Addiction in executives seldom looks the way people picture it, and neither does treatment at Carrara: a private house in Malibu where six clients is the limit, and clinicians who have treated people still running something.
Addiction in executives usually starts as a solution. A drink that takes the edge off a 14-hour day, a stimulant that gets the board deck finished by morning, a sleeping pill because the mind won’t stop at 1 a.m. Each works for a while, which is exactly why it’s hard to see as a problem, and why the executive rehab program deals with the career, the privacy statutes and the substance together.
Then the job protects the habit. Money removes the friction that slows other people down, a calendar nobody questions hides the afternoons, and the people who might say something report to you. Whether you’re C-level, a partner or a founder, substance use support for executives starts from one fact: the career isn’t the backdrop to the problem. It’s part of the mechanism.
Similar pressure in each field; a different substance, a different hiding place, and different stakes.
Alcohol and cocaine around deals, deadlines and markets that open before dawn. See addiction among financial services executives.
Producers, agents and studio executives in an industry that treats substances as part of the job. Read about addiction among entertainment industry leaders.
Stimulants for focus, alcohol for the comedown, and a culture that calls an 80-hour week normal. See tech executive addiction.
Physicians, nurses and healthcare executives with direct access to prescription opioids and benzodiazepines, and a license at stake. More in the questions below.
The company is you, there’s nobody to delegate to, and burnout and substance use arrive together. See rehab designed for founders and entrepreneurs.
Succession, legacy and a board that shares your last name. Our family business addiction page covers recovery alongside the company.
High-functioning is the problem, not the reassurance. Someone still closing deals and still chairing the meeting can be in serious trouble. These patterns show first, if anyone is looking.
Output stays high, and the late nights look like commitment. Then a project slides and a big meeting gets moved, and it reads as a bad quarter rather than a pattern.
Hotel bars and time zones hide drinking that would be obvious at home. Trips get added that the business didn’t ask for.
Something for sleep, something for anxiety, something for focus. Each is legitimate on its own. Nobody is looking at the set.
A leader who used to spread the work now keeps it close, because handing it over means being seen up close.
“Only at client dinners.” “Only after the close.” “Never before six.” Rules appear because the drinking already needs managing. Our guide to rehab for a high-functioning executive who drinks starts here.
Performance is the last thing to go, which is why the people closest to a high-functioning executive are usually the last to be sure. Carrara Treatment Center, Malibu
Stimulant use in high-pressure careers usually begins as a work tool, not a night out. Prescription stimulants taken past the prescription, cocaine around a closing, and compounds sold online as “research chemicals” or nootropics all promise the same thing: more hours, more focus, more output.
The promise doesn’t hold. Tolerance builds, so the dose climbs. Sleep goes, then appetite, then judgment, and the comedown gets handled with alcohol or a sedative, which is how one habit becomes two or three. Synthetic stimulants made outside any regulated supply, the cathinones among them, vary in strength from batch to batch, so the same amount can act very differently on two days.
At Carrara, stimulant use is treated as a medical problem and a psychological one at once. Withdrawal, mostly exhaustion, low mood and sleep that won’t settle, is watched by the medical team in the house. The therapy works on the belief underneath: that you can’t perform without it.
You decide who learns you’re here. Federal law gives substance use treatment records a stricter shield than other medical records get, and California adds protections of its own; both statutes are set out on the executive program page. In practice it’s short: Carrara doesn’t confirm you’re a client to an employer, a board, a regulator or a relative unless you have put that person’s name on a release you signed, apart from the narrow exceptions the law spells out.
Treatment at Carrara is residential. You live at the house on Broad Beach in Malibu for your stay, medical detox and everything after it happen in the same rooms with the same team, and up to 80 individual appointments with your clinicians each month are built around you. The Malibu house holds DHCS license #191295AP.
The clinical team is overseen by Britney Elyse, Clinical Director: more than 15 years in addiction and mental health treatment, a specialty in trauma using Somatic Experiencing, and years in music management before she became a therapist, working with musicians affected by addiction. For work access, leave and the amenities, read how the executive program works.
Withdrawal is managed medically in your own suite, with the medical team watching you around the clock, and the same clinicians stay with you once it’s over.
Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and trauma-related conditions are worked on alongside the substance use inside one plan, not after it. More on dual diagnosis care for high achievers.
One-on-one sessions carry much of your clinical week, using CBT, EMDR or Somatic Experiencing as they fit you, with family sessions when they help.
A plan written before you leave covers ongoing therapy, meetings or AA alternatives for executives and other professionals, and support at home. Carrara arranges at-home sober companions through third-party providers.
The person who answers works on Carrara’s admissions team, and the call commits you to nothing.
Confidential. Someone else can call on your behalf: a partner, an assistant, your doctor.
Call (888) 383-5207These questions come up on nearly every first call, so each has its own guide. None of it is legal advice.
How a CEO takes confidential leave for treatment when the usual leave laws don’t fit, and what a board needs to hear.
How your job and your legal rights hold up when you seek rehab, and what an employer may and may not do while you’re away.
Whether a California employer has to offer rehab before firing you, and where the Labor Code draws the line.
Whether a background check can show drug rehab. Usually not, and the guide explains the exceptions.
Using your Employee Assistance Program confidentially, without the request becoming a conversation at work.
Remote work during inpatient rehab: the policies, the risks, and when a case-by-case arrangement fits.
How patterns pass down through wealthy families, and how multigenerational family dynamics are worked with in treatment.
Sibling dynamics in addiction recovery: rivalry, loyalty, and the sibling who has been covering for years.
An intervention built for a high-net-worth family, where losing a job isn’t the lever and legacy often is.
Rehab for executives at Carrara means residential treatment in a private Malibu house that holds six clients: the same clinical program every client gets, with privacy and any contact with work arranged around it. Luxury rehab for executives here means a suite of your own, the chef’s kitchen and the spa, all scheduled around the clinical day. The detail is on executive rehab programs in Malibu.
Yes. Addiction in healthcare professionals has its own shape: prescription opioid addiction in healthcare workers often begins with access rather than a party, benzodiazepines follow long shifts, and the license makes asking for help feel impossible. Treatment is the same residential program. Your license, any monitoring program and a return to practice belong in the first conversation.
No. Carrara is a residential program. If outpatient or intensive outpatient care suits your situation more, admissions says so during the call and points you toward it.
It can, for a share of it. Each insurer decides what its plans put toward residential treatment, and those decisions move around, so admissions looks at your plan when you call. Our guide to insurance coverage for luxury rehab has the detail.
Call anyway. Addiction services for executives tend to get used late, after the quarter that slipped or the meeting that got moved. If what you describe doesn’t need residential treatment, admissions will tell you that too.
Call for yourself or for the person you’re worried about. Admissions answers directly, keeps what you say private, and will say plainly if a different kind of program would serve you better, and where to find it.
If this is an emergency, call 911. For free confidential support 24 hours a day, call or text 988.
This page is general information, not medical advice.
