“Success doesn’t look like what you thought it would look like.
It ends up being something completely different.”
Robert Castan
Successful addiction treatment programs and entrepreneurship? Together, in the same title?
Is that even possible? The answer, surprisingly, is “Yes.” In both the title, and in the world of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The key to the success of any organization whose aim is to put addicts on the road to recovery lies in the motivation, and not many come more motivated than the President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of The Evergreen at Northpoint, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Washington, Robert Castan.
Back in 2010, after finally seeking help for his own addiction (one that nearly led to his death), Robert chose to help others find freedom from addiction as his life’s purpose. From that moment in his life, he has gone on to create highly successful and innovative addiction treatment programs across the western U.S.
In 2014, Robert co-founded Northpoint Recovery in Boise, Idaho. From its inception to the facility layout, marketing campaigns and key team development, Robert oversaw it all. With Northpoint’s growth and success, Robert assumed the position of Chief Operating Officer.
Today, Robert supervises the daily operations of the administrative, marketing and intake teams, as well as assisting in key growth initiatives. As he says in his bio on the website, “I am extremely proud of what we have created at Northpoint Recovery, we get to do something we love and help people change their lives.”
Robert is someone I admire greatly, and, fortunately for me, our paths recently crossed, enabling me the opportunity to ask him about his motivation, his ideas, and how his entrepreneurial skills apply in the field of addiction treatment and recovery. Insightful, informative, honest, and a little heartwarming, here’s what Robert had to say:
Describe your personal motivation in bringing Northpoint Recovery from its inception to fruition?
The main motivation is that addiction treatment in the United States has been fairly institutionalized, with the approach that “one size fits all.” What has happened is that it’s created low insurance reimbursement based on bad outcomes.
So firstly, one of the main reasons for doing what we do every day is we want to see people get better, and we think we are the most equipped to do that. Secondly, we’ve got to change the tone. A lot of insurance companies has come to the conclusion that inpatient treatment is more like a waste of money than a benefit. We wanted to do something different so that it can actually help people.
Also, there were a lot of shady business practices that were happening. We wanted to create a company that people were really excited about, and one that could change the face of addiction treatment in the U.S.
Evergreen at Northpoint is an intensive outpatient (IOP) drug and alcohol rehab facility. What are the benefits of IOP?
First of all, it’s always got to be based on each individual’s need. There are a decent amount of people that wouldn’t always require an inpatient stay before they could actually find lasting recovery. Inpatient is good for people when they’re using drugs and alcohol – they really are in some problematic areas. Typically, they may be ruining people’s lives around them, they may be in very dramatic situations.
So, inpatient gets them out of all of those exterior problems that are holding them back, and it puts them in a controlled environment where we can stabilize them medically, because a lot of people are coming off heroin or alcohol, and wouldn’t be medically stable if they try to do that on their own.
We also combine the socio-physical aspects of it, so we do all of the therapeutic components to meet them wher…
