These people are hacks and liars. I went to St. Jude's after becoming seriously dependent on…read morealcohol. I was interested in the relationship with detox facilities they advertise. That relationship does not exist, and I detoxed at a local hospital. After detox, at the retreat, my counselor (teacher as they call it, since no one who works there has any real credentials. Not an exaggeration.) was very open about how he worked nights as a bartender. The activities coordinator was the 19 year old son of the owner. No training. He actually hit on some of the female clients. They do nothing to help you once you leave, i.e. Placement in outpatient continuing care. They do not understand, or are unwilling to accept the model of addiction put forward by every single professional treatment association or peer review board that I know of. It would be very bad for business, I'm sure. They prey on desperate people with false promise and puffy statics provided to them by an "independent" research group that they convieniantly own. None of the people I interacted with on a daily basis had any personal experience with addiction recovery, although they will show off the alleged past heroin use of the owner and writer of the course book. The $20,000+ program is structured in two hours of "class" a day. Often times this is just watching YouTube videos, the rest of the time it is reading out of the book they have written. This 200+ page tome seems tailor written to dissuade the reader from buying in to other treatment programs. The whole program is cleverly designed and worded to avoid it falling under the pervue of any regulatory body, so it does not have to be held accountable for the utter BS they are slinging. The facility itself is registered with the state as temporary housing, not a treatment facility. If you are considering St. Jude's, please just know, you're addiction is an affliction of your mind, body and soul; these people are not equipped or motivated enough to deal with problems of that magnitude. Your addiction is also a medical issue and rest assured, detox from alcohol in a facility like this can kill you. At the very least, if you are in New York State, look for a facility that is OASAS certified. After seeking the help of a true addiction treatment center, I have been sober for almost a year, and my life continues to get better and better, in spite of engaging in all the programs St. Jude's tells you to run from. I can't wait to hear the response they whip up to this. I'm sure they will try to take credit for my sobriety and trivialize my statements. Or perhaps take the high road congratulate me on my sobriety. Let me make this clear: at my wits end, and needing to get sober or die, trying to utilize the tools this program gave me almost killed me. The Tepurpedic mattress that St. Jude's advertise seems to be a good analogy for the whole place: It's just a normal mattress with egg crate foam on it.

I had a nice room with a balcony and private bath. There was always plenty of hot water and clean…read moretowels. There was week day maid service. I was there in summer and the AC was also quite adequate. The food was wholesome, fresh, tasty, and served promptly. There were always plenty of snacks and leftovers if you get hungry between meals. The staff and management were OK, but surely you should not expect to find any Rhodes scholars among them. There also is a pool, hot tub, fishing pond, and good walking with lovely views and hills, depending on the weather of course. My instructor was a nice retired guy who had been a primary school teacher in his previous life. He seemed to believe in what he was teaching, but had apparently been the teaching from the SJR manual for a long time, and seemed a bit detached from the process. I guess it's hard to stay enthusiastic over the long haul, especially when teaching one nut case after another, and being very poorly paid to do so. SJR is NOT a therapy center and has no state license to counsel or treat any disorder. You will receive 1 hr per day of instruction to help you thru their guide to a "better life". With another half hour a day of study you can be #1 in your class. Weekends and the other 22.5 hrs per day are free time, so bring your lap top and reader. Perhaps unfortunately I finished all the course work by myself in about 10 days, which left me with even less to do for the remaining 20 days. 2 weeks is probably about the right duration for a stay at SJR, but of course that would not allow the owner to charge for 30 days. One theme that constantly reoccurs during instruction is that a human will, at the end of the day, do what makes them happiest. This certainly turned out to be true in my case. It was great to sober up for a month, but I went back to my daily tokes and evening martinis almost immediately, since doing so clearly makes me happiest. I did however, over the 30 days I was at SJR, learn that I am in fact in control of my life, and that if I wanted to stop using I could do so with reasonable effort. But as I said, I quickly went back to what makes me happiest, this time with less guilt however, because of what I was taught at SJR. In a word SJR is a good relaxing place to sober up for a month, but don't expect any lasting results unless you are extremely motivated.