Episode Notes
From the episode description on YouTube (The Saving Dose Podcast), excerpt
Frank runs one of the most honest extended outpatient programs in the country.
He believes the addiction treatment industry has made enormous scientific progress and almost none of it has moved the relapse needle, and he is direct about why: short-term treatment, insurance-driven discharge, and a cultural belief that stabilization equals recovery are producing a predictable failure rate that the industry keeps misreading as patient noncompliance.
You cannot connect with a pill and you cannot connect with artificial intelligence.
- 00:00 Introduction and Frank's background
- 02:08 23 years in addiction treatment: from Phoenix House Brooklyn to CEO
- 04:27 Why the relapse rate has not moved despite decades of scientific progress
- 06:13 Counselor burnout, workforce collapse, and who is leaving the field
- 08:35 Holistic OUD treatment: why medication without therapy is not enough
- 12:09 What AMA blocking is and why patients leave treatment before it works
- 13:07 Consequence fade: why patients stop doing what is working at 90 days
- 19:00 In vivo treatment: doing recovery in real life, not inside a facility
- 26:00 Insurance companies cutting patients at exactly the wrong moment
- 35:00 Medicaid, work requirements, and the socioeconomic reality of OUD
- 38:00 Why Europe is trialing an oral heroin pill and what that means for harm reduction
- 38:53 OUD as a chronic condition: why John compares it to cancer surveillance
- 41:40 Longer duration, decreasing intensity: what the research actually supports
- 42:02 What the perfect OUD treatment center looks like
- 43:03 Detox alone without step-down care is setting patients up to fail
- 45:28 The future of addiction treatment if the therapist workforce keeps shrinking
- 46:05 Connection is the opposite of addiction
- 47:49 Your addiction is constantly telling you you're okay
- 49:15 Closing and how to find Sunview Wellness
About the Guest
Frank Galimidi is the CEO of Sunview Wellness, an extended outpatient addiction treatment program based in West Palm Beach, Florida. He has 23 years of experience in substance use disorder and mental health treatment, beginning at Phoenix House in Brooklyn at age 22. He has held senior executive roles at Sunset House and the Meadows Counseling Center and is a recognized expert in program development, clinical frameworks, and continuum of care.
Life After Rehab: Where Outpatient Care Fits
Summary by the Sunview Wellness team
Much of this episode is about the weeks after someone leaves a residential program, when the pressure of home and work returns and the memory of how bad things were starts to fade. Outpatient care is designed for that stretch. At Sunview Wellness, people live at home and keep coming to scheduled treatment, so what happens between sessions can be talked through while support is still in place. Structure steps down gradually, from partial hospitalization to intensive outpatient to standard outpatient care. The episode also returns to a point that shapes our work: therapy and connection matter alongside any medication. Many people who struggle with substance use are also living with anxiety, depression or trauma, and treating both at the same time is part of building a recovery that holds. You can learn how the step-down works on our outpatient rehab program page and how co-occurring conditions are treated on our dual diagnosis treatment page.
