Vice: A 20-Year-Old Went to Rehab and Came Home in a Body Bag

A 20-Year-Old Went to Rehab and Came Home in a Body Bag
November 4, 2014
Wilbert L. Cooper
Senior Editor VICE

Ted Jacques enrolled his son, Brandon, in what he thought was the "best treatment center money could buy"--A Sober Way Home in Prescott, Arizona--in February 2011, not long after Brandon's mother, Kim, discovered the 20-year-old sprawled out and unconscious on the bathroom floor. He had just sucked down a red Solo cup filled to the brim with Crown Royal, and the booze sent him reeling to the ground. It didn't help that Brandon's belly was likely empty from forced vomiting. Kim rapidly unlocked the door after hearing the sound of her son's body smack the linoleum. The shower was still running, Brandon's eyes had rolled into the back of his head, and blood was trickling out of his mouth. It was a horrifying wake-up call, but just one of the many wrenching episodes related to Brandon's years of bulimia and alcoholism.

For $14,500, A Sober Way Home assured the family that it could treat Brandon's dual disorders. His particular condition required a high level of care and monitoring because of the debilitating effects of purging, which can cause the body to have an imbalance of essential electrolytes that can impair the functions of the heart. Substance abuse like alcoholism, which affects about 50 percent of all people with eating disorders, and binging and purging can be a fatal combination.

Despite A Sober Way's assurance that it could care for Brandon, his vomiting continued, and his drinking was just barely kept at bay while he was in its care. After he spent a month at A Sober Way, the organization admitted to the Jacqueses that it could not properly treat their son's eating disorder. Instead of recommending that he get medical care at a hospital, A Sober Way officials beseeched the Jacques family to send their son to another residential rehab facility in Newport Beach, California.

The second facility, called Morningside Recovery, barred Brandon's parents from communicating with him. While Brandon was there, his binging and purging got even worse, and he was caught secretly drinking booze. Toward the end of his stay, and without his parents' knowledge or consent, Morningside officials moved him out of their inpatient facility and into a small non medical detox center on the other side of town called First House. Here, Brandon went into cardiac arrest on April 2, 2011, and died. Because of the lack of communication, his parents had no idea that he'd even been transferred to a different rehab center--much less that Morningside passed patients like Brandon to First House with the added bonus of kickback cash.

continued here http://www.vice.com/read/dying-for-treatment-0000499-v21n11

What a horrible situation. Very sad for the family. What is crown royal? A spirit? or a beer or what?

good canadian whisky.. 80 proof

Hard liquor.
Edit- thank you NSA

Thanks x 2

Crown royal is whisky.... 80 proof I think. So its a spirit.

It's a really bad idea to drink that much liquor all at once, for anyone not sure of a proper amount to drink.

Just a few sips of a liquor (not an entire Undiluted cupfull) would be a wiser amount.

The problem with many of these for profit Prescott AZ and So Cal facilities is they are admitting clients they are not licensed to deal with. On top of this they are getting illegal kickbacks for referring out these improperly admitted clients to other programs when the going gets tough. These transitional living homes are moving dangerously close to treatment as in the case of Morning Side Recovery. Take one of the main doctors who works for A Sober Way Home from the Vice short. His past includes working for a company that was shut down for this very reason as well as the companies involvment with money laundering and abuse.

How long can a person actually work on a cattle ranch before they realize they are illegally running a detox facility without basic medical oversight or mandated licensing. I have found the advocacy group Heal-online.org to be keeping tabs on many of the sketchy treatment centers and therapeutic boarding schools but tracking the thousands of sober homes/halfway houses is almost impossible. These facilities will admit all types of people suffering from serious mental illnesses, eating disorders,sex addictions and even video game addiction. In the end these companies can not deal with some of these clients but they are not willing to just refer them to some place for free. They want a kickback which is illegal in the state of AZ or California and ends up being a conflict of interest. People are dying over these kickbacks due to not receiving the appropriate treatment.

Furthermore the reliance on equine therapy is really prevalent in Prescott and though it may be fun in the moment while looking cool many state governments have discontinued the practice from their non profit programs due to a lack of evidence that it is helpful in addiction. That was 7 years ago. The obsession with neru feedback is also more for looks instead of just hiring a masters level addiction specialist to teach a relapse prevention course they like to advertise their cool nero feedback computer set ups. I have personally toured A Sober Way Home and i have 4 past friends that work their. The nero feedback computer room looked to gimmicky for me to want to go for that reason though i could hardly afford a month. They asked very little questions about my mental health history and immediately said they could take me.

A Sober Way Home referred Brandon to Morning Side Recovery for an illegal kickback instead of referring the client to any of the 5-6 facilities located in Prescott that are licensed to deal with such cases. Some of the appropriate places to send this individual would have been a non profit hospital or treatment center. Their are two for profit treatment centers in Wickenburg AZ that are licensed to deal with eating disorders. Something needs to change in the for profit sector of addiction treatment that is not fully regulated and licensed. They house the clients at different houses and then bus them into the treatment center closer to town. As far as i know this practice lets the facility get away with being less monitored and regulated. For someone in that terrible situation you would want to possible be admitted into a level 1 or level 2 state licensed inpatient treatment center. The AZ DOH is not keeping up with this industry. My prayers go out to this family. The only level 2 licensed treatment centers in Prescott are non profit for low income AZ residents. For more information reference Prescott Insights "Addiction centers in Prescott Arizona". This has tons of accurate information on how these places are licensed and exactly what programs are state licensed. These for profit web sights make it difficult to find out how they are regulated and exactly what they are licensed as.

Whoever denied me the truth of the term "rehab industrial complex" gets more 'proof' alls the time.

Nice find NSA. I've long found Vice's general quality to be higher than shit found in most newspapers. Sad. Makes me miss Brooklyn.