My Nonprofit Reviews

I have given posting this review much consideration and prayer. I have concluded it is the morally right action to take. Ethically, I am convicted that this information should be shared.

I will construct the following comments in the order of Pros and Cons followed by concluding points. I must mention that my knowledge of SLA is limited to the Southeast region of the US, specifically North Metro Atlanta. I will use the terms “guest(s)” and “client(s)” interchangeably. I will utilize the term “visitor(s)” to indicate those who are on-campus to see clients, i.e. family, friends, partners, etc.

PROS:
-Prior to my stay in SLA, I was warned how trying it would be to get sober and stay sober in SLA. Recovery, I believe, is not for the faint of heart. SLA provides a surplus of additional requirements and difficulties which challenged me to pursue recovery with my whole being. I am stronger for it.
-When I came to SLA, I had no funds, no insurance, and nowhere else to go. There, I found a bed, a roof over my head, access to local food pantries, and eventually a job.
-I built a handful of healthy friendships with people in SLA who were actively pursuing recovery.

CONS:
-I was asked to complete a Google review of the company mentioning my campus the day after my admission, obviously with no experience of the program. It does not surprise me that so many reviews are positive as directors, and guest service employees check to make sure the review was posted. It doesn’t make sense to leave a negative review for a company that warns you upon admission that they make kick you out at any moment.
-SLA promotes 12-step based recovery. Yet, apparently, directors are not required to have thoroughly worked a 12-step program, have significant time engaged in lived sobriety, or be actively working a program.
-Directors often “play favorites” with guests, deciding who they like and dislike. This system is reminiscent of the hierarchical systems of prison rules and relationships. Whoever makes it onto the radar of the director as a less-than-favored person is often punished, held back in curriculum, or discharged. Favored guests frequently break rules with the director’s knowledge and suffer no consequences.
-Directors “borrow” money from guests but never repay them.
-Directors have paid clients for sexual favors then been relieved of the director position only to be placed on staff at a different campus.
-SLA dictates that fraternization should not occur between guests and that guests are not allowed to have visitors in their bedrooms. However, this ruling doesn’t appear to apply to directors, as directors have been known to date one another and even stay several nights in one another’s rooms. Directors are housed on-campus in the same apartments as guests.
-Guests have been known to fraternize with one another or have “visitors” (sexual partners) in their rooms over night. Even with knowledge of this, directors have chosen to make exceptions as it suited them and render no consequences.
-Directors have been suspected of using yet no drug tests were required of them.
-Directors have claimed that guests failed drug tests when no drug test was administered. -Directors were suspected of falsifying drug test failures yet not required to provide proof.
-Clients were restricted from taking necessary, life-improving psychiatric and medicinal medications simply because they would trigger false positives on the cheap urinary drug tests.
-Clients were told they would be discharged as they could not work immediately following near-fatal health issues or severe injuries.
-SLA promotes faith-based, 12-step recovery. However, clients were allowed to skip out on “mandatory” church attendance whenever they liked if the director favored them. Additionally, many recovery meetings were not 12-step based.
-The staff (directors, guest services, and drivers) are not required to have substantial knowledge of or experience with the 12-steps, even though they lead required meetings on the steps and readings from the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Staff would frequently have little understanding of how to apply the steps their own life, opting only to read and re-read materials created by SLA.
-Directors showed little concern for clients exhibiting mentally unstable behavior, including but not limited to untreated bipolar, untreated schizophrenia, paranoia, learning disorders, delayed development, and suicidality. The only time they displayed an ounce of concern was when authorities got involved, not for the individual themselves but for having to relinquish control over the situation.
-SLA seeks the support of local community resources such as food and clothing pantries/donations as well as financial donations from institutions like local churches. Financial donations are typically used to cover the programs dues for living at SLA. However, guests were advised they could only seek these donations through the director. Thus, the director had to approve it. Again, favoritism resulted in clients being denied this resource. Guests that took to seeking their own support without permission were reprimanded or discharged.
-Staff frequently ignored phone calls, texts, and GroupMe messages from clients.
-Drivers exhibited unsafe driving practices and showed aggression towards clients.
-In some instances, directors have known that guests were actively using and/or drinking while in the program. This behavior was allowed to continue without repercussion.

What do these experiences tell me overall about SLA, if I’m basing it on what has occurred at these campuses?
SLA employs inexperienced, unqualified, unprofessional staff. SLA prioritizes financial gain over any genuine concern for the recovery or wellbeing of clients. SLA campus structures and practices excessively resemble the hierarchical social relationships exhibited in prison. SLA staff are spiteful and manipulative, relying on favoritism to judge and rank clients. I would say that SLA is toxic and dangerous. Varying forms of addiction are taking the lives of people everywhere, and this program does so little, if anything at all, to bring any glint of solution to the problem. SLA does not uphold values deserving of its claim of being either 12-step based or faith-based.