Talin Mouradian and Nicholas Aboolian, co-owners and co-founders of Hollywood Hills Recovery, understand firsthand that recovering from drug and alcohol use and abuse is grueling.
So they have decided to share their personal journeys with others as a means of encouraging others who are considering entering a drug rehab program.
Both owners agreed and recognized that their lives needed a really big and dramatic change and that continuing down the road they were on wasn’t working.
Finding new ways to connect to others or create a new “family” to help them cope was vital to their decision to end their dance with drugs and alcohol.
Aboolian revealed something rather surprising about himself. He had to go through rehab 12 times before finally and successfully coming clean and sober on the 13th try.
What may surprise you is that this really isn’t uncommon for people who have decided to get sober.
American Addiction Centers reports that between 40% and 60% of all rehab patients relapse within a few months of exiting a program. Aboolian has been clean and sober for four years now, but it took a lot for him to get here.
His pivotal moment was finding himself drunk and high on a floor and being greeted by a police officer who offered him water rather than handcuffs. Aboolian decided at that moment to turn his life around, and avoid jail and the physical side effects of alcohol and drugs.
He got up and walked across a street into a rehab center and began his long journey to sobriety.
When Aboolian was asked what advice he could offer to others going through a treatment program, Aboolian said, “Don’t give up! Never give up! Even if you wake up in the morning and use it right away, you can turn the rest of the day around and start fresh again.”
No better advice could be offered to someone in need of encouragement, considering that those in a residential treatment facility often walk out of a facility before reaching full sobriety. Treatment facilities are “at-will” programs, meaning you can sign in and out as you please.
Only in cases where someone has been court-ordered to remain in a treatment facility for a required period of time is barred from leaving of his/her own accord. It is why so many people experience a relapse. They leave when they want to and/or before they are ready to leave.
Part of the problem is that sometimes these facilities are too much like a hospital and not enough like a place you’d want to stay.
That’s not the case with Hollywood Hills Recovery, which looks and feels more like a posh resort than a recovery facility. Mouradian recounts why she went into rehab. “I was just done. I was done with drugs and being on the street. I wanted things to change.”
After 5 1/2 years of sobriety, Mouradian accomplished exactly what she set out to do, and then some. She co-founded and opened Hollywood Hills Recovery with Aboolian and is the CEO of the center in the heart of Hollywood.
Both Aboolian and Mouradian shared that the biggest part of what helped them change was the support networks they created while in treatment. This is the foundation of success in treatment.
According to Cadabams.org, it has been shown that aftercare and support programs help people avoid relapse and enjoy continued sobriety.
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