Effective Living Center Inc – Saint Cloud

Ask your agent for any other program than here, and if you’re going willingly, go to a real treatment center. Like many others I have experienced extremely unprofessional counselors who prioritize more billing in any… possible manner, Instead of helping you take accountability for your actions they will take advantage of those in unfortunate situations to keep you longer than necessary. Graduated my program in 2019 so no I’m not bitter, genuinely the last thing on my credit report due to the extreme overbilling.

I attended this treatment center 8 years ago and still think upon the things I learned during my time here. I am greatful this place was the first stepping stone in my recovery journey.

Over recommends

YOU FAIL SOON AS YOU STEP IN THERE!!! You will have to pay more$ to go do more tests or classes I sujest go somewhere else that place playing the $ sistem also told me on phone cost is 140$ when I showed up it was 180$

Nope.

Beware of this place. MRT (Moral Reconation Therapy) is quite harmful and is predicated on the notion that "every problem you have in your life is your own fault," among other contrived and callous platitudes. There is… absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging accountability here, but none of this is evidence-based medicine. The final nail in the coffin for me was hearing a counselor suggest that a survivor of sexual assault, as part of their assignment, try and explore a way that they *could have* responded to childhood sexual abuse as opposed to the way in which said person actually did, with the subtext suggesting that they couldn't even be a victim correctly and as a consequence this also contributed to their moral deficiencies as an adult. This is deeply offensive, heartless and in fact quite harmful. MRT is not based upon any well-established body of tested, peer-reviewed evidence and is instead a proprietary curriculum; people are not even allowed to purchase their reading materials without ponying up a fee and being themselves indoctrinated as an MRT "counselor." Ironically, because a few skewed and ethically suspect reviews (conducted by the very people who invented this pseudotherapeutic farce) concluded that it reduced the rate of recidivism, it somehow found its way to getting SAMHSA approval, which lends it a degree of credibility it has not truly earned. As one author very accurately described it, calling MRT a type of cognitive behavioral therapy is essentially the same as calling homeopathy medicine. It stretches the entire application of the term so far that it makes the attribution meaningless. I will say the actual psychologists here -- the ones that went to school and studied evidence-based medicine -- are top quality in stark contrast to the counselors that coughed up $600 to go to a training seminar that superficially indoctrinates them to shame an already downtrodden demographic. Bottom line: if you or a loved one are seeking help here or are court-ordered to do treatment, STAY AWAY from this place and any other that sell the psychobabble snake oil that is MRT. It's harmful, fallacious pseudoscience and you will be worse off for it.

This place is all about INCREASING BILLABLE HOURS. They will try to put you in as many groups as you can possibly handle. When I started at ELC I was going to 13 hours of programming every week. The owner Craig is a… dry-drunk who still smokes cigarettes. So he hasn't even got his addiction issues under control, but I should take my cues from you? Their are much better CD/MH places to choose from in the STC area. This place will steal your soul.

There program is not a bad one but they do seem to kick people out near the end....especially hard on court-ordered clients who must re-enroll, repay fees and re-take classes. I personally was never discharged from the… program but I know three people who were. One was discharged for having the nerve to go to emergency room on class day, one for attending their parole meeting and one for showing up for court instead of group. Made me feel the whole thing is a scam and I now only recommend people to Recovery Plus.