Complaint Review: Doorway To Recovery - Milford Michigan

Doorway to Recovery is an organization that I suggest everyone stay away from. The first impression of the Doorway to Recovery and its founder Mark Burchell is very promising. He does a very good job of telling you exactly what you want to hear, explaining how his sober living homes are the greatest places to be and its all about recovery. Don't let all of that fool you. I had the pleasure of being a resident in one of these homes. There is no structure what so ever, at least in the house i stayed at. I was there for a little over 2 months, when you meet for your intake interview Mr. Burchell explains a few rules and how things are run. A few of these rules are that you must attend daily meetings and that you must get your meeting sheet signed every time, everyone must be awake by 8:00 AM during the week and 10:00 AM on the weekends, you have chores that must be done daily and then of course the one that should be most important is no alcohol and no drugs period.

Well during the 2 months i spent there I noticed a few things. One is that Mark Burchell very rarely showed his face around the house, maybe once or twice a week he would pop in. There was absolutely no random drug or alcohol testing UNLESS one of the residents told him that they were suspicious of someone. People slept all day everyday, some of the kids literally slept until 3:00 PM and it were as if nothing happened. Everyone and anyone could have gotten high in that house everyday if they wanted to as long as they were even semi good at being discrete about it. Not once did I turn in a single meeting sheet to him and not once did he ever say a single word to me about my lack of meetings or why i wasn't turning my sheet in. Mark Burchell is a business man now, the money for rent is more important to him then actually sitting and talking with the people living in his homes. I know this because the only times he ever stopped by were to collect rent, or if it was brought to his attention that someone may have relapsed. He is also a d**n LIAR and i have proof of this.

 During my stay there many people had relapsed and were kicked out...but he always seemed to let them come back, only 3 days later too and the same thing continued to happen. Unfortunatley i was kicked out of this house as well, but it was not because i failed a drug test, I actually was as clean as it gets when i was thrown out. No drugs or alcohol were found in the house or in my room either.  So he throws me out and then decides to tell my parents that even after I had personaly cleaned the entire room and took all of my things that people still found a bunch of parafinalia (Syringes) This for one is a lie, i know this because i never brought a single syringe into my bedroom , on top of that all of the residents that i was living with at the time had confirmed that it was a lie and that nothing was found period. He then tells me that i am not allowed to come back to the house because there were no rooms avaliable anymore. Once again LIE, i know for a fact that there was 2 beds open at that exact time. So he lets people that he personally caught drunk and high come back but he wont let someone that was actually clean come back?

Now on another note...he tried to get more money out of me as well, tried to tell me that i owed him for 3 days worth of rent when i was actually paid up for another day as well. This man was not there to help us...he was there to make money, you could get away with anything in that house and he would never know unless someone specifically told him that something was going on. I regret ever giving him a single dollar of my money because it did me absolutely no good. I have been in a few different sober living homes and i have never really had anything bad to say about any of them untill i came to this place. Its basically just a house that you live in with a bunch of your buddys. The thing is, Mark Burchell has no clue whats going on in his homes and is doing no one any good at all by being so un informed. STAYY AWAYYYY!!! He is a SCAM artist!