Luxury Rehab vs. Reality: The Truth About The Passages Method | Can You Replicate Passages At Home?

I have stated in past articles the massive failure rate that Alcoholics Anonymous has in its outcomes compared to a non-traditional program called Passages. This clinic was founded by Chris Prentiss and his son, Pax. Pax was a former addict who was sent to traditional twelve step programs and continued to fail with these interventions. His father sought out a different method that would focus on cure, not a never ending recovery that destroys self-esteem and by the numbers fails most who attempt to beat their addictions using this methodology.

I bought Chris Prentiss’ book, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure, which had only been published a few years when I ceased the long standing friendship with John Barleycorn. During the initial months of protracted withdrawal, I read five or six twelve step and AA oriented books. Prentiss’ work was the only one that used the word cure. And that resonated with me. I wasn’t destined to live in the rooms for the rest of my life. I wasn’t diseased and I wasn’t a forever addict. I would cure myself of the addiction and go on with my life. After I finished his book, I began calling myself an ex-alcoholic. I knew it would take up to two years for the long protracted withdrawal to end. I decided at the two year mark I would claim cure as well.

And understand, AA, that this clinic claims it has a high success rate. AA not only doesn’t have a high success rate, they have a massive failure rate. You would think they would take a look at what the Prentiss father and son team are doing and adopt their methods so they could have a success rate as well. The fact that they don’t is why I accuse AA of being a cult. For here is a clinic that states it is working with great outcomes and AA shuns them, digs in their heels even deeper and continues to engage in their protocols that have proven now for a century they do not keep most sober. And the few who stay sober never escape the rooms of AA.

THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK

So I will tell you why Passages might have this success rate if what they state is true. Because they engage in holistic recovery, much like my own created program to reinvent all planes of being, whether you are an alcoholic or not. They aren’t telling their members they will always be an alcoholic. They aren’t smoking at every break in the meetings. They find out the root cause of the addiction with one on one counseling, matched by a return to physical healthy lifestyle and emotional recovery. And AA is doing the exact opposite on every point.

Now, I have heard in the comments in other works I’ve done, noting the outstanding claimed outcomes of the Passages clinics, which are now several, that they are designed only for those who can afford a luxury recovery center. That is true, the prices are astronomical and most people couldn’t afford them unless they had some spectacular insurance plans. But if that is your critique, then you aren’t saying the methods don’t work, you are stating it is just designed for the rich.

So let’s think about that.

You don’t have to be rich to adopt the Passages program to recovery and cure. I never went to their rehab center. But I would advise to buy their book, like I did, especially if you are new to sobriety. His book and mine will give an alternative approach versus what the newly sober is being bombarded with by the so called experts, who keep propagating a failed method. I have gone through the Passages’ list of treatment strategies and most of them can be engaged without entering their center. For it really is about changing your life and mindset more than spending a month in a plush environment while you are instructed on how to do so.

The first thing that the Passages philosophy will endorse is the return to health and fitness. This is exactly what I state in my own work. I just call it the reinvention of the physical plane. You have to exercise and have a clean diet. You don’t make smoking a permanent habit, you don’t live on coffee to dilute cravings after a few months and you don’t consume huge amounts of sugar. You not only don’t have to be a client of Passages to begin and maintain this new lifestyle, but it isn’t that much money to do it. If your groceries consist of a lot of rices and whole grains, these items are far less expensive than packaged dinners, which aren’t healthy for you anyway. The proteins can consist of chicken and the cheaper types of fish. Organic vegetables are really not that much more expensive and neither are a supply of fruits and juices. I buy a great deal of organic food. It is far less cost than TV dinners every night.

A gym membership for a year isn’t that much for the time of that twelve months if you think about it. You used to drink away far more in a few weeks than what many yearly memberships would cost. If you don’t like the gym, you could take up speed walking or running. Or a home program right in front of YouTube, like many did during the pandemic of 2020. Anyone can exercise on a budget of exactly zero if they really want to be serious about fitness.

Guess what else is a big treatment method in the Passages program? Meditative activities like yoga, tai chi and general meditation instruction. This attacks the second plane of recovery I talk about in my book as well as these blogs and social media episodes. Reinvention of the emotional sphere. It goes hand in hand with the physical fitness program. And it doesn’t have to cost you a dime. You no longer have to join a studio or fumble through with the static pictures of a book. That YouTube again, which can be a wonderful thing. You don’t have to fly to Malibu to be a Passages client. You can try different programs for free, pick the ones you like and literally teach yourself.

So far, with what I have shown, the bulk of the Passages method won’t cost you a dime. You have to buy food anyway and the healthy foods are cheaper than what isn’t good for you. The gym cost is far less than what you drank every night and you don’t even have to join a gym. And you can become your own yogi right from your living room.

Let’s talk about their one on one counseling that is given during the month long stay at Passages. It is a fact that the mental health professional is expensive, whether it is at Passages or not. I can attest that medicine in general in the United States has rotated well out of what exists in the state of reason. Most people can’t afford a psychologist or psychiatrist with their hourly rates of over a hundred an hour. In my opinion, much like the world of physical therapy that I worked in for decades, the mental health field has become a gold mine for the clinics to line their pockets with that very metal. But if one is self-motivated, he can avoid that cost and teach himself the techniques to mental soundness.

Many of these mental health professionals have written books, which may range in cost from fifteen to twenty bucks to benefit from their expertise. I used to address this type of literature on my first general self-help channel. Why spend a thousand dollars for a Tony Robbins’ seminar when he gives you the knowledge in a twenty dollar book? And this applies to using the mental health professionals’ expertise to solve whatever made you start drinking in the first place. Because most of us who became alcoholics did so due to not so great childhoods, which planted the demon’s seed in us years before it would sprout. I probably went through over a dozen books in the first few years after I quit the alcohol. I read books on dysfunctional families. I read books on cumulative traumatic stress from early life and how it affects adulthood. I read books on abuse and childhood trauma. And I read books on how to fix these deficits. I probably spent in these writings no more than what two sessions with a professional shrink would have cost me.

And the fact is that too many people spend far too many months sitting in the office of that shrink. First, the idea that you need these many months and sometimes years to make these self-aware breakthroughs is nonsense that largely keeps these practitioners riding in that Lexus. Most people who had terrible parents or were severely bullied in their school days know that their childhood was horrific. Dr. Joe Shrink should be able to figure that out in one session. And the next few sessions should be used to give the person the tools to fix those mental deficits. It is largely the same scam that has made myself enemies with most of my fellow physical therapists, who keep taking back the same patients who won’t change their rotten lifestyles. The insurance company gets pillaged while PT Jane does the same thing this time, which didn’t work last time, because the patient won’t lose that extra hundred pounds. And it is the same in the mental health field. Many people won’t improve because they won’t take action to do so.

But if one really wants to empower himself, these books from those who specialize in that field can lead the person to the right path. It is up to the individual to walk it. It would be great to be able to talk to someone, but it isn’t necessary as the information can still be obtained.

Passages also endorses music therapy. Music therapy is great for keeping the nervous system calm or calming it down when it decides to amp itself up. I use this as part of my emotional maintenance program. Again, you no longer have to buy even used CDs of Enya or Yanni. They are all free on the internet. You research what music therapy can do to benefit the nervous anxiety during the protracted withdrawal and make your own playlist. It won’t cost you a dime.

The Passages program also talks about spiritual counseling. In my own book, I refer to this as a separate plane, the spiritual realm. It really is nothing more than seeing your place in the universe and how you fit in with it. It can be related to your God or Magic Elf or no entity at all. And note; about half of the AA twelve steps need a God to complete those steps so too bad for the atheist, I guess.

But again, there are a plethora of books to choose from to find your spiritual path. There are books on Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and every faith that roams on earth. There are becoming one with the universe type books, like the ones written by the late Wayne Dyer. The spiritual quest is one only you can complete, just like the only one who can solve the effects from a terrible childhood, in the end, is you, no matter how many times you step into someone’s office. And you don’t have to go to Passages or spend a thousand dollars on a seminar when the information is right within reach. You could just use the net to get what you need nowadays. I periodically listen to the audio book, Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius and works by Dale Carnegie on YouTube. It’s free.

Now there are other treatment methods in the Passages program such as equine therapy and hypnotherapy. The jury is out on hypnotherapy with its effects and I have no opinion either way until that jury returns with the verdict of outcomes. Horses are great to be around. So are dogs. If you don’t have one, you could volunteer to walk the castaways at the shelter. It’s hard to be in a foul mood when you are around a dog who loves being around you.

And that outdoor holistic therapy that Passages is promoting is right on point. I recommend spending time in the outdoors as well, whether you like hiking, fishing or just sitting by a lake with that self-help book. It will have the same effect as sitting on a horse in the open pasture. And all of these outdoor activities are easy on the pocketbook. Most hiking permits are ten bucks or so and yearly passes to national parks for the entire state may run fifty to a hundred. But none of this holistic activity is expensive unless you are renting a yacht.

What Passages basically does is the correct way to cure oneself from alcoholism. They start by telling you to step on the road to cure. Then they teach you how to walk and eventually to run on it. It is incredibly expensive and I am sure that the Prentiss father and son have done well financially because of their program. But Chris Prentiss also wrote the book of his method as well, which runs us everyday people that twenty bucks or so. The information is there if you don’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hang out in luxurious Malibu during the initial phases of recovery.

But one doesn’t beat alcohol addiction in that first month. No one walks out of that first thirty days, no matter where he is, with the effects of protracted withdrawal avoided. Time takes care of the healing and time will eventually lead to cure. What Passages does in their methods is sound. They just do it in a luxury spa that, yes, most can’t afford. But they aren’t magically curing the former addict for a few ten thousand dollars. They are teaching how to reinvent the former life of the former addict. The fact is you can teach yourself these methods, especially in today’s world of the internet. Chris Prentiss tells you what he is doing right in his book. My book, Reinvention of Self: How to Change Your Life and Being Forever, does the same. I tell people that you don’t even have to buy the book. If you get enough articles and episodes, the information will be there, just not as organized. But their method works and the Alcoholics Anonymous method doesn’t. Period.

The point is, recovery belongs to you. No one can grant you cure no matter how much money you pay them. You simply find the information and utilize the methods that work. It is you who has to practice these techniques, not Passages. 

But the contention of the AA fanatic who states the program isn’t good because it is for the rich? That is a nonsensical point. Plenty of high level and expensive twelve step programs also exist for the rich. And they largely fail as well as regular AA in the local church. The founders claim Passages method doesn't. They use a very similar program as mine. I’m not trying to charge you for a one on one course with me. Just take my techniques of reinvention of all your planes and use them to go cure yourself from this terrible addiction of alcoholism.

Because in the end, you are the only one who can re-create your existence on this terrain.

To journey on a tale of epic transformation on a 2,660 mile trail check out: THE SHEPHERD AND THE RUNNINGWOLF: A PATH TO FORGIVENESS ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL

(Usually free on KDP)

To recreate your life on all planes for the best version of yourself as possible:REINVENTION OF SELF: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BEING FOREVER 

(Usually free on KDP)

For the condensed and orderly version of how I beat the addiction of alcoholism check out: THE SMALL BOOK: HOW I BEAT ALCOHOLISM AND WHY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS DOESN'T WORK

(Usually free on KDP)

John Barleycorn taken from Jack London's book, John Barleycorn. First published 1913

Content opinion of creator only and not to be taken for medical advice.