not, upon returning home I went straight back to drugs. Desperate to find help for my chemical dependency, we made an exhaustive search of our nation's rehabs, and tried several; ninety-day programs, sixty-day programs, thirty-day programs, but we found that the basis for every residential treatment center is the same: group meetings four or five a day. Unfortunately, group meetings did not work for me. Nor was it working for the others who were in treatment with me. I found myself, day in and day out, in the same groups, with the same people, going over the same material, just another client, or even worse, just another number. In a group of twelve people if everyone speaks, you get to be the focus for only five minutes, in bigger groups, sometimes not at all. On the rare occasions when I was the focus of attention, I found that I was reluctant to speak about my personal problems. I felt too embarrassed and ashamed to tell a group of strangers, most of whom I had just met, all of my innermost fears and life-long problems. Instead, I had held onto the really shameful incidents and problems, and chose to tell the group only my minor problems. At the end of the month, I knew that I had not done any work of any value, certainly not on my core problems because of my fear of opening up in front of the group. As a result, I left the rehabs with all the same problems I checked in with. Nothing had been healed, nothing had been resolved, and I went back into the world to try and maintain my few months of hard-won sobriety. I did not last long. The same underlying issues that had driven me to use heroin, cocaine and alcohol, were still driving me and because of it I relapsed again and again and again.

My dad I came to believe that getting me sober was going to be impossible. We also came to the conclusion that the kind of programs that were available was not going to help me with my underlying problems that were causing the addiction. A program that used group meetings as their main treatment modality could not address my individual and unique needs.

In our heads we imagined the kind of program that would work. I needed a treatment program that would focus on me, not a program that shuffled me around from group to group as if we all had the same problem. Of course, we all had the same problem in that we were addicts or alcoholics, but the similarity stopped there. Each one of us had a different personal history, came from different circumstances, and our substance abuse was being triggered by different causes. I needed a program that focused on my individual and unique needs, a treatment plan that would encompass the diversities of my illness. I needed professionals from all areas of training to discover the cause of my addiction and who could create a treatment plan that would meet my special needs. Unfortunately, when I was getting sober a treatment program like that did not exist, but because you are reading this, it is obvious that a program like that exists now, and because of it, I am sober today.

To keep someone off drugs permanently, to cure them, the underlying conditions that are the real cause of addiction or alcoholism must be discovered and healed, otherwise, relapse is unavoidable. A force far stronger than they are is driving their addiction or alcoholism. People sometimes maintain brief periods of sobriety, but they have to "white knuckle it", meaning they must rely on their will power to keep them sober, but almost without exception the sustained effort wears them down over time and relapse occurs.

Staying sober should not be a battle; it should be easy and fun. It should be an exciting new way of life where you get to do the things you dreamed of doing when caught in the grip of addiction and alcoholism. The only way to make it easy and fun is to heal the underlying problems. When the problems are no longer present, you can feel the natural feelings of happiness and joy that comes from living a sober life, free of drugs and alcohol.

Drugs and alcohol are just coping mechanisms that the addict/alcoholic has chosen to deal with the underlying problems. Heal the problems and the addict or alcoholic will no longer need the coping mechanisms. Those problems are usually extremely personal, extremely deep-rooted and extremely complex. To heal those kinds of problems, we need extreme measures. We need the experience and knowledge of professional therapists in private, one-on-one settings. The sessions need to be at least an hour long and many times each week. What is required is intensive therapeutic investigation into what is driving the alcoholism and addiction. Several individual sessions a day are required with different therapists with different areas of expertise.

When an addict or alcoholic is in a private session with someone they trust and in whom they believe, they will feel free enough to talk about what is really bothering them. Because there is no one else in the room, the therapist can dedicate the entire time to that one person, helping the person through his or her problems, and there is no fear of embarrassment or loss of privacy. That is the effective way of curing someone's underlying problems. Then progress can be fast and unobstructed. Clients begin to sweep obstacles away. Negative thinking patterns become positive thinking patterns, they begin to see adversity as opportunity, and they see hurtful events of the past in a new light, one that no longer brings them pain, misery and heartbreak. The result is a person who is happy, positive, strong and capable. They are in their purest form, free from drugs and alcohol, free from the memories that have haunted them, and they can move forward to accomplish their life's journey.

One of the most powerful aspects of the Passages treatment program is that we work as a team. Perhaps fifteen or more therapists work with every client, and at the end of every week, we meet and pool our information and create a new program for every client for the following week. We also have blended the best of Eastern and Western medicine that consists primarily of one-on-one treatment. At the end of every week you or your loved one will have received at least eighteen one-on-one sessions in addition to several group meetings. That level of treatment is not available anywhere else in the world. The Passages treatment truly heals mind, body and spirit on the most personal of levels.

If you are researching other centers, ask the "how many" questions: how many clients do you accept at any one time, how many therapists will I or my loved one see every week, how many individual sessions will be received each week, how many athletic activities each week, how many body-work sessions, how many hypnotherapy sessions, how many clinical psychology sessions, how many metaphysics sessions, how many aftercare counseling sessions, how many one-on-one outdoor activities, how many sessions with your own doctor, how many sessions with the owners? Ask what kind of blood laboratory work is done, if they provide acupuncture and acupressure. Ask if you can bring your cell phone. One of the most difficult experiences I had in treatment was not being allowed to talk to people I loved. It created stress and anxiety and did not provide any beneficial aspect I could perceive. Ask if you will have to do housework or menial chores. Many centers treat their clients as if they have been "bad", as if they could quit using drugs or alcohol if they wanted to, and force their clients to do housework as a punishment. That may be a way to save on expenses, but it certainly will not cure deep-seated mental trauma or mend crippling events of the past.

Unless our most dire problems are correctly diagnosed and treated, relapse is almost certain to occur. Group meetings are not the way to heal a damaged soul, a depressed person, a broken heart, or a biologically ill person, and that is why we will not enroll you or your loved one in a cookie-cutter program that puts everyone in the same room, day after day, with the same people and the same therapists, hoping to magically arrive at one-solution-for-all such as the one-size-fits-all you see in department stores. Our goal is to heal a person at every level by providing the finest individual therapy available anywhere in the world.

You can probably guess that my own treatment was a success. I am in my seventh year of sobriety. Passages was created out of my dire need for treatment, and is a direct result of my addiction. We offer the Passages' success story as a possibility to every person who comes for help, that from a nasty, painful, degenerative addiction can come a blessing such as Passages that can help change the world and bring healing and happiness to damaged souls and their families. My promise to you is that we will do our utmost to achieve that end. The Passages experience is truly a Rite of Passage from the bonds of addiction to the freedom of sobriety.We believe in a cure and we believe in you!

Sincerely,
Pax Prentiss