Treatment for veterans at Carrara happens in a private house on Broad Beach, six clients at the very most, where one clinical team treats PTSD and substance use together.
At Carrara, post-traumatic stress and substance use are assessed in your first days and handled in one plan, by the same therapists and physicians, in the same house. Nobody is asked to get sober first and deal with the trauma later, and nobody is sent somewhere else for the PTSD.
Our article on why PTSD and substance use so often occur together in veterans goes into the mechanics; the short version is on the right.
Trauma-informed care at Carrara means the pace is set with you, nothing in the room is confrontational, and the methods were built for trauma rather than borrowed from general counseling. Three are in use here. EMDR, short for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, helps the brain file memories that keep returning as if they were still happening. Cognitive Processing Therapy, or CPT, works on the beliefs those memories left behind: blame, safety, trust, what you should have done. Somatic Experiencing works through the body, where combat exposure and years on alert tend to live.
Britney Elyse, Carrara’s Director of Compliance and Clinical Services, has more than 15 years of trauma and addiction work behind her, specializes in trauma treated through Somatic Experiencing, and oversees the clinical team and its programming. With as many as 80 individual clinical appointments for each client every month, trauma work moves at the pace you can hold. More in how trauma-informed care changes addiction treatment for veterans.
More than 15 years of mental health and addiction work, and a master’s in clinical psychology from Antioch University. Her specialty is trauma treated through Somatic Experiencing, the body-based method described above.
Many veterans who come here were functioning well, by every outside measure, long after the drinking or the pills had stopped being a choice. Our article on why high-performing veterans put treatment off, and what works takes each of the four below further.
You were trained to handle it. Treatment here is work you do with clinicians who know discipline from avoidance, not something done to you.
Records of substance use treatment sit under a stricter federal rule than the rest of your medical file, 42 CFR Part 2, and no one is told you’re here without a release you’ve signed.
Showing up and performing can go on for years while tolerance rises. A clinical assessment measures dependence, not appearances.
Service injuries and the medication for them are often where dependence began. Carrara’s physicians review every prescription at intake and manage withdrawal here.
You, a spouse or a VA social worker reaches Carrara’s admissions staff directly. Say what you’re using and what your coverage is. If this isn’t the right level of care, they’ll tell you.
A physician evaluation on arrival covers your health, your medications and your use. Detox, when you need it, takes place in your own suite with staff on duty day and night, and residential treatment begins the day you’re stable.
Individual therapy several times a week, psychiatry, and EMDR, CPT or Somatic Experiencing as your plan calls for, with small groups in a house of six.
Family sessions start during your stay, and your aftercare plan is written before you leave: ongoing therapy, VA or community resources near home, and alumni contact.
If you’d rather someone else make the first call, a spouse, a VA counselor or a friend can call for you.
Confidential and HIPAA compliant. Nothing is owed for the call.
Call (888) 383-5207In veterans, alcohol use disorder arrives as a cluster rather than a single event, and the cluster gets read as stress, or as how they’ve been since they came home. These are the four families describe most, out of a longer list of physical and psychological signs of alcohol use disorder in veterans.
A drink that started as the way to get to sleep becomes the way to get through the evening, then the afternoon.
The same amount does less, so the amount climbs; that climb is the clearest physical marker of dependence.
Shaking, sweating, nausea or a spike of anxiety that eases with the first drink. Alcohol withdrawal can be medically dangerous, which is why detox here is supervised, not waited out.
Missed family events, vagueness about amounts, a shorter fuse, and promises to cut down that don’t hold.
Families are part of treatment at Carrara from the first week, not visitors at the end of it. Addiction in a military family rarely belongs to one person: a spouse has been running the household and reading the moods, children have learned when to stay quiet, and everyone has adapted around the drinking. Family therapy sessions, scheduled with your therapist, work on what went unsaid during deployments and after them, how the household will run once you’re home, and what each person can stop carrying.
Adult family members of veterans, a spouse or a grown child, sometimes need treatment themselves, and the same house is open to them. Our article on how addiction affects military families covers the patterns in more depth.
Three questions settle most of it: who is actually on site, how many clients each clinician is responsible for, and whether detox and treatment happen under the same roof. Put them to us and to anyone else you’re considering.
DHCS license #191295AP covers the Malibu house, which is also Joint Commission accredited.
No. Carrara runs one residential program, six clients at most, and veterans are treated within it: trauma-focused therapy, physicians who review service-related medications, and a plan built around your history. If a veterans-only or VA residential program is the better fit, admissions will tell you so before you’ve booked anything.
Sequence and staffing. Sleep and withdrawal are stabilized first, trauma work starts once you can hold it, and the psychiatrist, the therapist and the physician managing your medications read the same plan. Treating one condition and waiting on the other is how veterans end up cycling through programs.
No. You, a family member or a VA social worker can call admissions directly, and the assessment happens on that call. If you’re already working with a VA clinician, Carrara’s team can coordinate with them once you’ve signed a release, but the admission doesn’t wait on paperwork from anyone else.
Yes. Substance use in veterans has many roots: chronic pain and the prescriptions that came with it, the structure that disappeared at separation, moral injury, grief, or drinking that was ordinary in the unit and never stopped. The plan follows your history, not a category, and the trauma work is there if your history calls for it.
Depending on the plan, insurance can help pay for a portion of residential treatment. Which plans contribute, and how much, is decided by the insurers and changes often, so admissions checks your specific coverage before anything is scheduled. You can also send the insurance verification form first, and the insurance coverage page explains how the process works. Military and VA family plans have their own pages: TRICARE and TriWest for service members, retirees and their families, and CHAMPVA for the spouse or child of a veteran with a permanent and total disability rating.
Not from Carrara. Your treatment records fall under HIPAA and under a stricter federal rule written for substance use care, 42 CFR Part 2, so nothing goes to the VA, a command or an employer without a release you sign; the exceptions are narrow and legal, a medical emergency among them. One thing sits outside our control: if you’re active duty, your command is informed through the military health system under Defense Department rules, not by us.
Call for your own sake, or for the veteran in your life. The people who answer work for Carrara, and if somewhere else would do more for you they’ll say so.
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.
