Curt Maddon has worked in the field of addiction recovery since 2003 for two excellent long-term drug rehab and alcohol treatment centers. Prior to any of this, Curt spent 10 years, from 1990 to 2000 in a state of chronic relapse on drugs and alcohol, and nearly died several times. On October 23, 2000, he was given the gift of permanent recovery, one day at a time, through a loving God, a 12-step program, a lot of patient and loving people, and the  accountability of a home group and a men’s meeting.

Curt’s professional career spans back to 1980, mostly as an entrepreneur running small businesses, only to lose them to drinking and using. He also has 15 years of experience as a private investigator, working insurance claims in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque. In 1998, he decided to reinvent himself and enrolled in a Cisco Academy in Albuquerque, studying network systems while running a small business designing and installing client server and networking products and services. During this time, he completed a contract for an upstart super long-term drug rehab for young adults in Arizona and after two years of sobriety, he began working for the treatment center full-time. That’s where it began. “I got into this field against my will,” Curt jokes, “but apparently God had other plans, because what I found was a perfect outlet for my passion of helping others, and I’ve never once regretted the career change.” Within four years, he was the Executive Director of the same facility, which by this time had over 110 beds in two countries and two US states.

Curt Maddon left this drug rehab facility in 2006, did some consulting for a year, mostly at a very long-term rehab very similar to the previous place which has two facilities in Texas. By August of 2007, he was hired as its Chief Operating Officer. In October of 2010, he was named CEO. Seeking a change that involved working more directly with other industry professionals, and particularly addicts and their families, Curt resigned his position in late 2011 and began working in the field of treatment marketing/admissions and consulting.

Curt will be the first to tell you, he’s a died-in-the-wool, Big Book thumping, 12-step guy, and a non-clinical drug rehab professional. A chronic relapser, his story is one of tremendous multiple failures to get sober, dating back to 1990. In October of 2000, 45 lbs. underweight and nearly dead, he crawled back into the recovery community willing to do whatever the people whose care he immediately placed himself in told him to do. He hasn’t had a drink or a drug since. “But I’ve made just about every mistake in the book,” Curt says, “before, during and after I entered into recovery.” All very painful experiences that at times he says God and God alone got him through, he also recounts the joy and gratitude that comes with recovery, and wouldn’t change a thing about his experiences. He now has a purpose – to continue to fit himself to be of service to God and the people about him. He knows why his life was spared – so that he may help others.

Because of his personal experience and exposure to the excellent programs he was employed by, Curt Maddon has developed into a consummate treatment professional. He firmly believes that a good rehab facility has a long-term plan for each of its clients – one of high accountability and full 12-step immersion. It is not enough to provide clinical treatment to an addict, a center must break down the barriers of resistance, enroll the client in a way of life themed in constant improvement, and follow the case through the early recovery process. Curt states, “Early recovery is where things go wrong, where without commitment to obligations people get off track. Where they awake one morning and decide they don’t have to call their sponsor as agreed, and they can skip that 12-step meeting they planned on. Next thing they know, they’re calling up some old friends who use, with no plan to use, but, unknown to them, wanting to steal a little vicarious pleasure from that old lifestyle, fooling themselves that they won’t go back to it.” All the while, becoming increasingly deluded. The amazing feature of this disease is that the mind, through the portals of self-pity, envy, greed and many other things obscures the horrible events of the last using episode. A mental twist that, while obscuring the horrors, actually comes up with an awesome plan to use complete with the insane notion that it will be different this time.

People in early recovery don’t always see the reality of the onset of relapse behaviors, and if they do, they discount them. What works is to have people around them who see it plain as day, and who are willing to tell them the truth. A structured support system that works as a power greater than oneself will carry many an addict through obscurity from God, until they feel the sunlight once again. It’s in those periods of darkness, sober darkness, that many give up, go back to the scene of the crime and pick up a drink or a drug  – the shortcut to relief that kills. But for the real alcoholic or addict, the times where the substance brought relief has likely passed, along with the ability to stop. Then there is only misery and suffering. Not just for him or her, but for everyone who loves him or her. Curt has lived both sides of this, and firmly believes more can be done to help people through the pitfalls of early recovery.

It’s not the people who drink or drug to excess having never had a taste of recovery that Curt is the most concerned about. While that is of course alarming, it is the person who keeps bouncing in and out of sobriety that worries him. It’s like playing Russian roulette, you don’t know which chamber the bullet is in of the gun you keep pointing at your own head. But there’s one in there.

A life dedicated to working on the firing line of recovery is a life well spent. Curt Maddon takes this to heart each day, so that some may experience the joy of a purposeful and meaningful life. He takes each inquiry seriously, and over the years has talked with thousands of families of addicts and addicts themselves. This is where his passion is, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing.

For help, call 800.682.0824 now.