Luxury Drug Rehab Centers

Ocean views are common in luxury drug rehabs

The most typical luxury drug is one that situated on the coast with views of the ocean. The most famous model of luxury drug rehab is the Malibu Model, which was originated by Promises in Malibu, California. Luxury rehabs tend to cost significantly more than other drug rehabs, and will often offer private rooms or suites, gourmet meals, and include ancillary services such as acupuncture and massage.

Luxury Rehabs Offer a Therapeutic Solution

Some people take issue with the luxury environment because they want to take a “punishment approach” to treatment.  However, it was long ago discovered that the shame-based treatment model where clients were treated like bad people with weak wills was not very effective. The rate of early discharge was high and participants often felt disparaged and humiliated. Never was their evidence that treating drug rehab patients as if they were disobedient and defiant children had any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.

What experience HAS shown is the longer someone stays in treatment, the better the outcome.  So the question became: what kind of environment would encourage people to stay longer than 28 days?  Would people be more likely to stay in treatment longer and get more benefits if the environment was as close to being like a real home as possible? Would offering massage, yoga, meditation and other relaxing treatments make them feel more comfortable and less anxious, so they would not have one foot out the door during treatment?

Gourmet meals are often found at luxury drug rehabs

Luxury Drug Rehab Centers Have Lower ATA Rates

The Malibu Model was created to answer these questions, and it has resulted in much lower ATA rates (ATA rates are the measure of how many people leave treatment before completing it – or leaving Against Therapeutic Advice). In fact, the original Malibu Model program, Promises, has an extremely low ATA rate.  One of the ways luxury drug rehabs keep the rate low is by limiting the number of clients in the primary treatment program at any given time.  When you are competing for the therapist’s attention with 30 other people, you may feel neglected and lost. When you are only sharing that therapist with six people, you will surely get more individual attention. The smaller luxury drug rehabs will have a better staff-to-client ratio and it is unlikely you will ever feel neglected or lost in the group.