Whether or not an addict enters recovery as a result of an intervention, a court mandate, or a personal choice, the important thing is that they get there, right? Actress Elizabeth M., one of the success stories on this website, is interesting for many reasons, but one is that she knew it was time. Granted, her talent agent had recently fired her, but her story is uplifting because of how she so willingly gave herself over to the program from the start. She drank on the ride there, but there was no denial. She had told herself, ‘This is it. I have to do it.”

You might argue that she had hit bottom when she found herself without a career, and because her marriage was on shaky ground because of her drinking. She’s quick to point out that she was afraid of what her drinking was doing to her son, too. He was 9 when she entered Malibu Beach Recovery Center.

But the self-realization she owns up to is inspiring. It’s common to find people in deep denial after years of hurting themselves and others. Recently I interviewed a man who said that even weeks into his stay at a Pennsylvania program he was still lying to everyone—and himself. It’s the nature of the disease.  Elizabeth is also looking back from the perspective of a year’s sobriety, but if she’s to be believed (and there’s no reason not to) she desperately wanted her life back. Her mother had been an alcoholic and started drinking when Elizabeth was 9, the age her son was when she decided to get sober. The irony is striking. Or, as Elizabeth says about the coincidence, “the planets were aligned.”

When I asked Elizabeth to describe a little of what rehab was like, she said she doesn’t remember the first two days because she was detoxing. She remembers how frail she was when she started, and that the food was “the best she had ever eaten 28 days in a row.” She also recalls that she was determined to succeed, because she didn’t want to have to return.

Like most people I’ve talked to who are in recovery, Elizabeth has gained a truckload of wisdom about herself and about life since achieving sobriety at 46. She attends daily self-help meetings, and she still talks to her sponsor. Perhaps most important, she’s confident she’ll be around to see her son graduate from high school now, which a doctor had told her, before rehab, might not happen.

An addiction specialist I interviewed once told me that the hardest people to treat are those who are down and out financially and those who are successful. The first group figures they have nothing more to lose if they don’t stop drinking, and the second group figures they have enough financial resources that they can continue drinking for quite some time with few consequences.

Both groups are mistaken.  Just ask Elizabeth.

UPDATE:  Here is a photo of Michelle's joyful reunion in California with her daughters.

On August 22, 2011 the "Michelle” episode of Emmy-winning TV series Intervention premieres on A&E.  Michelle of Williamstown, NJ is a 30-year-old mother of two. Interventionist Candy Finnigan brought her to Malibu Beach Recovery Center on May 26, 2011.  Michelle’s story is that of four generations of an American family living under the same roof.  Michelle, an exotic dancer, making daily trips to a local methadone clinic, has a sugar daddy. She also has two young daughters who are being raised by her ailing, overburdened elderly grandparents. This is a show about a family who wrote to Intervention for help after years of hearing Michelle’s excuses, and witnessing the domino effects of her addiction on her increasingly-defiant daughters.  Can’t wait to see the show.  I was told to have Kleenex on hand.   Michelle’s aunt and uncle are bringing her daughters to California next week to attend Betty Ford Center's Children's Program.  Michelle will also attend these four days of workshops and seminars, designed to help 7 to 12-year-old children from families who have been hurt by the disease of addiction. 

Here are updates on our other two Intervention clients, both by chance also from New Jersey.

Angelina:  Candy Finnigan brought Angelina to Malibu Beach Recovery Center in September 2008.  She was a heroin addict, so hardcore that she forced her mother to strip in front of Intervention cameras to prove she was not hiding Angelina’s drugs. Angelina had already overdosed so many times there was a “Do Not Resuscitate” order at the local New Jersey Hospital.  While in sober living she got a job waiting tables in a local Italian restaurant.  She still has the job, but only goes in on weekends; weekdays she runs the medical practice of one of our very first alumni, who she is set to marry in November.  She is an AA stalwart, with several sponsees.  She has repaired relations with her family.

Rachel: Candy brought Rachel in May 2010. She was homeless, sleeping on the steps of a Fifth Avenue Manhattan church, panhandling to earn a living.  She had blue and orange hair and a tough “street” attitude toward life – but when she saw the bed she was going to be sleeping in for the next 90 days, she began jumping up and down with joy.  She is an amazing artist.  Rachel’s story was reality TV at its best, filled with fireworks and drama.  She has had a lot to overcome, including a bench warrant that appeared out of nowhere, and almost got her extradited back to New Jersey and prison.  With the help of an MBRC counselor, Rachel has put together a resume, and seems ready to enter the workforce for the first time.  

Two days ago I drove to a 12 Step Women’s Meeting here in Malibu to meet the three girls.  While my photographs of Angelina, Rachel, and Michelle reveal how fabulous they now look, especially compared to when they first arrived, the big news is how much each has changed thanks to the amazing opportunity this reality TV show has given them.  We are very proud to have had a role in those transformations.

Laurie arrived at Malibu Beach Recovery Center in January 2010 at the urging of her brother, the late Russell Armstrong.

Russell was a venture capitalist, originally from Dallas with plush office in Beverly Hills.  On behalf of a wealthy client he had been learning the ins-and-outs of the addiction business.  The client hoped to invest in a tony Los Angeles alcohol and drug treatment center. When that investment opportunity did not materialize Russell began looking at other alcohol and drug treatment centers. 

On our third or fourth meeting he mentioned that he had a younger sister in Texas.  Laurie, he said, “truly a wonderful person” was behaving “not unlike some of your clients.”

We asked a staff member to call her.  Almost immediately, Laurie admitted she had been using methamphetamine for almost four years.  Russell was floored.  His sister was a beautiful, smart divorced mother of two fine sons, not an addict.  But truth was Laurie, who started using meth at age 41, had managed to keep her addiction a secret from him and almost everyone else, for more than three years.  Russell ordered Laurie to take the next plane to Los Angeles.  She missed the first, caught the next and  checked into treatment.

Laurie spent 35 days at Malibu Beach Recovery Center and then several months at our sober living house in West Los Angeles.  While she was with us, Russell and his wife Taylor got the news that they had made the cut and had been cast as a couple on the new reality series “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”  Russell was very excited.  He saw it as a business opportunity that would drive new clients to his offices and set the stage for Taylor to endorse products.  

While Laurie was at the sober living she spent time at their home and attended the lavish $40,000 birthday party Taylor and Russell threw for her four year old niece – one of the first Season’s most controversial episodes.

Once back in Texas, Laurie had a hard time re-establishing her life until she landed an interior decorator job. Then, while helping a friend at his ranch, a thousand pound cargo trailer back fell on her leg.  By the time the paramedics arrived, she was bleeding internally.  Her femur bone was broken.  The doctors predicted she would never walk again,

She spent a month on pain pills, but had her mom dole them out so she would have no way to abuse them.  As it turned out, pills were not her drug of choice.  Nonetheless it was decided because of what she had been through, she should return to Malibu Beach Recovery Center for what we call a “tune up.” 

“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” was now about to begin filming their second season;  Russell proposed an episode centered around Laurie’s return to Los Angeles.  Laurie was very eager to become a role model for other successful PTA moms who were struggling with a secret addiction.  Russell got written confirmation from the Real Housewives producers at Evolution Media that they would be putting a “positive spin” on her story.

But the trip to LA never happened.  Russell became more and more convinced that Season Two of the Real Housewives show was going to be about him, and that he would never survive what he called the “lynching campaign.”  He committed suicide on August 14, 2011.

Laurie called sobbing as soon as she heard the news a day later.  It was she who had to tell her parents and sons.  She was devastated and hard pressed to believe Russell, the father of three young children, would have taken his own life.  She has never changed her mind.

For the last eight months Laurie has appeared on television many times, and also given interviews to newspaper reporters about  Russell, defending a man who can no longer defend himself, against charges that he was a grifter, prone to violence and physically abusive.

Recently her credibility has been challenged on the grounds that she was once a meth addict.   We received phone calls and emails from members of the recovery community who thought those charges, and those making them, were inappropriate.  Two weeks ago we sent our favorite reporter, Seth Isler, to Texas to check in with Laurie and hear her story.

Here is his interview.

At Malibu Beach Recovery Center we are really proud of the success we have had helping clients whose primary diagnosis is clinical depression (often coupled with severe anxiety), and whose secondary diagnosis is substance abuse.  We have been asked several times to explain how 90-120 days at an alcohol and drug program has turned around the lives of so many of these clients, most of whom came to MBRC after failing at well-respected mental health facilities.

Ian C (real name) has now recorded a compelling testimonial which offers insight into how the Malibu Beach Recovery System -- our French low-glycemic diet coupled with the Yurma Yoga System, dopamine-raising nutraceuticals, great therapy and the principles of the 12 Step program -- can positively impact clinical depression. A graduate of George Washington University, Ian began his studies at Georgetown Law School before falling into a depression so deep he did not leave home for six months.  He is now enrolled at UCLA Extension and will soon start earning credits toward a counseling certificate. In the interim he has become an active entrepreneur.   

Ian's story actually begins in May 2009 with Lindsay (not her real name), the first patient accepted by MBRC whose primary diagnosis was severe clinical depression and anxiety.  We have often said that truth is more amazing than fiction; if a Hollywood writer wrote a script based on Lindsay's journey to Malibu Beach Recovery Center, his story line would undoubtedly be rejected as too improbable.

According to Lindsay’s mother Jan (not her real name), in May 2009 Lindsay was in her second course of hospitalization, about to be discharged with no aftercare plan.  She was heavily medicated.   The family -- dad is a well-respected medical scientist and Jan, a bright, highly-educated holistic professional -- had no idea what had happened to their smart, seemingly normal daughter.  Jan told the hospital that it was not safe to return Lindsay to their home in an upscale Great Lakes college town, where whatever she was suffering from began.  The hospital replied that Lindsay was an adult and they planned to discharge her anyway.  

Jan had been researching treatment centers all over the country but had not found any place “that seemed right.”  Forty-eight hours before the impending discharge she took the unusual step of consulting Char Margolis, a nationally recognized psychic. Char "saw" a place that was surrounded by hills or mountains, that was beautiful, and had a totally unique approach. She said the location was not at all typical of treatment centers and that the people there were the ones Lindsay needed.  She was sure it was in California, then hesitated and said maybe Colorado.  

“Char told me that she would email Oprah's producer right away since she would have the information,” remembers Jan. “Oprah's producer connected us with Brad Lamm of Intervention Specialists who immediately said Lindsay should go to MBRC.

“Char said that I would know it was the right place because I would speak to someone on the phone and feel good about it right away.  That person ended up being (then) MBRC executive director Kathy Willis. Forty-eight hours later Lindsay was already en route!” 

Lindsay arrived with literally two shopping bags of medication, some prescribed and some over the counter.  Many contradicted each other.  She could not put a sentence together without bursting into tears.  She wore a hoodie for weeks, hiding her natural beauty.   

"I knew that it was going to take time and patience to gain her trust and understand her," said Dr. Miriam Hamideh, PhD, who served as Lindsay's primary therapist.  "She had depression, PTSD symptoms and borderline traits as a result of the trauma.  I still consider her one of the most difficult patients I have ever treated."

The family therapy component designed by Kathy Willis who continues to be a mainstay of each Malibu Beach Recovery Center Family Weekend, also played a big part of Lindsay's recovery.

When Lindsay arrived she told MBRC Chairman Oleg Vidov that her lifelong goal was to be a vet.  During her final 30 days, Oleg encouraged the clinical team to have her volunteer at a local animal grooming center.   She did and now, three years after arriving at MBRC as a broken young soul Lindsay is fulfilling requirements for vet school.  She stills sees Dr. Hamideh and takes no prescribed medications.  Last week she returned from a summer volunteer stint in Beijing, helping an organization that finds child prostitutes and secures their freedom through the unique cooperation of police, government officials, and the underground.    Who would have thought?

In early December of 2011 we got another call from Brad Lamm.  One of Jan’s professional colleagues had a son with a story not unlike that of Lindsay.  He was failing at a treatment center in Arizona.  Brad asked if MBRC would admit him.  His name was Ian.

Below is a photograph taken at Ian's arrival, and another after 90 days at MBRC.  Above left is Ian looking very cool at Dreamworks Animation after 120 days.  Click here to meet Ian.

Our #2 yoga teacher is the lovely, soft-spoken 36-year-old Shannon S.  She recently celebrated one year as an employee of Malibu Beach Recovery Center and the third anniversary of her decision to walk through our front doors and end her addiction to Xanax (she had successfully stopped drinking on her own several years earlier). 

As part of her commitment to increase awareness of this country’s prescription drug epidemic, Shannon has previously given interviews to Voice of America and NBC News.   Because her abuse of alcohol and pills was not just recreational, we recently asked her to also share her story with readers of the Malibu Beach Recovery website and blog.  Hard to believe from looking at her now, but from age 18-33 Shannon drank, or drank and also took pills, or just took pills as part of a quest to feel “normal.”   I have not yet shown Shannon’s interview to our advisor on neuroscience, Dr. Kenneth Blum PhD, but I have no doubt he would say “a classic case of depleted dopamine levels.”                                                                  

The drinking began when she was 18.  Three wine coolers and “I was like…Oh, my God.  This feels amazing.  I feel so good.  I have so much energy.”

By 22 she had added ecstasy and prescription drugs to the equation, but mostly, it was still about drinking because “I loved the way it made me feel.  I loved to go out dancing with my friends…It made me wanna do things.”

Then came the hangovers, nausea, headaches and black outs.  She noticed that her body was processing alcohol differently, which briefly scared her into sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous.  She relapsed on a trip to Las Vegas and resumed drinking --  but less than before because now she was drinking primarily to relieve social anxiety. “Without alcohol I felt inadequate.  I felt I couldn’t speak to people.  I felt like I was boring, inept. When I drank I thought this is my normal self.  This is how I am supposed to be.  This is what makes me, me.”

Shannon finally stopped drinking for good on July 22, 2007 but started using Xanax and Vicodin “excessively and abusively.”   

“Vicodin gave me energy and Xanax balanced me out.  It calmed me down.  So I would take one to get energy and the other was supposed to keep me steady and even.”

Eventually her anxiety skyrocketed and her drug of choice became Xanax.  “It wasn’t about getting high,” she reiterates.  “It was about the relief that I got and the normalcy I felt when I took it…it really did answer every problem I had at the moment.”

She went to a doctor.  “I really believed I was crazy and had an ADHD brain and I needed something to fix it.” He prescribed Xanax.  Soon she was so dependent on her prescription that she was helping herself to her mom’s two Xanax prescriptions as well.    

“I would take all 90 pills (three prescription's worth) in two weeks and then I’d have to go cold turkey, but still I did not think I had a problem.  I said to myself:  ‘I can only quit one monster at a time.  It was a huge thing just for me to quit drinking.”  At AA meetings, loaded on pills, she would share about her new found sobriety.

Finally it was a teacher, a “normie” who pulled Shannon aside and told her she needed treatment.  “He was so earnest and sincere,” she says, ”but I thought it was not that bad, even though I was already experiencing Xanax blackouts.”

Her AA sponsor also suggested treatment.  Then Krissie Bergo, an MBRC alumna Shannon met at a Pills Anonymous meeting, made it her mission to bring Shannon to Malibu.   She began by suggesting Shannon call Dr. Kamyar Cohan, an MD who was then seeing MBRC clients.  Shannon had been taking only one Xanax a day for 29 days, so was surprised when after speaking with Dr. Cohan for only a few minutes he told her to check in. 

“I was in tears,” says Shannon.  “And I said, ‘I am going to talk to Joan.  Joan will see through it.  Joan will listen and she’ll know my story is not that bad, that I’m not bad enough of an addict to warrant me coming into treatment.”

Before beginning the journey to Malibu, Shannon spent several hours cleaning her apartment -- and took 4-5 Xanax. "All the way to Malibu I kept thinking, they’re not going to keep me.  But they did.  And you know, one of the great things I learned at MBRC was that it is not the amount that you take.  It is your inability to stop.  I realized that on my own, I could not stop.”

Shannon also remembers finally deciding to let go of her fears because she felt safe, surrounded by people who were taking care of her medically, emotionally and spiritually.  She credits Dr. Nick Techentin, PhD one of her first break through moments.  "He was the first to tell me that addiction is a “disease of perception.”

As for the Xanax, she quickly discovered the yoga breath work could slow her down and let her “be in the moment.”  She quickly became an apt and enthusiastic yoga student.

Here is the story of how Shannon left her anxiety behind, and became a  person who now feels normal, calm and happy about life. And a yoga teacher to boot.

Photos:  Shannon after 3 years of continuous sobriety (top).  Shannon after one year of teaching yoga (bottom). 

The Los Angeles Times today published the first article in a comprehensive investigative series entitled "Dying for Relief."

Reporters Lisa Girion and Scott Glover first came to talk about the prescription drug epidemic more than two years ago and have worked diligently since then, becoming experts on each of the many aspects of the exploding story:  Victims, Doctors, Lawyers. Government, Pharmaceutical Industry.   The article today is entitled "Legal drugs, deadly outcomes."  It begins with a strong indictment of Dr. Van H. Vu, six of whose patients overdosed and died from pain pills he prescribed. There are video interviews with three pain management doctors and family whose son died of a pill overdose. There are graphics illustrating which pills have caused the most deaths in Southern California, which States have the most prescription drug fatalities.  There is also a beautifully filmed short documentary about Malibu Beach Recovery Center alum Edward S.'s difficult journey into recovery from a prescriptuon drug addiction.

Edward became part of the series after Lisa Girion asked if the Times could follow one of our clients through treatment. As I remember she said: 'It is easy to write a prescription, easy to fill a prescriotion and easy to take the pills. What is it like to get off them? "  We brought Lisa's request tp Edward who had been referred to us by therapist Marty Brenner.  Edward was considering treatment for a 10 year addiction to benzodiazapines and suboxone.  To my surprise he agreed. At that time neither of us knew exactly what that entailed.  Malibu Beach Recovery Center had previously allowed 20/20 and the A&E Show Intervention to place clients with us. 20/20 producer Eric Strauss followed Eamon to Villa Francesca (where Malibu Beach Recovery Center was located for three and a half months after the Malibu fire of 2007) and then did follow-up interviews. The Intervention Show cameras followed Angelina, Rachel and Michelle to Malibu Beach Recovery Center, photographed the welcome, the intake, and then came back 90 days later.

The goal of The Times was different.  Liz O. Baylen, a compassionate and talented photojournalist was assigned to Edward.  She not only arrived at Malibu Beach Recovery Center at virtually the same moment as Edward. but she visited him regularly throughout the entire 111 days he was in treatment. More at the beginning, less toward the end.  To find her documentary about Edward's journey scroll down the article to the video on the lower right called "Bitter Pills."  Or watch it on the L.A. Times facebook page.

Edward's family is from Kiev, Ukraine. While Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union his parents Alla and Kim applied to emigrate to Israel with their young son Slava.  By the time they received exit visas (the USSR was anti-emigration), Alla was already nine months pregnant. The Shut's first stop was Vienna where Edward was born several days later.  From Vienna the family went not to Israel, but to Canada and then the United States.

Edward's prescription pill habit began in Las Vegas 10 years before he sought treatment. He reports he was hooked on pain pills by two doctors who he says would and did prescribe anything. Oxycodone. Percoset. Even Methadone (which led to an overdose). Edward said he has used every possible pill, all bought legally with prescriptions.  "Doctors never failed me when I needed a new prescription."

By the time Edward called Malibu Beach Recovery Center he was a student at Cal State San Bernardino, studying for a degree in kinesiology, abusing his prescriptions.  He was highly anxious, and physically emaciated (see photo upper left).  He was 6'5 inches tall and only weighed 165 lbs.  

It took Edward a very long time to detox off of the medications he was addicted to, but this is not unusual for clients who arrive addicted to pills.  Krissie Bergo detoxed for 62 days.  Not many clients have remained longer in residential treatment. 

After graduating (photo upper right) Edward transferred to Cal State Northridge, resumed his studies and now foresees a career in Physical Therapy.  He interns part time at a physical therapy center. He attends AA meetings regularly.  He completed DUI school and got his license back (and a car).  

He watched the LA Times video documentary with my husband Oleg Vidov last night.  It was clearly hard for him to reconcile who he is now with the painful images on screen.

Kudos to the LA Times for giving Lisa Girion, Scott Glover and Liz Baylen the time and resources to be able to research and write a comprehensive series on such an important topic.  Kudos to Edward for volunteering to let the LA Times document his journey to sobriety.

Photos:  (1) Edward when he arrived at Malibu Beach Recovery Center (above).  (2) Edward when he graduated from Malibu Beach Recovery Center (below).

I recently wrote about Malibu Beach Recovery Center’s cooperation with Los Angeles Times reporters Lisa Girion and Scott Glover who spent two years researching every aspect of the prescription drug epidemic sweeping California and the nation.  The result is an impressive, hard-hitting Times Investigation entitled “Dying for Relief.”

The first in the series was Legal Drugs, Deadly Outcomes.  Other articles in the ongoing series include "Reckless Prescribing, Lost Lives," Rogue Pharmacists Feed Addiction, and Reckless Doctors Go Unchecked.

In addition to the lengthy and in-depth articles by Lisa and Scott, the Times created a website featuring mini-documentaries filmed by the talented Times photojournalist Liz O. Baylen.  "Bitter Pills" is about the difficult journey from addiction to early sobriety of Malibu Beach Recovery Center client Edward Shut, who had been taking the synthetic opioid suboxone and the benzodiazepine klonopin for 10 years.   All the pills were prescribed by medical doctors.  All the prescriptions filled by reputable pharmacies.

We recently did a follow up interview with Edward who has maintained his hard-earned sobriety and never looked back.

Here is Edward’s story:  How he got hooked on prescription drugs in Las Vegas, what his life was like before coming to treatment, and what his life is like now.  He was already 15 months sober when this interview was filmed.

In June 2011 we wrote about Krissie Bergo, a workers’ comp claimant who was admitted to Malibu Beach Recovery Center in September 2008.  She had carpel tunnel syndrome and, as a result of four botched operations, a syndrome called RSD.  Krissie was addicted to an alarming array of Schedule II narcotics and benzodiazapines, all prescribed by Dr. Lawrence Green, DO, a Workers’ Comp pain management doctor.

After she spent more than 60 days detoxing off the fentanyl patches, actiq, morphine, oxycodone, methadone, flurazepam, and clonazepam (klonopin), another pain management doctor put her on high doses of “maintenance” suboxone.

In 2011 Krissie returned to Malibu Beach Recovery Center, not because she had relapsed but because she now wanted off the suboxone.  Before re-admitting she consulted with Dr. Kenneth Blum Phd, Malibu Beach Recovery Center Advisor on Neuroscience.  Dr Blum had her take SynaptaGenX, an over the counter nutracutical designed to raise dopamine levels, for two months in preparation for what she knew would be another difficult detox.

Click here to see interviews with Krissie, her plaintiff attorney George Savin, our own Dr. Lisa Benya, Dr. Mark Mandel MD, and me.  Dr. Mandel, who is an Approved Medical Examiner, probably saved her life.  He recommended to the Workers' Comp judge that Krissie be sent to treatment when Dr. Glass was advocating implantation of a narcotic pump. 

FOOTNOTE:  About six months after sucessfully detoxing from the opioids and benzodiazapines, Krissie found herself at an AA meeting chaired by none other than Dr. Glass.  He was, as it turned out, a recovering alcoholic with many years of sobriety.   Shocked, Krissie left the meeting.  She never saw Dr. Glass again but admits her feelings toward him remain ambivalent:   The prescriptions he wrote did turn her into an addict, but he initially helped by diagnosing the RSD when no one else would or could. 

Dr. Glass committed suicide last year, reportedly after addicting himself to prescription drugs.

FOOTNOTE #2: Below left:   In Septmeber 2008 Krissie entered treatment at Malibu Beach Recovery Center.  Below right: In March 2013 Krissie placed 2nd in a 5K marathon.

On May 29, 2013 two-thirds of the California State Senate voted to resurrect CURES, the State's nearly moribund online real-time narcotics database.  The victory was due in some small part to the efforts of four Malibu Beach Recovery Center alumni:  Krissie Bergo, Edward Shut, Jenna Wilemon, and Ronni Grakal.

CURES (the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System) contains detailed information from pharmacies on the prescriptions they fill, including the names of patients and their doctors. The database has existed in California in various forms since 1939 and was once a model for other states. 

Ten years ago, technology entrepreneur Bob Pack discovered the hard way that due to budget cuts CURES had become technologically inadequate and critically underfunded.  His two young children were killed walking down a quiet street in Danville when Jimena Barreto lost control of her Mercedes, driving under the influence of alcohol and prescription painkillers.

Barreto had been doctor-shopping and filled numerous prescriptions for the same medications, each prescription written by a different physician at the same hospital.  If CURES had been up and running at the time Pack opined, at least one of those doctors might have blown the whistle.  Pack brought the demise of CURES to the attention of State Senator Mark Desaulnier (D-Concord).  As California was broke, Desaulnier authored SB 1071 which sought to resurrect CURES by putting a small tax on Big Pharma.  The bill called for each of the pharmaceutical companies which manufactures scheduled narcotics to pay twenty five cents each time a prescription for their pills was filled in California.

On May 5, 2010 Krissie and I flew to Sacramento to lobby for passage of the CURES bill (alumnae Laurie Kelsoe, although not a prescription drug addict, also came to lend support).  At a press conference before the vote, April Rovero, John Ronda and other parents whose children had died from prescription drug overdoses – mostly oxycontin and oxycodone -- spoke about their tragedies and urged passage of the bill.   Krissie eloquently described having barely survived her addiction to pain pills, all prescribed by the same Workers’ Comp doctor. But the Big Pharma lobbyist did whatever powerful lobbyists do, and Senate Bill 1071 failed to get out of the Senate Health Committee by one vote. 

During the visit to Sacramento we visited not only Senator DeSaulnier, but Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills).  We told him about the prescription drug epidemic sweeping California and his own district.  He committed to help.

Several months later Senator Desaulnier came to Malibu Beach Recovery Center for lunch and an informal meeting with our staff, a group of industry insiders, and LA Times staff reporter Lisa Girion.  He said he was determined to get the database modernized and funded. Time passed.  More and more states established Prescription Monitoring Systems while CURES became increasingly non functional.  By 2012 the whole database was being run by a single Department of Justice employee on a budget of just $400,000.

Then, on November 11, 2012, after almost two years of research by Lisa, her fellow reporter Scott Glover, and photojournalist Liz Baylen, The Los Angeles Times began publishing their seminal series called “Dying for Relief.”  Each successive article demonstrated the almost encyclopedic knowledge the three reporters had acquired about every aspect of California’s prescription drug epidemic.   Their investigation examined 3,733 prescription-drug-related fatalities in Southern California from 2006 through 2011.  Nearly half, they found, involved at least one drug that had been prescribed to the decedent by a physician.   71 physicians, they reported, prescribed medications to three or more patients who died of drug-related causes.

The fourth article in the series, published December 30, 2012, took the State’s Attorney-General to task.  It was headlined: “Kamala Harris has a powerful tool for identifying reckless doctors, but she doesn't use it.”  On January 11, 2012 the Attorney General responded by calling on Governor Jerry Brown to restore CURES.  This gave impetus for a new CURES funding bill.  On February 22, 2013 Senator DeSaulnier introduced SB 809, this time with powerful co-sponsors including Attorney General Harris, Senate Speaker Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, State Senator Fran Pavley (who represents our Malibu facility), State Senator Ted Lieu (who represents our Brentwood facility), and true to his promise, Assemblyman Blumenfield.

Assemblyman Blumenfield told us quietly he had decided to take a two-track approach.  His goal, along with getting SB 809 passed, was to earmark money for CURES in the State budget.  In March Krissie and I returned to Sacramento, this time accompanied by alumni Jenna Wilemon and Edward Shut(whose journey off prescription drugs had been documented in the Times series by photojournalist Liz Baylen).  We testified before Assembyman Blumenfield’s Budget Committee.  Krissie, Jenna and Edward each told their stories and impressed on members that they were alive due to an intervention – by a judge, parents or a substance abuse counselor.  In each case a prescription drug monitoring system like CURES might have red flagged earlier that they had become addicts.

While in Sacramento, we also met with Senator Desaulnier who told us he feared the CURES bill would fail again because it needed a 2/3 vote to pass.  He asked the alumni to lobby their representatives to co-sponsor the bill.  Back in LA, Alumni co-coordinator Ronni Grakal began calling key legislators and arranging for alumni to meet with field deputies. Before each Senate Committee vote, she urged Malibu Beach Recovery Center alumni and staff to call their representatives and urge a yes vote for CURES.  

Just before SB 809 bill came to the Senate floor, Assemblyman Blumenfield succeeded in his goal -- $4m was earmarked in the California State budget to modernize the CURES database. 

That proved auspicious because on May 28, 2013 CURES came to the State Senate floor.  Every State Senator lobbied by the alumni voted yes, but Big Pharma’s lobbying was too powerful to overcome.  The bill failed by four votes.  Overnight Senator Desaulnier had to redraft SB 809 and remove the quarter of a cent tax on Big Pharma prescriptions  The next day the watered down version of SB 809 passed the State Senate.

“It is a victory,” emailed Bob Pack, “and CURES will now keep going.  A lot of people put their hearts into this work.  Please let [your alumni] know how thankful we are for their … help.”

Photos (top to bottom - all but all photos except interview with Senator Desaulnier and Bob Pack, Krissie testifying in 2010 and Senator Desaulnier lunch in Malibu by pj Letofsky)

Edward, Krissie and Jenna visit Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield in his Sacramento Office.

Senator Mark DeSaulnier Visit to Malibu Beach Recovery Center

Edward, Jenna and Assemblyman Blumenfield

Malibu Beach Recovery Center alumni co-coordinator Ronni

On December 27, 2012, one month after Malibu Beach Recovery Center opened The Brentwood House as our second alcohol and drug treatment center, Ronni G walked through the front door.  At 70 she was the oldest client we had ever admitted, but she was young at heart and fully committed.

The ex-wife of a Hollywood entertainment professional, Ronni had seen it all and done it all.  A veteran of treatment, 20 years had passed since her last try at sobriety.   Her rampant addiction to drugs, pills and alcohol had estranged her from everyone, including her 3 children.   Her eldest son was so exasperated he blocked her phone calls and text messages.  Her driver’s license had been suspended.  No bank in town would give her a checking account.  She had a “dirty doc” who would write prescriptions for “anything,” she says, and a local pharmacy that would refill prescriptions just days after she filled them if she put cash on the counter.

After graduating Ronni became a frequent visitor to The Brentwood House, helping new clients acclimate.  Seeking a new purpose in life, she became the Alumni Co-Coordinator and in that capacity lobbies our elected representatives to support important issues in the field of addiction. She has successfully mobilized alumni to make calls to their state senators, urging a yes vote on SB 809, a bill intended to reduce "doctor shopping" and "pharmacy hopping" by funding California's almost moribund online presciption drug data base. She has arranged for alumni to meet with their State Senators and Assemblymen to speak about the benefits of the CURES legislation, and the need for Blue Cross to change its national policy of sending payment for out of network substance abuse providers to addicts in their first days of sobriety.  In 2014 she plans to begin taking classes at UCLA that will lead to her certification as an addiction counselor.

When we re- dedicated The Brentwood House as an alcohol and substance treatment center “By Women For Women” it seemed only natural that we invite Ronni to speak at the Open House.   Here is her story as told on July 26, 2013 when she already had 7 months of continuous sobriety.

Click here to hear Ronni's story, recorded at The Brentwood House. 

Ian was a law school student at Georgetown when he dropped out and moved into his mother’s basement.  He isolated himself from life there for 6 months in deep depression, smoking marijuana non-stop.  After an intervention by Jonathan Rauch, then a member of Brad Lamm’s excellent team, he agreed to go to a treatment center in Arizona.  When they gave up on him, Jonathan brought him to Malibu Beach Recovery Center.  Here Ian spent four months in treatment and learned to cope with his depression.  After additional time in a sober living, Ian changed his career goals.  His willingness to be “of service” to fellow alumni and other addicts in early recovery led to him into a yearlong counseling certification program at UCLA. He had no sooner successfully completed those studies when he entered USC’s prestigious graduate school of Social Work.  Click here for Ian’s follow up interview recorded in January 2014, and here for his original interview recorded in July 2012.

Photos (above) Ian being interviewed in January 2014. (Below) Ian on admission to Malibu Beach Recovery Center on December 20, 2011. (Right) Ian on a tour of Dreamworks Animation Studio on March 29, 2012.

I remember trying to coax Casie into treatment.  It was February 2013.  She described herself, at 25, as a long-term drug addict, who had spent several years of her adolescence in a Utah facility for wayward kids.   She was now living somewhere near Dallas, estranged from her parents and only sister. She called many times before she actually got to Malibu on Valentine’s Day -- sometimes from meth dens.

I don’t care what anyone says.  It is really hard, virtually impossible, to look at a client entering rehab and say:  this person really wants sobriety and is going to achieve it.  I never would have bet on Casie.

Luckily for her, sometime before she called Malibu Beach Recovery Center, a guardian angel perched permanently on her right shoulder.  As I write this she already has more than a year of sobriety, has repaired relations with both parents, and is hoping that one day soon her sister will also forgive her. 

Click here to see the interview Casie recorded about her journey. 

David first called October 1, 2012.  On the surface, he seemed an unlikely fit.  A soft-spoken, 37-year-old, small-town Indiana union member who had just escaped from a local treatment center.  He found Malibu Beach Recovery Center on the internet and improbably picked up the phone.  I wondered if someone like David could survive without fast food, and do three hours of yoga each day. But our brilliant therapist Allen Glass, also from Indiana, assured me David was someone we could help him.  As usual, he was right. 

From the day he arrived, David was a diligent client, but also a tough case.  He had been drinking since 13.  Abusing opiates since he had  reconstructive knee operation at 23.  By the time he called the first time, he was shooting heroin, using meth and had been arrested numerous times. 

All in all, with the help of union insurance, David spent almost 200 days in treatment.  He spent more than 90 days in Malibu the first time.  He graduated, failed to follow his aftercare plan, relapsed and returned for another more than 90 days.  As he tells Seth Isler in a recent interview, today he is a different person.

Photo: David at admission in October 3, 2012.

Here is David’s story.

I first heard from Harriet on the morning of March 13, 2012.  The 50 year old Brooklyn housewife with Barbra Streisand’s accent, was at a treatment facility in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.  She ended up there after a botched detox at a Lake Arrowhead treatment center.   

Harriet told me she had been promised a bed at Malibu Beach Recovery Center. Certainly not me, but I agreed to check her insurance benefits.  She asked me to move quickly – the Valley treatment center, she said, was filled with alcoholics and addicts from the greater Los Angeles criminal justice system and she, a sheltered middle class housewife, was just plain scared to death.  “You can’t imagine what just walked passed me,” she cried.

Harriet and her late husband Steve had raised three kids, one with special needs.  Steve, who worked for the NY subway system, had been a good provider.  He helped out at home, and was kind and adoring.  One day he went to the hospital for a routine operation and never came back.  The grief, coupled with lack of experience with such practical matters as paying the bills, led to excessive drinking coupled with more and more prescription drugs.    

When Whitney Houston died after mixing pills and alcohol, Harriet decided to go to treatment.  At that point she says, she knew she was also dying.  She was filling her Polar Springs water bottle with wine and popping Xanax and “vikes” in her car while waiting for the school bus to arrive with her young son.

Through a twist of fate, she ended up at Malibu Beach Recovery Center, and there she remained for six weeks.  She desperately missed her children but she was certain – most of the time – that she had to be in a different environment to recover from her substance abuse addictions.

After treatment Harriet went home, not only sober but with new tools for being a single mother. Click here for Harriet's interview, filmed as she approached her second year of sobriety.

Photo:  Harriet with Malibu Beach Recovery Center co-founder Oleg Vidov in March 2012.

If not for the persistence of his mom Stacey, Kevin M. might never have become a client at Malibu Beach Recovery Center, where he spent 90 days in treatment.

I first heard from Stacey on February 6, 2013.  She emailed me from Wasilla Alaska.

“My son has been on a self-destruct path now for over a year. He has admitted to using the following:  Cocaine, meth, heroin, marijuana. 

He also has admitted to drinking.  I will tell you that he is currently incarcerated. He fell fast and furious. He stole a car and is serving a 90 sentence. He has asked for help. So therefore I'm writing to you. He knows that when he gets out here in March that he is going to need further help.”

I admit being hesitant about taking Kevin – his story was a little too horrific.  I imagined a hard core criminal. But Stacey insisted he was a great kid who lost his way and who would benefit from what Malibu Beach Recovery Center had to offer.  We began the often arduous task of getting approvals from the Departments of Justice in California and Alaska.  Improbably Kevin was allowed to leave Alaska under the Inters tate Compact and spend 90 days in Malibu under the supervision of a Los Angeles country probation officer

Click here to see Seth Isler's interview with Kevin, recorded at his home in Alaska  last January, about his journey  from jail and despair into a life filled with hope and promise.  

On July 21, 2009 MBRC Counselor Ellery Holesapple waited for Marci outside the Alaska Air baggage claim at LAX.  And waited.  And waited.

Finally he called to report Marci must have missed the plane.  No, we said, her husband had just heard from her.

“She walked right past me waiting for her with a sign that had her name printed on it,” recalls Ellery four and a half years later.  “When I reached her by phone she stated she tried to score crack from the guy on the island (where people wait for shuttles) at LAX.  It took another 15-20 minutes talking with her on the phone before she would tell me where she was.

“I think I actually walked past her again before she told me where she was exactly. She had been hiding behind all of her luggage (remember she came in with like 5 VERY LARGE suitcases packed to the brim. Once we connected she tried to persuade me to stop on the way to MBRC (just for a few days) and get crack and then we would go to the center after that. I give her credit she was persistent in wanting to get high.”

I asked Ellery if he would have bet on Marci, if he could have guessed that she would still be sober on January 28, 2014.  He says he gives everyone a 50:50 chance.

Veteran Addiction Counselor Marty Brenner, who schooled Marci in anger management and parenting skills for two months, said he would not have given her even those odds.  “She was angry at the world,” he recalls.  He describes the petite young woman who used to operate heavy construction equipment for a living as having "a heart of gold."

"She wanted to get healthy.  And I am so happy she became the woman she always wanted to be.  She didn’t think it was possible in 2009.”

Seth Isler interviewed Marci in her home in Wasilla, Alaska.  Click here for Marci's compelling story.

Photo:  Marci on her John Deere in January 2014.

Edward S. is livin' the life.  He is a senior at Cal State Northridge, majoring in kinesiology.  Next year he will apply to grad school, aiming to get his PhD as a physical therapist.  Since Addiction Counselor Marty Brenner nudged him into treatment at Malibu Beach Recovery Center in August 2011, he has been the subject of a prize-winning LA Times photo journalism essay about his first month of sobriety, testified before the State Assembly Budget Committee about California's Prescription Drug epidemic, restored relations with his family, gotten serious about his profession, and embarked on a significant relationship.

Edward first shared his story on November 10, 2012, and then again on January 18, 2013. 

Seth Isler recently checked up on Edward again. 

We hear from the mother of an addict on her experiences

Like many Malibu Beach Recovery Center parents, Stacey was clueless that her son Kevin had become addicted to alcohol, methamphetamine, and heroin. Then he took a trip to Michigan. Stacey went to meet him at their hometown airport in Wasila, Alaska.

“I knew as soon as I saw him when he got off the plane,” Stacey tells Seth Isler in a very eloquent and thought provoking interview, which includes an important conversation about the benefits of Alanon.

Click here for Seth’s interview with Kevin, now with 18 months of continuous sobriety.

Recovery center alum hits the track for high-octane action

Casey B. is an alumnus of Malibu Beach Recovery Center.  As can be seen by the photographs of Casey’s racecar, we are sponsoring him in the 2014 “Jack In the Box” Summer Shootout.  According to Casey these are the 10 biggest races in the Legend car racing.  The first will be held June 9, and then each successive Tuesday through July 29, 2014.

Here is Casey's message: 

As most of you know 7 months ago I got out of the hospital after being in a coma for 7 days from a opiate overdose. As soon as I got out of the hospital I knew that I needed a major change if I wanted to stay alive and be drug free. I knew how to stay sober and all the AA ways of staying sober, but it just never would last. Or I would get bored with it.

So I decided right then and there that I was going back to North Carolina to go racing again. That's the one thing that I absolutely love to do. Always have since I was in diapers. I love everything about racing from building cars to just hanging out at the track. I packed everything I had up and started driving down.

I started working with my uncles again restoring 68-70 chargers. I saved every penny to build a race car. It seemed like it would take forever to get it done and built,  I bought one part at a time and slowly but surely it started to come together. There were days I got discouraged. But the patience test was a huge lesson.

It took me 4 months to finally have the car out on the track. I couldn't explain in words how proud I was to finally go through with something until the end.

So anyways I have been racing hard getting my car tuned in at Concord Speedway spring series to get ready for the “Summer Shootout.”  The Shootout is the 10 biggest races in the Legend car racing. They are all televised on Fox Sports 2, and there is always a huge crowd of people that show up to watch.

I couldn't be more grateful to have MBRC for sponsoring me, knowing I can help the sick and suffering by driving my racecar.

Hear from addicts who found the help they needed at MBRC

Eight years ago we began training staff in preparation for the opening of what is now the Malibu Beach Recovery Center, one of the first U.S. alcohol and drug treatment centers based on the science of the brain - neuroscience.

Our staff needed a lot of training because we were very different than the two-dozen other treatment centers in Malibu, and of course the thousands of others across the country. Our focus was transforming the unhappy men and women who walked through our front door -- each with a broken life -- into healthy, happy, functioning members of society. We were determined to do this through diet, yoga, and food supplements designed to raise and sustain dopamine levels, with the help of our world-class stellar clinical and therapy teams. We would also introduce the 12 Step philosophy, believing that after completing treatment most of our clients could benefit from the support and structure of AA and NA.

We are proud of our alumni. There are many of them, and a surprising number have bravely abandoned anonymity to help others by recording video testimonials about their journey into long-term sobriety. You have seen them shared here, and on our YouTube channel, and recently we combined their words and images into a 30 second TV commercial to let those still in need of effective treatment know that help is available.

We would like to give a huge thank to Edward, Kevin, Shannon, Casie and Harriet for their participation, you will always be a part of the Malibu Beach Recovery Center family!