Bright Futures Treatment Center – New Jersey

DO NOT COME HERE OR SEND YOUR KIDS HERE. And please let me explain that I am not a disgruntled former client, or someone who has a grudge, but someone who just completed 152 days and completed the entire PHP and IOP program. Now as for groups and therapists, this place is top notch. Now every group isn't going to be great, but the nice thing is the group facilitators make it interesting. They also have a bunch of great therapists, with Gina, the trauma therapists, being far and beyond the best trauma therapist I have ever encountered. Addy does a great job managing meds and Danielle, is another superhuner. Another really nice thing they do in PHP is "Adventure Therapy". You can go 2 out of 3 times a week and it's things like paddle boarding, scuba diving, nature walks, etc. They definitely break up the week. Also, the other staff there is amazing. Addy, who manages 70ish clients meds, is superhuman and the doctors who come in as well. The first major issue with Bright Futures, however, is that your meds will NOT be on time. Meadows pharmacy, which is their in house, is a disaster. You will be ripped off your psych meds, or subs, because they cannot get them dropped on time. Just in my group, it took 15 days to get anti-seizure meds and 10 for insulin. 100%. Now once you get to IOP, you can pick up your meds yourself at CVS.......but good luck getting them to send it there, even after sending there for months. You can also do it in PHP Plus.........let me explain. So this facility has created, or should I say AL, is a level called PHP Plus. It's a blend between PHP and IOP. PHP hours (6 hours and 6 days), but with IOP benefits such as your phone/housing/freedom. It is quite the cash grab, because PHP Plus was something "you earned". Now, if you can chew gum and walk at the same time, you are in. It's not hard to see why billing 6 hours and 6 days a week is more financially beneficial that IOP's 3 hours and 3 nights. It's right there in the numbers and the main reason why so much relapse has heppened here. Now for why to stay FAR away from here. His name is AL and he is the Operations Manager. Now Al is someone who I defended for the first month or so. I really appreciated his "gritty, aggressive, NY in your face" approach. That was until the real person came out. You are only good to Al while they are billing your insurance. Once that is over, Al doesn't care at all. He is very good at pretending he cares, that's a fact, but he doesn't. It's all part of his facade. That "aggressive and in your face" approach isn't fun anymore when he is in YOUR face screaming. It all depends on whether or not he took his bipolar meds. That is also not to be funny.......he is completely two different people. His major flaw and your downfall will be that he micro manages everything. He would manage what you ate and drank as well, if that were possible. He is judge, jury, and executioner in the building. No one makes a decision without ol' Uncle Al, putting his 2 cents into it. This goes for housing issues, client relationships, medication and med management, clinical, therapy, and your personal lives too. You can ask anyone a question there and the response is "bring it to Al". It wouldn't be such a big deal when you did, if he didn't question everything else. There is no way I can put the way Al makes you feel into words. It is just like having a violent and abusive father, who you don't know when he is coming home, so you present fear. It is best to be standby for the blowup, because it's coming and might not even be about you. He claims he runs a "community of compassion and love". What he runs is a facade of a facility, one based on him as the higher power, which everyone must worship. Staff, therapists, techs, and clients. One can only run that type of ship for so long. The cracks started happening while I was there and it was sad to watch. Best to you in your journey to sobriety. I was really torn about writing this and my sponsor said it is important to tell the truth.

I highly recommend Bright Futures for their exceptional support and care. My close friend who struggled with addiction, received outstanding help from their team. From the moment he arrived, the communication was clear and the quality of care was top-notch. Bright Futures went above and beyond to ensure his needs were met, and I'm grateful for their dedication to all patients who walk through the doors. I will always encourage anyone seeking help to consider Bright Futures while on their journey.

So if you feel like being ordered around by a drill sergeant on top of having rules for a rule then this is the place for you. The only reason why I'm giving it two stars is because the groups are good and the counselors are great. Other than that, the director, AL, which is there every morning, Is narcissistic and he picks and chooses the ones that he likes and does not like. From the day I got there he started ridiculing me immediately. Then after that, I had issues with my medication, they made me drowsy. I explained that it was my medication and he told me to get off of them because he thinks that I was getting high. From that point, I quit my medications cold turkey. Then I was infected with food poisoning, and he also thought I was high. So I took a drug test and he told me no matter what he doesn't believe the drug test that I could of put stuff in it to make it clean when I haven't went anywhere for the whole time I was there. Then after that, it was nitpicky stuff with my shirts being inappropriate, which they were not. He's a Nazi with clothing. He also started reprimanding me for my makeup, telling me to stop wearing it, then he told me I need to drink water everyday to hydrate myself and walk on the treadmill for the whole hour when I go to the gym because I needed to get my energy up. On another occasion, he has group meetings in the morning where he does nothing but complain about what we did wrong over the weekend. During this meeting, my friend said that she was going through a divorce. Right after she shared I shared that my aunt has cancer. He comes in the meeting and tells everybody that the girl that shared about her husband needed extra attention and support from her peers and never said anything about my aunt. That one hurt! The final straw was when the tech, Melissa, which she is another reason why I'm giving it two stars, took a picture of my DIRTY LAUNDRY in the closet and showed it to Al, saying look they're closet is a mess. I went into group the next day and he told me he needed to have a talk with me I thought he was going to apologize, however, he began to chastise me and explain to me how I'm not worthy enough for being PHP+ because of my closet situation that's not how a PHP plus person acts, when it was laundry that was not just mine, but my roommates as well. He never once said anything to her only to me. That was the final straw that was when I confronted him about how I felt he was treating me. He had me feeling discouraged depressed and not worthy. He told me that all of that stuff had nothing to do with the closet, or should I say the dirty laundry, that I'm just looking for an excuse to get out of being reprimanded. I kept clearly explaining to him that that was not the case that I felt like he was bullying me and we did not see eye to eye so he told me if I didn't like it I could leave. From then he had me sit in the front office not attending groups as I waited for my family to come and pick me up. Once he seen it I was serious about going home then he changed his whole personality he gave me a hug and apologized, that was fake. I did decide to stay home because I felt my recovery was more important than his narcissism and so I called my family and told them not to come. However, it must have burned him alive because later on that night when I had plans to go and see my sponsor, he told me that I had to go make up the hour that I spent sitting in the front office at clinical. He was the one that had told me to go sit up in the front so I did not feel it was fair that I had to make up the hour. From that point I called my sponsor and got her opinion and so we had agreed upon that it was best for me to leave. Once again I called my family and my 80-year-old grandmother had to get on the highway at 7:00 at night in the dark to come and pick me up all the way from fort Lauderdale. I had asked if he could get me an Uber so I could go home and make it easier on my grandmother but he told me no because I was leaving which he had told me to do. Worst experience ever!