Malibu,
A ten-acre ocean-view estate treating addiction as a symptom of four underlying causes, with no twelve-step content.
Passages Malibu is defined by an ideological position rather than a clinical one. It rejects the disease model of addiction and the twelve step framework outright, treats addiction as a symptom of four underlying causes, and does not label clients addicts or alcoholics. That position sits outside the mainstream of United States addiction medicine.
The clinic opened in 2001 on a ten-acre estate overlooking the Pacific, and the programme is delivered largely through individual sessions: the clinic advertises at least 14 to 19 individual sessions a week and 60 to 70 hours of one-to-one treatment a month, across psychiatry, psychotherapy, chemical dependency counselling, marriage and family therapy, acupuncture, hypnotherapy and physical training. Group methods also appear on the clinic's own treatment pages, including two weekly process groups.
Accommodation runs from private suites to semi-private bedrooms that house two clients with two beds and a shared bathroom, so a paying client may share a room. The estate holds a main house plus four further named houses, with a shared lobby, library, gardens, pool, hot tub, tennis court and gym. No clinician is named on any public page, and no licence number is published for any address.
No medical director, psychiatrist or clinical director is named on any public page. The clinic states that it employs medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed marriage and family therapists, chemical dependency counsellors, acupuncturists and hypnotherapists, and names none of them.
No registration, board certification or state licence number is published for any clinician.
Typically two to seven days
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Medically supervised withdrawal in detox suites on the estate. The medical doctor designs a customised detox with medications after reviewing medical history and allergies, and a nurse is present 24 hours a day. Detox is positioned as removing the chemical component of the four-cause model and flows directly into the residential programme.
Typically 30 to 90 days
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The flagship programme. The clinic advertises at least 14 to 19 individual sessions a week and 60 to 70 hours of one-to-one treatment a month across psychotherapy, medical sessions, chemical dependency counselling, family therapy and body-based modalities, with no twelve step content. Group methods including two weekly process groups also appear on the treatment pages.
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A partial hospitalisation step-down at the operator's Ventura County outpatient facility for clients leaving residential care, or an entry point for those without a residential need. The clinic states that the treatment team there is familiar with the client's history, and that prices vary.
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Continuation care at lower intensity at the same Ventura County facility, allowing a return to work and family while maintaining therapeutic contact, and serving clients who cannot commit to residence. Prices are stated to vary and no figure is published.
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Supported accommodation for post-residential transition, staffed by the clinic's own team members, with price varying by location, length of stay and whether the room is private or semi-private. Sober living is not a licensed category in California, so no facility licence covers it.
No public price found.
Review volume is adequate and spread across platforms. Trustpilot shows 4.8 from 50 reviews on a claimed profile, 94 percent of them five-star, with one review in the last twelve months and no recent history of the company inviting reviews. Visible one-star reviews from 2019 and 2023 raise medication management, staffing levels and facility condition, and the company replies to them. A consumer listing carries 77 reviews, and a treatment directory carries 4.3 from 96. No Google rating or count could be independently verified, so none is stated here. Volume is not the same as provenance. A federal court ruling of 1 July 2019 found that the operating company had itself run websites presented as independent, which is the reason this profile does not treat the aggregate picture as settled.
Review volume is adequate and spread across platforms. Trustpilot shows 4.8 from 50 reviews on a claimed profile, 94 percent of them five-star, with one review in the last twelve months and no recent history of the company inviting reviews. Visible one-star reviews from 2019 and 2023 raise medication management, staffing levels and facility condition, and the company replies to them. A consumer listing carries 77 reviews, and a treatment directory carries 4.3 from 96. No Google rating or count could be independently verified, so none is stated here. Volume is not the same as provenance. A federal court ruling of 1 July 2019 found that the operating company had itself run websites presented as independent, which is the reason this profile does not treat the aggregate picture as settled.
A national television programme devoted a segment on 21 May 2018 to the treatment industry and singled out this clinic over its claim that clients leave cured and will never use drugs or alcohol again. A magazine feature of 12 February 2020 reported the litigation between two Malibu operators and the allegations each made about the other's marketing. No first-hand bylined reporting from inside the facility was found.
None located. The clinic's home page repeats a first place ranking from a trade title's 2012 list as a current rating.
A ten-acre private estate overlooking the Pacific in Malibu, with further Passages addresses on Sycamore Meadows and Meadows Court appearing in city records. The clinic's own tours name a Main House with lobby, library, gardens and tennis court, a lavender garden, and Vista House, Clearview, Seaview and Sycamore houses. Private suites carry panoramic ocean views, a queen bed, an en suite bathroom, an in-room safe, a phone and dedicated office space with high-speed internet, a television, closet and dressers, an aromatherapy diffuser, daily housekeeping and 24-hour resident support. Clients keep their phones and laptops. Semi-private bedrooms are also a published tier, with two queen beds and a shared en suite bathroom for two clients. Amenities include an ocean-view swimming pool, a hot tub, a tennis court and a fully equipped gymnasium with a personal trainer. The estate is converted luxury residential property rather than purpose-built clinical stock, and the clinic publishes no room count and no bed count for any address. Reviews from 2019 and 2023 include complaints about facility condition and staffing levels alongside a majority of positive reports.
A gourmet chef is stated to prepare meals on the estate, and nutritious gourmet meals appear as a listed amenity of the residential programme. That is the whole of what is published. No chef is named and no culinary credential is claimed. No nutritionist or dietitian is named on staff. Blood analysis on arrival is said to lead to a plan to address any imbalances, but no nutrition professional is attached to that plan, no assessment method is described, and no monitoring during the stay is published. There is no dietary or micronutrient testing protocol driving the menu and no published hygiene inspection result. Food here is an amenity rather than a clinical modality, and it is documented as one.
Headline basis: Public evidenceThe headline number is the public score, not the extended score., LROAS 1.0.0, edition 2026-10-01
Public-evidence total: 35
The sum of the ten criterion scores, from 10 to 100, using evidence anyone can check, including the clinic's own pages as self-declared statements. For the licence element of C2 only, it can also use an authority ruling held in our sealed evidence room. It is the only number used for the rank.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium. ProvisionalA check was still open when the edition closed, for example a register lookup or a video not yet received, or evidence under embargo.: none.
The standard offer includes a published semi-private bedroom tier with two clients per room and a shared en suite bathroom, and the programme includes group work, among it two weekly process groups; pool, hot tub, tennis court and gym are shared. That combination is band 2 exactly. The band above needs single occupancy as the standard offer or no group programme, which is not published. No deduction applies because the clinic publishes no capacity statement; per-address capacity figures on the state register are not used as a signal.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: low
The clinic states a California DHCS licence as an adult residential alcohol and drug programme, and the DHCS register lists Grasshopper House LLC at 6428 Meadows Court with a residential detox programme code and incidental medical services. A board-certified addiction medicine physician is stated to lead the medical team, on-site medically managed withdrawal is described with detox suites and round-the-clock nursing, and Joint Commission accreditation is recorded under the operating company. Band 7 needs three elements beyond licence and physician lead, and only two are met: overnight cover is registered nursing, not a physician or psychiatrist, no hospital route is named, no non-psychiatric physician care is described and no defined complex-psychiatry programme is published.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
Blood and urine analysis on arrival (metabolic panel, thyroid, blood count, lipids) leads to a plan to address imbalances, and a medical evaluation precedes detox. That is the only diagnostic element counted: the full evaluation is attributed to an unnamed physician, so examination elements that require a named physician or psychiatrist for the site cannot be counted, and no written formulation is published. Higher bands need further counted elements.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
The clinic advertises at least 14 to 19 individual sessions a week and 60 to 70 hours of one-to-one treatment a month, with weekly medical sessions and several weekly sessions with doctoral-level psychologists. The advertised team mixes clinicians with an acupuncturist, hypnotherapist, spiritual counsellor and physical trainer, so the session figures cannot be read as clinical contact. No dedicated clinical team is established for the standard offer and the group share is not published, which keeps the clinic at band 4.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
Four aftercare elements are published: weekly meetings with a continuing care specialist and a written aftercare plan on graduation, step-down partial hospitalisation and intensive outpatient care at the operator's Ventura County site, the operator's own staffed sober living homes, and connection with therapists at home. The band above needs a further element such as a defined aftercare duration or structured contact over months, which is not published.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
One integrity violation is recorded: the clinic's own June 2026 article framed as a guide to the best luxury rehab in Malibu names only the operator's two facilities. The home page also presents a trade title's 2012 top-ten list as a current number one rating. No positive signal is met: the cost page declines to state prices, and no referral-fee position or admission policy is published. One violation with no positive signal gives band 3. A 2019 court finding on websites presented as independent is scored under C8, not counted again here.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: high
Two transparency elements are met: the operating company Grasshopper House LLC with its Malibu address, and the regulatory category stated on the site. No licence or accreditation number or register link, no fee inclusions, payment or refund terms, no complaints route and no record retention period are published. Ownership is not disclosed although the state register shows other LLCs holding licences at houses attributed to the clinic; no deduction applies because the clinic makes no ownership statement that the register contradicts. Two elements give band 3.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
In the operator's own Lanham Act suit (US District Court, Central District of California, 2:18-cv-00923), the court found after a bench trial that the operator had built websites presented as independent; the Ninth Circuit memorandum of 20 August 2021 affirmed in part and remanded on disgorgement and fees without disturbing that finding, and the remand falls within five years. With a deceptive-marketing finding within five years and no statutory inspection or comparable standing evidence dated after it, the band is 4. A 2017 state jury verdict on employment claims against the operating entities is recorded but is not an outcome of that kind; accreditor surveys are not statutory inspections.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: high
Environment and safety reaches band 5: a ten-acre estate with gardens, pool, tennis court and gym, daily housekeeping, 24-hour resident support and family visits. Time to an emergency department is not met: the drive from 6428 Meadows Court to Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center is 33 minutes, above the 30-minute threshold. Nutrition reaches only band 2, because meals are described as gourmet with no nutrition professional, assessment method or monitoring. The mean of 5 and 2 is 3.5, rounded to 4.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: medium
No clinician is named on the clinic's pages: the medical lead is an unnamed board-certified addiction medicine physician, psychotherapy is by unnamed doctoral-level psychologists, and the team is listed by role only. With no named clinician there is nothing to verify on a professional register, so the verified-team score is zero and the band is 1. Any higher band needs named clinicians whose registration can be confirmed.
ConfidenceHow well the evidence supports the score.: low
The clinic publishes no price. Its own cost page states directly that it cannot disclose specific costs, citing variation by programme, length of stay, insurance coverage and suite type. Monthly estimates circulate elsewhere, attributed in our record to no named publication or directory and never confirmed by the clinic, so we do not carry them. The clinic publishes the marks of most major United States carriers and offers online insurance verification without stating whether it is in network, and it operates a lower-cost sister facility in Ventura County.
On a ten-acre private estate in Malibu, California, with the primary address at 6428 Meadows Court. Two further Passages addresses on Sycamore Meadows and Meadows Court appear in City of Malibu records. The clinic's own tours name a Main House with lobby, library, gardens and tennis court, a lavender garden, and Vista House, Clearview, Seaview and Sycamore houses. Amenities include an ocean-view pool, a hot tub, a tennis court and a fully equipped gym.
Affluent adults seeking addiction treatment outside the twelve step and disease-model framework. Clients are not labelled addicts or alcoholics, and addiction is treated as a symptom of four underlying causes rather than as a disease. It suits people who want an intensive individual course, an advertised 60 to 70 hours a month, and who are comfortable with a philosophy that departs from mainstream United States addiction medicine. It is not positioned as a standalone psychiatric clinic, and anyone who needs a room of their own should confirm the accommodation tier before admission.
Admissions specialists are available 24 hours a day, with confidential intake and online insurance verification. Screening establishes detox need, medical and chemical status and the appropriate level of care across detox, residential, day treatment, intensive outpatient and sober living, and determines whether the client takes a private suite or a semi-private bedroom. A medical evaluation follows on arrival, together with blood and urine analysis. No waiting time is published.
Clients meet a continuing care specialist weekly during treatment and receive a written aftercare plan on graduating, with the clinic connecting them to therapists at home and to alumni resources. A step-down continuum sits inside the same operator: a partial hospitalisation and intensive outpatient facility in Ventura County, and sober living homes staffed by the clinic's own team, priced separately. The clinic's published rehabilitation rate above 80 percent measures clients only 30 days after treatment, so it is not evidence of durable outcomes.