Complaint Review: G & G Holistics Addiction Treatment Center - North Miami Beach Florida

This place is mind f---ing at its finest. The owners and employees are not adequately educated to deal with the problems they advertise they expertise in. Not only do they claim to be specialists in treating alcohol and drug additions, but they also have vested interest in dealing with sexual addtions,gambling, eating disorders, pain management due to surgery, and according to their words quoted in the South Fl. Business Journal, they also specialize in anxiety, depression, bipolar disorders, and hurricane relief. As a client, you are mixed in with people who have all these types of additions and disorders, and everyone participates in the same schedule, no matter what their problem. There is plenty of negative talk about the consequences of your addition/behaviors, like death or insanity, but coping skills after your departure from this "safe haven" are not taught. This is why they have as high suicide rate of their former clients. (while I was there, in June 2009, a young man killed himself after only two weeks of leaving G & G.. They estimate that there is at least 8 client suicides a year that are reported).

There are constant NA and AA meetings throughout the day, accompanied by the staff counseling meetings,from approximately 7 am to 9:30 pm daily.. The majority of personnel are recovering addicts and have no business counseling their "clients." These employees also illegally disburse prescribed medications, not possessing a license to do so, and frequently make errors in doing so resulting in many "clients" having to be hospitalized.

The living accomodations, an outdated motel in a questional part of North Miami are outdated and unsanitary. There is a sewage problem which results in an odor permiating the facility, a problem with sand fleas (bed bugs), inadequate electrical supply, and fire hazards. The food is not organic nor is it prepared by chefs, as is advertised. You are fed from styrofoam containers with plastic forks and knives. Hardly indicative of a "holistic" facility. You are made to listen to an eerie tune which is piped throughout the intercom system that one owner, John Giordano claims to have subliminal messages. You are constantly being sold on "Phase II" of your program which is over and above your initial 28 days, which they will personally finance for you. They will also send a representative to your home, no matter how far, to conduct an intervention on your troubled loved one and personally escort them back to G & G. Although they claim to be wheelchair accessible they are not. Each morning you are given a vitamin/amino acid drink, to supposedly balance your brain chemistry (the personnel who is passing it out has no idea what's in these concotions, but strongly advise you to drink it - let me remind you that everyone's nutrtional needs are different as well as everyone's brain chemistry).

Your privacy and dignity are stripped. Employees constantly rummage through your belongings in your absence, and enter your room about 6 times during your sleep time, if you are fortunate to be able to sleep.

Detox, Highpoint, is a joke. You are not detoxed there, just changed to a medication similar to what you were on. You are told you would be in the detox facility for 7 - 10 days, but it is simply a holding facility for Holistics, until they have a bed for you which usually takes 2 to 5 days. I arrived at Highpoint on Saturday and was at at Holistics on Tuesday. Holistics claims they are not affiliated with Highpoint, but funny how their chief psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Kahn, lists this address as his place of practice, not Holistics .Holistics is where your detoxification occurs, when you are cold turkeyed from all of your medications. Many clients become so ill that they are hospitalized and/or sent back to the detox center.

I am am 54 professional woman/mother who was told I would be with others similar to myself. The average age of the clients is 18-25, most with sever drug problems and a few sexual addicts thrown in the mix. My habit was wine, 2 to 4 glasses daily. I was also on a small dosage of Klonopin, a popular prescibed anti-anxiety drug as I was diagnosed with anxiety-panic disorder as a teenager. I should have never been taken off this medication at all, especially as abrubtly as I was. I became deathly ill due to a drug interaction from medications prescribed by their psychiatrist. I was not hospitalized, as I should have been, but just led to bed by a staff member who told me I was suffering from an anxiety attack, which I was not.

My entire experience lasted only 11 days, for which my insurance and I paid approximately $27,000.00 I will fight for the reimbursement, As for my drinking problem, I was scared straight, but I am again on anti-anxiety medication. Don't let this happen to you. Oh yes, one of the owners is a convicted fellon. Read all about it -http://neuro.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/search/display.html?terms=fines&url+nyctap/195_0309.htm. He is underhanded, uncompassionate and after your money. This is really worth your search, it was a "family" business, if you know what I mean.

Lastly, you should know that G & G has 100's of search engines and domain names, leading to the same sales office. Just google any addiction, disorder, or behavioral problem, and you'll find G & G Holistics.

Donna

Tampa Bay, Florida