Negligence that Results in Death/Serious Harm is Unacceptable
People who have died at AAC:
1. Stone Galaway2. Joe Nicolosi-Jean3. Graeme Hill4. 23 year old who shot and killed himself because he could easily leave premises5. Shaun Reyna in California6. Conner Johnson7. Cody Arbuckle8. April Leeming9. Andrew "Drew" Sanders10. Bradley Keith Bongar11. Gary Benefield12. Billy Patient13. Duarte Caetano
-People who have witnessed violence/overdoses at AAC (share in comments)
-People who were hurt by AAC policies and further put in danger (share in comments)
Marisel Sanchez (sustained life threatening burns that required 45+ days of hospitalization with a lighter on campus in the midst of severe alcohol detox tremors)Anaceona Mejias (her drink was spiked with fentanyl, almost died/had a seizure...found unresponsive)
-Other incidents hidden over the years
We are petitioning the Joint Commission, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, the State of Florida, Department of Health and Human Services (SAMHSA-Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), the American Psychiatric Center (APA), American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM founded in 2007), Law Enforcement and The United States government to investigate American Addiction Centers, especially the location in Riverview, Florida called River Oaks Treatment Center and American Addiction Centers for gross neglect of patients.
Addiction is a disease, and treatment centers see it as a business model. AAC is seemingly no different.
Richter, Linda, and Susan E. Foster. “Effectively Addressing Addiction Requires Changing the Language of Addiction.” Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 35, no. 1, 2014, pp. 60–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43288004. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
Patients died at this location because untrained staff failed to recognize the symptoms of overdose or did not provide a secure campus. River Oaks in Florida does not have proper protection to their facility and this allows for patients to leave premises and bring paraphernalia and contraband back onto the campus as well as to engage in harmful behaviors < id est> purchasing alcohol or obtaining weapons. Drug Rehabilitation centers should know better than anyone just how far addicts will go to act on their impulses and compulsions in order to find relief from their disease.
Campbell, Nancy D. “The Metapharmacology of the ‘Addicted Brain.’” History of the Present, vol. 1, no. 2, 2011, pp. 194–218. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/historypresent.1.2.0194. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
When a facility fails to offer proper care and treatment of patients, and not at a cheap price tag either, it falls upon the individuals and their families who have suffered the most to report these egregious errors to proper authorities. Even then, concerns go largely unchecked.
American Addiction Centers promises many lofty claims including top notch environmental care, emergency care and management, infection control, infection prevention, individual rights and responsibilities to the patient, care and treatment of patients, safety and a mission to prevent them from acting on their addiction.
Newhouse, Joseph P. “An Ounce of Prevention.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 35, no. 2 (2021): 101–18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27008031.
Time and time again, River Oaks has failed to do this resulting in the harm of patients and even their death.
The deaths they are responsible for is unforgivable.
The therapist to patient ratio is abysmal, and although some therapists really try to help, they are outnumbered, underpaid and many of them leave contributing to a high staff turnover.
The staff who spend the most time with patients aren’t really the therapists or educators, but people walking around campus in blue scrubs who are essentially professional babysitters aka "T.A."s. Many of them do not have a medical background and are not trauma informed in their approach to care.
Fatayer, Jawad. “Addiction Types: A Clinical Sociology Perspective.” Journal of Applied Social Science, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008, pp. 88–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23549240. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
Peele, Stanton. “ADDICTION MYTHS.” RSA Journal, vol. 158, no. 5549, 2012, pp. 20–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26204086. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
I witnessed firsthand women being intimidated and cornered by male “resident assistants” who bullied them inappropriately and got way too close for comfort to yell at them for something really trivial like working on an art project such as a collage about their addiction in "the wrong space". They will go out of their way to intimidate patients and stalk them, yet when someone is on the verge of death and losing consciousness along with taking their last breath the signs are ignored until the last minute. If a patient is lucky, someone-most likely another patient, will call 9-1-1.
They are not trained in trauma-informed care, let alone basic CPR, and if they are... it doesn't show.
There is documentation of preferential treatment for some patients over others, including many being kicked out for one reason while another patient does the same thing and is allowed to stay. Patients are pumped full of chemicals they have never taken before (like Seroquel or Klonopin) and then left homeless on the streets because they didn't kiss up to the administration's ass during an interrogation over behavior and were kicked out immediately when they needed help the most. How do they expect someone who is detoxing from major drug abuse and mental illness to behave when confronted with a behavioral infraction? The staff seems to take it personally, another reflection of their lack of training and awareness.
Volkow, Nora D., et al. “Addiction: Beyond Dopamine Reward Circuitry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 108, no. 37, 2011, pp. 15037–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41352040. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
Another "inmate" while there witnessed at least three Fentanyl overdoses in the span of a few days. How is this happening at a verified drug treatment center? How is this happening in our country? Too many people are dying. Why are executives in China sitting in cubicles selling the ingredients to make illicit Fentanyl to labs run by Cartels in Mexico allowed to pass through US borders, killing thousands every day?
There are patients at River Oaks Treatment Center experiencing psychosis who were mocked and treated with brutality. I will never forget how staff ignored a woman with schizophrenia walking around half-dressed because her clothes were taken by another patient. I personally had to go to administration and insist they take her to a clothing bin to get dressed. She had clearly experienced recent domestic violence and was displaying signs of acute trauma. She lacked proper hygiene and was underweight, yet they kicked her out because she was difficult to handle. She later tried to come back-and was not given a chance to reenter. I often wonder what happened to her? One patient experiencing acute psychosis was allowed to leave campus-walking straight into traffic and instantly killed. Another left campus and shot himself. Yet another patient set herself on fire with a lighter.
This could have been avoided had AAC invested in a proper gate and monitoring system as well honoring their promise of 24/7 monitoring and care.
There are other incidents where people will make it past Stage One of detox, only to be kicked out because their insurance (despite ERISA/Parity Act/ACA) could not cover the cost of living “in the shoe” aka the second phase of detoxing-which they were not informed of upon entering the facilities.
Is it because they're needed to run expensive urine tests to bill insurance?
Patients/Clients regularly had articles of clothing and other personal affects stolen from their personal storage. Staff would deflect any liability. People in Phase I are incredibly vulnerable and prone to volatility. There were not many measures in place to protect others in the same unit from abuse that happens from patients experiencing intense symptoms while in the midst of painful detoxing.
"....Relapses are common among addicts, even when things seem to be going well, and treatment is expensive. A month of inpatient rehab can cost tens of thousands of dollars; in the past, this kind of treatment was mostly limited to the wealthy. The A.C.A. made it easier for the owners of treatment centers to bill insurers, and rehab, suddenly democratic, fell within reach of the well-insured middle class and its children.
Because there is no federal licensing framework for addiction-treatment centers, insurance companies trust the facilities to abide by state regulations. But little in medicine is as ill defined or as anecdotal as addiction treatment. Most rehab centers are not hospitals. The counsellors are often not psychologists. The medical directors can submit instructions from a distance...."
Excerpt from "My Years in the Florida Shuffle of Drug Addiction" <an analysis of a recovery journey in Palm Beach County and the Piss Farm Industry>
Lives have been lost because of these oversights. Families will never be the same because of losing their loved ones.
Stone Galaway, a 21 year old was found unresponsive in his room after others tried to alert resident authorities, including his roommate, only for their pleas for help to be ignored-resulting in his death. His family will never be able to see him again because they entrusted him to the care of people who did not do their job properly.
Families fork out thousands upon thousands of dollars for the mental and physical rehabilitation of relatives, only to discover funds are not being properly allocated to the training of informed staff with the necessary backgrounds to conduct health and safety protocols. They are understaffed and not paid enough to justify going out of their way to help a patient, as demonstrated by his death and others. It is agreed upon by many who have contributed to this petition's contents that 9-1-1 is called on campus at LEAST once per day.
433 calls, In the first two years of opening in 2018. Sponsored by your tax dollars.
Here is a link to the service calls for 2022-23: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Buoc7PzVRr5SJm0Kv5rQpRErqwoC8PrymXxuvTPCRVM/edit?usp=sharing
Diana Nicolosi-Jean will never see her son Joe again because he overdosed in a rehabilitation clinic at AAC. Her grief will last a lifetime, and because she entrusted the care of her son to people who took all her money but failed to uphold their promise to monitor her son 24/7 as advertised-she will not be able to see her loved one because of their negligence. This is a crime of the spirit and soul-and they should be held accountable.
Treating and caring for those suffering from addiction is not a simple process and people who are addicts often have other co-morbid issues in addition to being addicted, like being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia or an Eating Disorder with Generalized Anxiety and Major Depressive Disorder. This however, does not excuse providers and institutions such as AAC from being absolved of their failure to provide a safe treatment center for patients. This is what they advertise- this is their field of specialty, and they still cannot uphold the promise.
If corporations such as AAC are people according to the Citizens United Ruling, they should act like it.
There should be an investigation of AAC for putting residents in harm’s way by allowing for the death of so many patients to occur. One death is one too many. It is time we ask those with the power to investigate to do so before other people lose family members.
Here are some reviews of River Oaks:
“If you are serious about recovery, don’t go here-you will be offered drugs on campus. 1/2 my belongings were stolen and everyone was on their phones the entire time.” -Trenton, Tampa Bay, Fl
“Legal Trap House- they sell you a dream over the phone, not even deserving of one star” -Beth, Alabama
“The director harassed a patient for speaking up, the people who work at this location need a lesson on how to treat people with these issues, rooms are filthy.” -Tom, West Orlando, FL
“There are co*ckroaches in all the rooms because staff let patients eat food in their rooms” -Clay, Virginia
“I was drugged with fentanyl at River Oaks, staff did not check on me and I had a seizure, was found unresponsive. “ Anaceona, Florida
“ I was a victim of MK Ultra Programming here and interrogated by government officials about a federal charge from the year before. This place allows for abuses of all kinds to happen” - Jane Doe, Virginia
COMITINI, PATRICIA. “The Strange Case of Addiction in Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’” Victorian Review, vol. 38, no. 1, 2012, pp. 113–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23646857. Accessed 4 Sept. 2023.
“Demetrius is the only shining spot of this whole place, everything else is an F. They are all in it for the money and don’t care about your recovery, I got the wrong meds.” Pod, Tampa, FL
“The entire time I was there, I was forced to undergo weekly covid nasal swabs, I was never given a choice about this. It felt like my brain was being probed on a weekly basis and I have no sense of smell anymore. This is wrong-I never had Covid and it should be my choice what is done to my body” -Sheppard, Virginia
“If you love your loved one do not send them to this rehab, words cannot describe the horrendous experience we had sending my husband there. There are more drugs being sold in this facility than in prison, every type of drug you can imagine. Maybe this is why they allow patients to have cell phone and laptops. The last day my husband was there, he was stumbling and not speaking coherently.” -Mitzie F, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
“They lie to family members about the status of the patients. They allow patients to steal and be discharged with items they didn’t check in.” -Maggie S. Fresno, CA
“They lied to us about blood lab work and in the end we were charged thousands of dollars from Quest Diagnostics. We were lied to and mislead. Please be aware of this scam they run. “ Darrell, Murrells Inlet, SC
“While there, there was a client who would leave campus several days in a row screaming about how he wanted to kill white girls, when I began to have a panic attack the resident assistants, aka TA's, would reprimand me for sharing my concerns about my safety.” Darrah, Fort Polk, LA
“While I was still intoxicated, staff coerced me to sign papers that would later cost me hundreds of dollars in extra treatment I did not consent to.” Christina, Hollywood, FL
River Oaks fails to provide 24/7 medical oversight, overcharges customers and lies to them about their insurance status, does not care about theft of property that occurs regularly on campus, has uniformed staff that do not have the training to handle mental illness and drug addiction, and they have allowed for residents to walk out and leave while still under the influence of drugs-ending up homeless or dead.
This treatment facility needs to be investigated and shut down, as do other rehabilitation and mental health facilities throughout America. This call for an investigation to mental health and drug addiction facilities isn't limited to River Oaks in Florida.
Please sign if you agree and share your thoughts in the comments below.
I write with the intention that translations to other languages are simple.
