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Rehab? It’s a fraud.
Las vegas recovery center, lvrc, is a sad, deplorable joke, but it’s not funny. Most patients, including chronic pain ones would benefit more from a good detox center at a hospital, then pain management from a qualified physical therapist. The staff are all na/aa "true believers" and don't mention other recovery programs that are non-12 step such as smart recovery, mfs, wfs, and the buddhist recovery network. Na/aa is a cult-like program that intensifies shame and guilt, and is completely ineffectual. Near suicidal patients are made more depressed by the staff’s constant message of: “you’re going to die if you don’t accept aa/na as your religion!” it’s all just propaganda.
Addiction is a genetic neurotransmitter condition, not a moral and spiritual disease, as they would have you believe. Lvrc cultivates this shame and guilt in order to get a person to believe in their "program", which has counselors yelling and screaming at you for every little infraction. They smoke constantly, and tobacco is the #1 killer drug in america. Tobacco effects the brain just like every other drug that’s abused.
Addicts are better off learning transcendental meditation on their own, and getting acupuncture, massage, tai chi, and yoga as a better way to recover. Non-12 step help groups can help if you need them. My advice is to save yourself the $30-$130, 000.00 for a one to three-month stay, which they will twist your arm and your family's to agree to. It’s a fraudulent business like any other and they need to make money. They overbill insurance companies as a routine. Health allegations are rampant, the food is marginal, and the doctors are frighteningly mentally abusive at times. Lvrc also will convince you while you are in detox to give your psychologist or therapist permission to talk to them about you. This is a criminal act, against the first amendment of the constitution, and a violation of the hippa laws. They don't care. The owner, stuart smith, drives a $350, 000.00, blue, 612 ferrari, so that should tell you something; it’s a scam, although a fancy one at that. Its widely known in the medical community that drug treatment centers are a huge fraud, and provide only a placebo effect at best.
Medical director dr. Pohl receives awards from “best doctors” which is just a scam as well. These vanity club organizations pick a physician and have him/her sign up, pay a few hundred dollars, arrange for some peer letters of recommendation, and write a positive review of that organization; then that doctor receives an award. The best doctors don’t need to advertise. He is a genuine quack, and lvrc promotes quack medicine like faith healing.
If you want to be forced into a dogmatic, superstitious, religious cult by threats of impending death then this is the program for you. Otherwise just buy dr. Pohl's excellent pain book and go to non-12 step smart meetings where you will find rational human beings.
i’m a well known lv surgeon, i went to lvrc of my own free will, paid my own way, and they treated me and my fellow patients like children, liars, deviants, and criminals. My pain got better, but it was the detoxing off the drugs and physical therapy, not them. It’s called opiod-induced hyperalgesia, and its caused by being on opiates too long. The brain short-circuits at the limbic system. The pain meds make the pain worse over time; detoxing off them will make you much better with good physical therapy.
Beware of drug rehab in general and their false promises, and beware of lvrc.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
Unfortunately, I did not fully believe or understand the post by the previous complainant. All he said is true, and worse. The food is absolutely terrible, and when I commented on this, one of the heroin addicts said "well, it's better than the food in jail!". Yes, they all smoke, including the staff. So, you can't even go outside because of the smoke, and then the cloth sofas inside reek of smoke so that when you sit on them, you end up smelling of smoke. It is a dirty facility as well, and depressing-they won't even allow you to bring in more than one book to read. I almost lost my mind there. However, one area that I disagree on with the previous poster is Dr. Pohl and his medical care. I do feel that he gave me good medical service, he adequately medicated me to handle the detox and kept my suffering to a minimum. He also spent a good amount of time with me and every patient every day (including the weekends). Of course, he became angry when I wanted to leave early (due to the depressing conditions, the outrageously terrible food, the smell of the place, etc) but to be fair, he gave me good medical care. The nurses were also good, and their overall practice, I believe, is safe and effective for handling addicts (they wake you up and check your vitals frequently, etc) to make sure you are ok. Would I go back? Absolutely not. But, I am glad that I went, and got detox over with.
I had a very different experience at LVRC. Very tough detox and Dr. Pohl and medical staff helped me get through it. My counselor was awesome and really connected with me on a deep level. My room was clean and pretty comfortable. They did my laundry for me - other programs I was at assigned cleaning chores - nothing like that at LVRC.. thank god. Spent a lot of time in groups, going to meetings, sessions with my counselor and so on. I was there many years ago and have been back to visit for alumni groups- seems there are a lot more services now. would recommend this to my own family, and have done so.
I’m not sure how I feel about the LVRC experience. Maybe so-so. Expensive as heck!
I went there and received indifferent and sometimes strange treatment. I did recover from alcoholism and that’s a good thing.
My advisor/councelor said that I had to believe in God or a higher power but I politely said that I don’t believe in those things. They called my husband to complain about me and he laughed. Whats up with that?
Yoga, massage, and meditation were good stuff. Met nice friends, fellow patients.
I think that once a medical center or clinic gets down to religion or spirituality---whats the difference? Anybody know?—its very depressing because that means they are at the end of the medical treatment rope I’m told. ( I had 3 friends die of cancer) I think religion is fine, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t expect so much pressure by the staff people. I asked the psychologist about all this and he danced around the subject like a lawyer…very confusing for me and everyone.
If “Smart Recovery” is a non-religious help group, (thats what I go to now) why didn’t they tell us about them?
All I can tell you is that my sister went to LVRC after I did. She committed suicide two months later. She was very depressed and had a much harder time there than I did.
I’m not sure I can blame the center, but my family wants to sue them. (They make you sign a hundred legal forms when you are admitted to the center just for this type of situation)
For me though, I just want to forget that part of my life.
Janice.
LVRC is all about brainwashing you into compliance, and if you recover from addiction thats fine, if not, tough cookies.
Weird, depressing "testimonials" by alumni and employees are shown constantly in detox to us patients who are in pain and cant sleep. Works dandy on stupid people.
Theyre just like most other rehabs, all they care about is that a patient be quiet and thankful for being lured into a 12 step program that is all about cultivating shame and guilt with nonsense and cult religion.
The pain program is OK. Not enough physical therapy by a long shot. The doctors are unethical, the psychologists nothing of the sort. The owner Stuart Smith is a millionaire bipolar wacko, and thats putting it mildly. He was born again and thinks he's the REHAB JESUS.
If a person is gullible and desperate this program will work wonders. All they really care about is the 12 steps, AA, and NA. And thats sad.
A typical rehab, which is to say ineffective at best. Idiots receive help because they buy into the spiritual nonsense. Smart people and atheists (one in the same) suffer because they see clear through the BS. They don't give terminally ill people forced religion as a medical treatment. Why do rehab clinics offer only childish and irrational treatment? Because they have nothing concrete or proven to offer addicts, just truckloads of repetitive garbage. The psychologists there talked in circles and are unethical; the doctors were nothing of the sort, they were shamans, witch doctors, druids, etc. Forcing a person into AA and NA with daily threats of death is not medical treatment. The owner, Stuart Smith, is someone I know professionally. He should be put in jail.
Peter S.
Dead-on observation. I shared a wall with their sales department employees. It was #####ing brutal. They would get a call from someone wanting help, they would keep them on the phone telling them they'll die if they don't mortgage their house, sell their car, take out a loan, etc. To pay the flat $30, 000 for the first seven days of treatment, when they would hang up after learning the amount... The sales people would then start harassing everyone the person knew, close relatives, friends, coworkers, employers... It made me ####ing sick.
It was all a total scam for the money. Anyone that says differently never worked there... Or still does.
Never in recovery myself, i worked for their publishing company, crp. I had to go through the same training process as the "direct care" employees. I was floored at how inept, young, and ignorant the staff was and how ridiculous the addiction "science" was that they taught the patients. I should never ever hear a counselor advising a heroin addict how to deal with serious mental problems, by suggesting they put them in their "god box". I asked what a god box was, and was told it was a way of dealing with your problems, by writing them down and giving them over to a higher power. Well, damn! Schizophrenia, solved! Thanks, box! (Sheesh)
Everyone ate lunch together every day, and i constantly kept thinking, "this is just like ####ing jonestown. "
All of the upper administration staff members begin to harass the patients as they approach the end of their stay by aggressively and increasingly hounding them about where they are going to go to meetings, and if there are none, how they owe it to their recovery to start one. If they quit going to meetings, they'll fail, no matter if they've been going over 40 years after getting sober. It's all about guilt, predisposed genetic reasons for guaranteed failure, higher power bull#### and false fear that success is completely dependent on contributing your time to the organization for the the rest of your ####ing life, and make you regret every second you haven't. Even after being 45 years clean, lvrc staff members will continue to talk and behave like it was just yesterday they stopped using; dwelling on their previous usage and its consequences, over and over daily, no one ever moves past the experience. Eternally damned by their own higher power to be forever in recovery, and never recover.
#### that place.
If you have too much money and want lung cancer...
Honey, there are way better cults out there...
With much better food.