Focus on trauma at new Sabino Recovery addiction center

A new, upscale residential center that specializes in treating trauma as the core cause of drug addiction and other problems is expected to open this month near Sabino Canyon.

At first blush Sabino Recovery, 8505 Ocotillo Drive, appears remarkably similar to Sierra Tucson, the 32-year-old, resort-style rehabilitation facility on the Pima/Pinal county border northwest of Tucson that has earned a reputation of offering rehab to the rich and famous.

Both facilities are for-profit, charge about $1,300 per day ($39,000 per month), offer integrative therapies for people with addictions and behavioral health issues, and are in picturesque settings with views of the Catalina Mountains. A majority of patients at Sierra Tucson pay the full amount themselves, similar to what’s expected at Sabino Recovery, and both centers accept men and women over the age of 18.

But leaders say Sabino Recovery is different from Sierra Tucson and other rehab facilities in several ways, starting with its treatment model.

Traditional models target addiction as the primary issue and get to trauma later down the road, but leaders at Sabino Recovery view trauma as the primary, core issue. Depression, substance abuse and other addictions are symptoms of the underlying trauma, they say.

Sabino Recovery is also smaller than Sierra Tucson, with a capacity of 50 residents at a time (state records show Sierra Tucson is licensed for 124 residential beds and 15 acute care psychiatric beds). And unlike Sierra Tucson, which is owned by publicly traded, Tennessee-based behavioral health giant Acadia Healthcare, Sabino Recovery is locally and privately owned.

The facility has already hired a staff of 50, including doctors, registered nurses, massage therapists, behavioral health specialists, fitness experts and security staff.

The chief executive officer of Sierra Tucson last week said he welcomes Sabino Recovery’s entry into the market. Addiction and mental illnesses are quickly becoming a national epidemic, with more than 45 million people in need of services and only a fraction receiving treatment, William D. Anderson Jr. said.

“We welcome their interest in serving an underserved population,” Anderson said.

Next to Sabino Canyon

Sabino Recovery, which is about 15 miles northeast of downtown Tucson, occupies refurbished buildings and land that once housed The Fenster School and before that, the Southern Arizona School for Boys. Sabino Recovery is leasing the 100-acre property from The Fenster School.

Most buildings on the property, which sits alongside Sabino Creek, were built in 1930, and Sabino Recovery has been working to update them since February.

One of Sabino Recovery’s four co-founders is Jack O’Donnell, whose older brother William O’Donnell Jr. founded Sierra Tucson in 1983. Between 2002 and 2005, Jack O’Donnell served as the CEO of NextHealth Inc., which owned Sierra Tucson and the Miraval Life in Balance health resort north of Tucson.

The other Sabino Recovery founders are Jack’s wife, Nancy Jarrell O’Donnell, who is president of clinical services and operations and worked at Sierra Tucson from 1996 to 2011, most recently as clinical director; Pat Manley, co-founder of Johnson-Manley Lumber and executive director and CEO of the Hedrick House, a sober living house in Tucson; and business developer Thomas Isbell.

Since it’s a smaller, family owned facility, O’Donnell says it will be more like the early days of Sierra Tucson, when his brother knew every patient who walked through the door.

“There’s no CEO in Boston or New York saying, ‘You need to cut staff because your census is down,’” he said. “It can’t be a census-driven business.”

Sierra Tucson was sold to California-based CRC Health Group in 2005 for $130 million. The following year, CRC Health Group was purchased for $723 million by Boston-based Bain Capital Partners.

In October 2014, Acadia bought CRC from Bain Capital for $1.2 billion, according to Becker’s Hospital CFO Report.

Tracking patients

Jarrell O’Donnell developed the “Sabino Model” of treatment. She’s accustomed to people with addictions telling her they never suffered trauma. But they virtually always have.

“It might be a big trauma, like you were in the parking lot during the Giffords shooting,” she said. “Some people will be in that situation and be OK. Others will have post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares. They might medicate their trauma with wine, drugs or compulsive shopping.”

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Another form of trauma is attachment failure, which occurs when in infancy and childhood one is not provided the nurturing and safety humans require, Jarrell O’Donnell says.

“There is also complex trauma across developmental stages — it could be an abusive family, verbal abuse, physical abuse,” she said. “If someone was told they were ugly day after day, that becomes a big trauma. It’s traumatic shame. The symptom could be anxiety, depression.”

Jarrell O’Donnell developed the model using some of her own experience — she lost her 16-year-old daughter Lacey Jarrell in a car accident in 2006. When she looked for places to get help for what she self-diagnosed as “traumatic grief,” she couldn’t find anything that was quite right.

“The saying, ‘Time will heal’ — that doesn’t work,” she said.

Sabino Recovery will treat the trauma by exposing its patients to consistent positive experiences and affirmation, Jarrell O’Donnell said, noting the brain has the ability to change negative thought patterns. The three words she emphasizes are compassion, nurturing and empathy.

“Empathy determines if the counseling relationship will be successful,” she said.

The grounds of the center are dotted with security cameras, and residents will wear GPS locator bracelets that can be monitored via computer.

According to state licensing reports, patient tracking has been a problem in recent years at Sierra Tucson, which has reported five patient deaths since 2011, three of them confirmed suicides. Anderson did not respond to the Star’s questions about whether Sierra Tucson would consider GPS or other technology to keep track of patients.

Sabino Recovery will not accept court-ordered patients, patients with histories of violence, with “active suicidal ideation,” or a history of long-term psychiatric admissions.

In addition, Sabino Recovery officials say they won’t be able to accept residents actively detoxing from drugs or those with serious mental illnesses.

“We’re not trying to say we are the right place for everyone,” O’Donnell said.

Sleep lab on premises

After her daughter died, Jarrell O’Donnell went for long hikes day after day. Sabino Recovery will offer hiking, yoga, dance and a challenge course, among other physical activity, since movement is a large part of healing from trauma, she said.

The facility integrates traditional Western medicine with nontraditional treatments such as art therapy, equine therapy (the facility has a stable of horses), personal fitness training, massage, acupuncture and acutonics (sound therapy).

Massages are not an extra — they are part of the treatment model because they calm the nervous system, which is over-activated in people who have been through traumas, she explained.

The center also has a licensed sleep lab.

“REM sleep is what the brain uses to calm, recycle and reboot,” Jarrell O’Donnell said. “If we don’t experience REM sleep we’re not functioning to maximum ability.”

Unlike many facilities, there’s not a technology ban. While residents won’t be allowed to have cellphones, they’ll have access to computers, music and to selected television programs.

“If the excess behavior is alcohol or drugs, we obviously treat it with deprivation,” O’Donnell said. “But other common daily behaviors, such as computers, TV, coffee, sugar and listening to music do not need to be totally banned as they are in many facilities.”

Similarly, while the food is healthy with an emphasis on fruit and vegetables, no one is asked to give up any type of food, including sweets and carbohydrates. The idea is to make the recovery center closer to what it’s like outside of recovery, Jarrell O’Donnell said — where people have constant options.

“Our goal is to best prepare individuals for the ‘real world’ once they leave treatment,” her husband added. “We do not want them to be craving anything to the point that it becomes a distraction to the main reason they are here.”