Promises Treatment Center
Promises Treatment Center, now part of Promises Behavioral Health, provides specialized addiction recovery services across multiple locations in the United States. Established in 1998, the centers treat a variety of substance use disorders, including addictions to alcohol and drugs, as well as co-occurring mental health conditions like PTSD and depression. Originally based in Malibu and Los Angeles, they became well-known for their high-profile clientele and luxurious treatment settings, which emphasized individualized care through the Malibu model. This approach integrates detoxification with holistic care tailored to each client’s unique needs.
The centers employ a diverse range of treatment methods, including medically monitored detox, psychotherapy, art therapy, and yoga, alongside traditional twelve-step programs. The recovery process typically begins with a 30-day residential treatment, followed by extended care and outpatient options, facilitating a gradual transition back to daily life. For those in recovery, the centers also provide support for families and offer additional programs for issues like sex addiction and eating disorders. Overall, Promises is committed to helping clients achieve long-term sobriety and personal growth.
On this Page
Promises Treatment Center
DEFINITION: With locations throughout the United States, Promises Treatment Center, renamed Promises Behavioral Health, offers addiction recovery care for its clients through specialized inpatient and outpatient treatment programs.
DATE: Established in 1998
Background
Founded in 1998 by Richard Rogg, Promises Treatment Center, now an umbrella organization called Promises Behavioral Health, offers treatment for a variety of addictions, including those to alcohol, prescription drugs, and cocaine and methamphetamine. The nine centers also treat co-occurring psychological conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, sleep disorders, and bipolar disorders. The centers also offer programs to address marijuana abuse.
The original centers, located in Malibu and Los Angeles, California, became well-known for charging clients more than $35,000 per month and were frequently in the media for treating a host of celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Ben Affleck, and Robert Downey, Jr. They had a range of care specialties and a high staff-to-client ratio to ensure individualized and thorough care.
The centers originated the Malibu model of substance addiction treatment, which is, essentially, individualized treatment for each client’s unique experience and recovery needs. In the Malibu model, customized drug addiction treatment integrates the detoxification (detox) process with specialized physical and psychological care, focusing on rehabilitating the mind, body, and spirit. The centers featured customized treatment for the person with substance abuse disorder, ensured confidentiality, and offered psychological care for the addict’s family.
To ensure comprehensive, holistic care for each client, the centers limited the number of clientele to twenty-four at each of its two locations. Recognizing the value a recovering addict’s pet dog could offer to the treatment process, the center’s Malibu location allowed clients to lodge with their dog, if they had one, in residential treatment houses.
In 2008, Promises Treatment Centers' original locations were sold to David Sack, the chief executive officer of Elements Behavioral Health. Under his leadership, the brand expanded its treatment center locations throughout the country under the Promises Behavioral Health umbrella. The Malibu location closed in 2018. Although the centers still provide elements of the Malibu model in their recovery programs, such as private care and luxurious settings, they no longer employ the terminology “Malibu model.” The centers, in areas such as Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, carry luxurious titles, such as The Ranch and The Right Step, and several still carry the Promises name.
Mission and Goals
Promises chief medical officer David Sack, no longer the company’s chief executive officer, has described the centers’ mission as providing “a gateway to sobriety for you or a loved one and to aid in the achievement of lifetime dreams.” Though the underlying foundation of treatment is the traditional twelve-step approach, each client’s treatment team of specialists integrates adjunct methods and techniques to meet the client's needs. These methods include medically monitored detox; psychiatric care; individual, family, and group psychotherapy; stress management education; art therapy; yoga and meditation; fitness and nutritional education; eye movement desensitization and reprocessing; dialectical behavioral therapy; and somatic therapy.
The centers offer brain imaging studies to discover whether and to what extent a client’s brain has been affected by substance abuse. Through a technique known as digital electroencephalogram spectral analysis, specialists perform a computerized tomography scan to collect images of the brain regions affected by substance abuse. The imaging helps doctors analyze a client’s central nervous system, input processes, and expression processes. Once specialists gather an analysis of how a client’s substance abuse has physically affected their brain, they present the results to the client, thereby facilitating the client’s understanding of how drugs and alcohol affect the brain and behavior.
The center’s drug and alcohol addiction programs are designed to guide clients through recovery. Beginning with thirty days of residential treatment, clients stay in comfortable, home-like lodging, where physicians and specialists are always available. The next stage of the center’s “continuum of care” features extended care treatment, which provides continued support as clients transition back into work and family life. Treatment covers relapse prevention and includes life coaching and individual and family therapy. Next, clients move on to day treatment, the stage in which they receive treatment five hours per day, five days per week. Clients have private meetings with a therapist, participate in group therapy and art therapy, and undergo random drug and alcohol testing.
Following day treatment, clients receive outpatient treatment, in which they fully reenter work and family life while regularly meeting with a local therapist or counselor. Instead of outpatient care, a client may opt to, or be directed to, participate in sober living accommodations rather than return to their pretreatment living situation. Sober living homes require that residents attend twelve-step meetings, continue with therapy, and participate in random drug and alcohol testing. The homes also may impose additional house rules, such as an evening curfew.
Promises Treatment Centers offers other addiction treatment programs, including those for sex addiction and video-game addiction. They also offer care for eating disorders, trauma, and mood disorders. The centers also offer care and counseling to the addicted patient’s family, including intervention assistance, family therapy, and out-of-care transition support.
Bibliography
"About Promises Behavioral Health - Drug Addiction Rehab Center." Promises Behavioral Health, www.promises.com/about-promises-behavioral-health. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
Flemming, Jack. "In the Malibu Hills, a Storied Celebrity Rehab Center Asks $19.95 Million." Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2023, www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-18/in-the-malibu-hills-a-storied-celebrity-rehab-center-asks-19-95-million. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
"Gamers Anonymous: A Famed Rehab Takes on Joystick Addicts." Los Angeles Magazine, vol. 53, no. 1, 2008, p. 34.
Ries, Richard K., et al., editors. Principles of Addiction Medicine. 4th ed., Philadelphia: Wolters, 2009.