Phoenix House

Phoenix House is a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, operating in nine states, at over 50 locations.

Phoenix House was founded in the late 1960s when six recovering heroin addicts came together to share a home in New York City. Phoenix House's President, psychiatrist Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D., and addiction counselors from New York City's Addiction Services Agency (ASA) set up a treatment program for the group. The disciplined peer group proved successful in breaking the patterns of drug addiction. Community members reinforced one another's efforts throughout the course of long-term residential treatment.

This therapeutic community model became the basis of the Phoenix House treatment method, which since its start has helped 150,000 people. Long-term studies show that 75 percent of those who complete the program remain drug free, as do a substantial number of those who leave before completion. Phoenix House is now the largest nonprofit recovery organization in the United States, helping 6,000 people a day at treatment centers in California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont.

The Phoenix House treatment programs include Phoenix Academies (residential high schools for teens in recovery), as well as adult residential recovery centers, outpatient programs, after-school programs for teens, and programs for mothers with small children, the mentally ill, and prison inmates. The organization is funded mostly by government contracts, but also receives philanthropic support for a portion of its $100 million annual budget.

Phoenix House also conducts research into drug and alcohol treatment, along with research partners including RAND, Columbia University, New York University, and UCLA.

An affiliate organization, the Center on Addiction and the Family (COAF), works to prevent drug and alcohol abuse, and runs the Facts on Tap education campaign for college students.

Phoenix House was also established in the UK as an entirely separate organisation, though has its origins in the USA based Phoenix House described above. Phoenix House (UK) runs a number of residential rehabilitation units, structured day programmes and is the largest not for profit provider of prison based substance misuse programmes in the UK. In November 2006, Phoenix House (UK) rebranded to trade under the name 'Phoenix Futures', See the website listed below for more details on the organisaitons work.