Hollywood actor Todd Bridges has been in recovery for more than 30 years. Seeing the disconnect between addiction treatment and the knowledge now available, he and wife Bettijo Boushley Bridges began the Society for Ethical Addiction Treatment (SEAT) in November 2023 to “bridge the gap” with science and promote ethical, effective addiction treatment.
There currently is no clinical standard for addiction treatment. The American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has a set of criteria, but many believe it’s too broad to be effective. Additionally, many addiction treatment programs today are based on anecdotal evidence and an individual’s experience, rather than medically proven processes. Addiction and addiction treatment are being widely studied by Ivy League researchers, but it can take up to 10 years for medically proven protocols to be implemented in addiction treatment – much longer than other medical fields.
The gap needs a bridge. SEAT is building on ASAM’s guidelines by working with experienced individuals from some of the best rehab centers in America to create specific clinical standards for addiction treatment, with the hope of securing endorsements from ASAM and researchers. As an industry-facing effort, SEAT hopes the creation of clinical standards will promote effective addiction treatment.
The Bridges are also developing a public-facing tool for those facing addiction, hosted online at “MyBestRehab.org.” The online tool will ask an individual about his or her drug of choice, demographics, and life experiences, and match that person with the best rehab facility for him or her. There will also be an option to answer and receive feedback for a loved one. Google is not the best place to find a rehab center because of the prevalence of paid directories, which tend to not promote accountability. Many good rehab centers exist, and My Best Rehab is looking to help individuals find the best facility for their unique situation.
The website is unique in that it will put any facility into the directory, provided they supply the necessary data for analysis. My Best Rehab will create standardized comparisons, based on a facility’s outcomes data, to inform individuals’ decisions. The overall goal is to incentivize facilities to implement the most effective practices that promote recovery, in line with SEAT’s clinical standards, so My Best Rehab will refer them to more individuals. Facilities on My Best Rehab are not required to follow SEAT standards but won’t rank well with a poor record.
In the words of SEAT co-founder and managing director Bettijo B. Bridges, My Best Rehab is “trying to create the place people should go when they’re looking for a treatment center.” Scientists are developing the necessary algorithms, and the tool is expected to go online this year.
This effort comes in the wake of local news for the Bridges, who live in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Recent federal investigations uncovered more than 300 phony rehab centers in and around Phoenix that particularly targeted Native Americans. Individuals were brought to these facilities, sometimes off the street and sometimes from a thousand miles away, for fraudulent “addiction rehab,” and the American Indian Health Program, a subset of Medicare, paid the costs.
Facilities lacked the necessary resources for recovering addicts, sometimes allowing or even providing individuals in the facilities with drugs and alcohol to keep them hooked and the money coming in. Some died of overdose. Many became homeless after being expelled from the facilities without means of contacting family members. Some were even hit by cars or died of heat exposure in the summer. Facilities often lacked basic furniture, like beds, and neglected to monitor individuals – let alone provide treatment.
Bridges said creating rigid clinical standards for addiction treatment would “make the landscape less friendly to these people who don’t actually want to create transformations in the lives of addicts.”
Arizona state officials estimate that hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost in these scams. Arizona State Attorney General Kris Mayes said, “It’s one of the greatest failures of Arizona government ever.”
It is not difficult for phony centers to thrive when one lacks clinical standards and accountability. Drug addiction, or Substance Use Disorder (SUD), is considered a medical issue, meaning that health insurance providers are interested in accountability for programs as more individuals have access to help through their health insurance. SEAT’s creation of specific clinical standards will help create a better industry in the long-term, where an individual can find minimum standards regardless of where he or she goes for treatment.
As with all movements, it will take time for the industry and the public to adopt SEAT’s system as the clinical standard. Overnight acceptance isn’t expected. For reforming addiction treatment, this is only the beginning.
