Hi, my name is Pax Prentiss. I am the co-founder and co-director of the Passages Addiction Cure Center in Malibu, California, along with my dad, Chris. We opened Passages because of our deep desire to save the lives of people who are suffering from alcohol and drug dependency. Our breakthrough program evolved from our firsthand experience with what works and what doesn’t work.
For ten years I was drug and alcohol dependent—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 own life in danger. I pawned everything in my house of any value, cheated credit card companies, and passed bad checks. Soon I had nothing left to pawn, 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 with my jaw broken in two places, my teeth wired shut, sifting food through my teeth and bruised all over, 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 detoxed at home, and I can remember him asking me each time if this would be the last time I would use drugs. I assured him it was, but within a short period of time I would always relapse. After my many failed attempts to remain sober, 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 12-step programs, but we found that the basis for these programs was the same: group meetings four or five times a day. Unfortunately, group meetings did not work for me. I found myself, day in and day out, in the same groups, with the same people, going over the same material. I was just another client, or even worse, just another number. On the rare occasions when I was the focus of attention, 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 held onto the really shameful incidents and problems and chose only to tell the group about my minor problems.
At the end of a month’s stay in rehab, I knew that I had not done any work of any value—certainly nothing to deal with my core problems—because of my fear of opening up in front of the group. As a result, I left with all the same problems I checked in with. I went back into the world to try and maintain my month 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 and I almost came to believe that getting me sober would be impossible. We realized that the kind of programs that were available were not going to help me heal the underlying causes of my addiction. Any program that used group meetings as the main treatment modality could never address my individual and unique needs.
In our heads, we imagined the kind of program that would work. It would be a program that focused on me as an individual and my unique needs rather than shuffling me around from group to group as if everyone there had the same problem that could be solved in the same way. The ideal treatment plan would encompass the diversities of my issues. I needed professionals from all areas of training who would help me discover the cause of my addiction and who could create a treatment plan that would meet my special needs.
When we realized that we were not going to find such a program, we created one ourselves. We drew on the expertise of different practitioners and doctors to help me uncover and deal with my specific issues and get me back to a healthy lifestyle. As a result, I am sober today. Because of the success of that hand-tailored program, my father and I decided to create a program to help others get sober and stay sober. That program is called Passages, and it works. 
The Passages program includes lots of one-on-one therapy. When you are in a private session with someone you trust and believe in, you will feel free enough to talk about what is really bothering you. Because there is no one else in the room, the therapist can dedicate the entire time to you, helping you through your problems without you being embarrassed or worrying about a loss of privacy. That is the effective way of curing your underlying problems.
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. 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 a one-size-fits-all solution. Our goal is to heal each person at every level by providing the finest individual therapy available anywhere in the world.
One of the most powerful aspects of the Passages treatment program is that we work as a team. Nine therapists work with every client, and at the end of every week my dad and I meet with the therapists, review the information gathered from the client, and shape a plan for the coming week based specifically on that client’s needs. That is our famous team approach, which can only be accomplished successfully using one-on-one therapy.
The successful program we’ve developed at Passages is a direct result of my own addiction and the dire need to find an approach that would, once and for all, resolve the core problems behind my dependency. This groundbreaking approach worked for me. Today, I am in my ninth year of sobriety. I am fully recovered and completely cured. We now offer the Passages program to you.
My promise to you is that we will do our utmost to help heal you. The Passages experience is truly a rite of passage from the bonds of addiction to the freedom of sobriety.
Sincerely,
Pax Prentiss
