Since the middle of January 2025, I have been mapping out the reviews for 100’s of addiction treatment facilities and sober living homes. What I am seeing is alarming. People are reviewing several of the same locations repeatedly. Before I get into my findings, let me get into how I collected my data. I started mapping out the reviews for Patient Zero, Yellowstone Ranch Recovery. I noticed that people who reviewed them had reviewed at least one other addiction treatment facility. The owners also own Freedom House Recovery. The people who reviewed Freedom House Recovery also reviewed at least one other addiction treatment facility. So I started single-handedly mapping out the review profiles and facilities they reviewed. I have mapped out 557 out of 790 locations. I have mapped out 3,672 review profiles at the time of this post.
Before I get into my findings, allow me to explain how I compiled my list. I looked at the reviews that were posted for these businesses less than three years ago. I looked at the review profiles for people who posted less than 30 reviews. If a business appeared twice, it was added to the location list. I only looked at reviews posted less than three years ago because that is when the patterns started.
What I found
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve noticed a significant rise in people reviewing at least two facilities over the past three years. While I understand that people relapse and it’s normal for people to need to reenter addiction treatment, these stats are beyond abnormal. Businesses were either encouraging patients to review all of their locations or they were shuffling patients between different facilities. They call this the Florida Shuffle. What I saw were signs of people being flown from Washington to Florida, as well as from Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma to facilities in California. These facilities could be running paid ads on Google or relying on body brokers. Body brokers get paid a commission to find people needing treatment or a place to stay and send them to a facility. Some of the negative reviews mention dumping people off at parks and in parking lots once their insurance is maxed out or declined. One psychiatrist is supposedly overseeing 18 facilities from San Diego to Orange County. One facility is under new ownership, and the previous owner is being sued by the FTC.
There are several industries I do not like to work in, and addiction treatment is on that list. I worked for Landmark Recovery from April 2022 until my layoff on March 3rd, 2023. In July, I launched Landmark Recovery Sucks, where I document all of the issues with Landmark. I have been told firsthand what happens inside these facilities. While I am sure some facilities care about patients, a majority care more about profits. There is a lot of money to be made in addiction treatment.
While I looked at the reviews for addiction treatment and sober living homes, there were some interesting outliers. I saw a cannabis shop, a vape shop, a tax consultant, a dentist, and a family fun center show up multiple times. I also identified at least two businesses that either purchased or swapped reviews. While I started looking at locations in Southern California, my list grew to include additional states. Here are the states and how many times they have shown up:
Alaska 1
Arizona 8
Arkansas 2
California 403
Colorado 47
Delaware 3
Florida 185
Georgia 10
Idaho 3
Illinois 7
Indiana 8
Kentucky 5
Louisiana 2
Maryland 2
Massachusetts 5
Mississippi 1
Nebraska 1
Nevada 5
New Jersey 26
New Mexico 5
New York 2
North Carolina 1
Ohio 8
Oklahoma 4
Oregon 1
Pennsylvania 15
Tennessee 12
Texas 15
Virginia 1
Washington 3
I had initially planned to release this data once I was finished, but I am adding more facilities than I can map in a day. For each facility I map, I am adding two to three new facilities. I know that I will eventually hit the end, but I don’t know when that will be.
Who made the list the most
Here are the businesses that showed up the most:
All In Solutions 252 times across four locations
Alter Behavioral Health 168 times across eight locations
Banyan 207 times across 12 locations
Boca Recovery Center 126 times across two locations
Clean Recovery Centers 263 times across five locations
Legacy Healing Center 124 times across four locations
The Embers Recovery 117 times across three locations
A few of the above businesses operate in multiple states. I have not mapped out all of their locations. Flyland Recovery Network has eight brands under its parent company. All nine facilities made my list:
Flyland Recovery Network was reviewed 20 times
Aurora Recovery Center was reviewed 20 times
Beacon Recovery Center was reviewed 30 times
Daylight Recovery Center was reviewed 33 times
Ember Recovery Center was reviewed 20 times
Kandela Recovery Center was reviewed 25 times
Prisma Recovery Center was reviewed 29 times
Radar Recovery Center was reviewed 14 times
Skylight Recovery Center was reviewed 4 times
Skylight appears to have recently opened and only has 14 Google reviews. Those four reviews account for 28% of their total reviews. Flyland Recovery Network operates in three states: California, Florida, and Ohio. They are planning on opening another facility in Ohio. They recently hired a former Landmark Recovery employee.
Here is the list of businesses and locations I have mapped out. Here is the list of mapped and unmapped locations.
Whatever is happening in the addiction treatment space needs to be investigated. The fact that I can uncover these signs and others can’t is alarming. These practices have been going on for a little over two years. They all had to learn this from someone and are now sharing the plan. Do these businesses prioritize helping people or simply filling the beds?
