Elements Behavioral Acquires Pennsylvania Center Clarity Way

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

02/12/2014 -ATIN – Acquisitive Elements Behavioral has bought yet another addiction treatment enterprise,

adding to what is now a long list of a highly diversified mix of addictions purchases made in the last several years. On the sell side is Justin Daniels, who has a classic “entrepreneur-in-recovery” tale having founded his eastern Pennsylvania Clarity Way as a 20+ bed residential addiction facility just a few short years ago. He has now sold his Clarity Way center to the owner and operator of the famed Promises treatment brand, which just late last year expanded beyond its founding California locale, rebranding as Promises the former Austin area Spirit Lodge that was acquired as part of Elements’ purchase two years ago of The Right Step.

Malibu Model Heads East

As among the very earliest founding treatment enterprises of the Malibu Model of luxury care, it is not surprising that Promises would acquire Clarity Way, which was among the first centers to emulate that model on the East Coast. Other treatment entrepreneurs that have sought to bring the model east have been Peter Schorr with his Retreat at Lancaster and much more recently Joe McKinsey, who brought the model to the Hamptons in New York with his Dunes treatment center. Of course, none of these East Coast centers exactly mirrors what Promises did in Malibu, which is based on the Six-Bed Model unique to California that came out of Promises founder Richard Roggs’ novel and pioneering application of state community mental health legislation. That legislation’s intent was to liberate disadvantaged mentally ill clientele from institutional living situations, not to provide highly profitable luxury medical care operators a way around local zoning restrictions. Of course, Rogg was absolutely correct in his insight that the wealthy have just as much right as the disadvantaged to be liberated from institutional treatment environments. It is exactly in the non-institutional type of facility, and the matching of that with a wide array of highly individualized clinical experiences, through which centers like Clarity Way and The Retreat emulate the Malibu Model.

Quick Exit

For Clarity Way founder Justin Daniels, the sale of his center to Elements is a relatively quick realization on investment for the former general contractor. In fact, there are few treatment entrepreneurs who have realized so quickly in the last twenty years, with Perry Litchfield and his sale of Bayside Marin to CRC Health being another prime example of a quick turnaround play. The “entrepreneur-in-recovery” of which Daniels and Litchfield are prime examples has been by far the leading source of entrepreneurial start-up activity in the for-profit sector of the addiction treatment industry over the past twenty five years, accounting for the overwhelming majority of new center activity in all the major addiction treatment “hubs,” including South Florida, Sol Cal, Arizona and now increasingly in Eastern Pennsylvania.