WELLINGTON RETREAT MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL TORTURE WEST PALM BEACH Florida

I agree with your comments about this low budget place.  Wellington retreat some might call it Hellington was that absolte worst experiance ever.  The staff treated me as if were a child and I am 45. The doctor has no regard for his patients putting them on  medications that are not nessary and taking patients complely off of there reguar medication.  This place will be closed because of how poorly and unstilled the staff and this doctor is. I would not recomend this treatment center. The staff are manipulatting mind playing lieing and have no regard for the wellbeing of the patients.  It's an adult baby sitting service that comes with a lot of unnessary headachs. This facility caused more stress then it was even worth. Save yourself time and money. Do not even give this place a second thought. The doctor gives his patients lettuce and tomato sanwiches if they don't go to groups and the food (when they feed you) is horrible.  The living quarters in the PHP program are at a mold infested hotel sharing rooms with other dirty  patients. You can only was your clothes once per week and forget about making a phone call to your family for about a month.  There is nothing special about this place. Infact the worst ever. I never take the time to comment and for me to do so says a lot. Do not waste your money say far away from Wellington Retreat and Dr. Robert Moran.

Addicts are extremely prone to lie, steal and cheat to get their drug(s) of choice.

Your interfenence with the staff was an extremely poor idea and sends the wrong message to your son.  Do you still think it's okay if your son decides which rules to follow and which ones to ignore?

"My child stated that most of the yong people in transitional housing would actually sneak out the back windows at night and no one ever knew"

I'm curious, just how old is this "child?"

Why would he tell you that most of the "inmates" would escape out the windows at night?  Did he get caught and was trying to justify his actions? Your choice to get him outside help was a wise one.  DON'T undermine the treatment.

In summary, an addict will do ANYTHING to deceive YOU/ANYONE and obtain their next "fix".  They STEAL from friends AND family.

Hope things work out for you and your son.  It IS a very difficult process. 

My daughter was a patient at Wellington Retreat too and I have to say reading this post really upset me.  I think the best thing we can do as parents is realize we are not qualified to help a child dealing with mental illness, overcoming an addiction, …  when I finally realized this her recovery started.

Like any parent I researched and interviewed a lot of places in Florida and Wellington Retreat was where we ended up.  Admitting her was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I knew if I didn’t I was going to lose my daughter.  January last year my 16 year old wanted to end her life.  She said she could not go into counseling for 45 minutes then walk out and expect to face the life she struggled every day to get out of bed and face; and she did not understand why.

At first I had a hard time with the rules too but overtime I understood them. 

-        You had to be on the parent call if you wanted to have your family meeting and speak/see your child = accountability and responsibility of what is important.  We preach it to our kids, why can’t we lead by example.

-        Calls were supervised = yes our kids manipulate us, especially ones dealing with mental illness and drug addiction.  They did it to get what they wanted for short term happiness for so long, and we bought into it.   I saw this first had with kids saying how awful it was and begging parents to come get them.  The strong ones that left them in saw their kids start to get better in a matter of  time.

-        Pushing our kids to talk, and challenging their feelings head on= making them face their fears and address what they were facing.  They can ONLY start getting better once they get all their pain and suffering out that has got them to this place.   

Once I saw all this working I began to understand that admitting her saved her life and Dr. Moran and the team gave me back my daughter better and stronger.  In fact the family counseling offered weekly has made us a stronger family too.  This May will be a year that she came home and to this day I recommend Wellington Retreat to anyone and everyone and speak to the place that saved my daughter.  I know if I placed her anywhere else we would not have the same results.  The treatment is intense, but they balance it with a LA Fitness memberships, outings on the weekends to the beach, etc so they don’t feel like they are being punished or in an institution, but still have somewhat out of an outside life while working on themselves.

It’s hard, I get it, but at some point we have to realize that admitting WE are not qualified as parents to deal with certain illnesses and let the experts do it helps us all.