Bellevue — Hotel California by the Sea Bellevue (HCBTS) is a luxury and dual-diagnosis addiction treatment program founded in Newport Beach, CA in 2013 by Pacific Northwest native Carl Mosen. HCBTS' Vice President, Brian Burke, is also from the Pacific Northwest. “Brian went to 14 different treatment centers, 15 years ago, and finally got it,” says HCBTS’ Mary-Colleen Underwood, “and ever since he got it he knew eventually he wanted to be able to share that precious gift of recovery with his hometown.” As Vice President, Brian desired to establish a treatment location in his hometown and in 2016, HCBTS opened its door in Bellevue, offering a full continuum of care, and HCBTS is opening an acute medical detox home in Kirkland in the coming months.
Allie Wile went through the program in California, and now works at Hotel California by the Sea Bellevue. She attributes her success to the long-term treatment provided by HCBTS. “I kept doing that 30-day cycle where I would go and then I kept thinking it was this moral issue. I kept thinking there was something wrong with me or that I was never going to get it or how could someone that grew up in a great family have these type of issues.”
Allie was able to step down over time and get back into school and employment by being supported by a staff that really knew and understood what she was going through, “95% of our staff members are actually in recovery themselves. They've been through it and they've walked the same path. They know how to handle it. They know what it's like to be in early recovery and how to deal with difficult situations.”
HCBTS' dual-diagnosis treatment addresses both addiction and the underlying mental health issues that patients may be wrestling with. Therapist Tolani Ogunyoku says this is important in order to establish long-term care for an individual, “When people are suffering from addiction they'll experience things like trauma different things that they've done in their addiction that they're ashamed of or feel guilty about. And there also is the component of hurting their families and hurting their loved ones.”
The clinicians at HCBTS use varies forms of therapy to create a unique treatment plan for each client, “Whether it's anxiety, depression, personality disorders, a host of different things, our clinicians that are able to find that intersection where their chemical dependency and the mental health issues meet.” This can be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, or other types of treatment, Ogunyoku says there’s not a one-size fits all model, “They’re all forms of treatment looking to change either the way we're thinking about information then hopefully to change our behaviors, or examining what our behaviors are doing and how they're not getting us what we want, and focusing on changing those behaviors to hopefully establish long-term healthy patterns of behavior.”
Hotel California by the Sea also considers family a key component, because addiction doesn't just affect the individual, it affects their friend, family, kids, and spouses, so time is spent with families with a one-day educational event. “They’re able to get educated on addiction and we're able to provide them some basic tools about how to not be a co-dependent, how to not enable, how to love your family member but also not be part of the problem,” says Ogunyoku, “As the client is healing with us it's really important that the family is healing too. If the client gets better and they're going back to a family that's still sick, chances are that client is probably going to struggle.”
“It’s important for people to understand that addiction is not a choice and it's not moral failure. It's a disease,” says Mary-Colleen. “It doesn't discriminate.” Her father died seven years ago. From the outside, she says he had achieved financial success and had a seemingly perfect life, but ultimately that life was destroyed by his addiction. “It’s stronger than anything, it's stronger than your love for your family, its stronger than your financial achievements. It takes over, but there is a solution.” Addicts continue to struggle with the disease for the rest of their lives, but there is hope for recovery, and there is a solution.
She says she is saddened that her father didn't get the opportunity to go through long-term treatment, that she feels like it may have been a solution that worked for him. “I feel that for many and for my dad included, Had he gone to long-term treatment, I feel like that would have been a solution that would have worked for him and it saddens me that he didn't get that opportunity.”
This segment is sponsored by Hotel California by the Sea Bellevue. Watch New Day Northwest 11:00 weekdays on KING-TV Ch.5 or streaming live on KING5.com. Connect with New Day via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
