Matrix Institute on Addictions has a handful of Southland locations, including West Los Angeles, which exists to help those who misuse, abuse or are addicted to alcohol or drugs (prescription or illicit substances) find a way into recovery; to promote a better understanding of addictions; and to improve the quality and availability of addiction treatment services.
Its mission is to improve the lives of individuals and families affected by alcohol and other drug use by delivering the most effective, outpatient treatment methods and to promote a greater understanding of addiction disorders through education, training, and research.
Executive Director Jeremy Martinez is a board-certified psychiatrist and addictionologist.
His career has included both administration and clinical work in the field of mental health and addictive disorders.
At Matrix, his focus has been to enhance the scope of Medication Assisted Treatment, to further develop the Training Department, and to assure Matrix continues the high-quality treatment services for which it is known.
The Matrix Institute on Addictions offers treatment through the Matrix Model. Can you explain what that is?
Jeremy Martinez: The Matrix Model was developed during the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. This model was developed in order to treat patients with cocaine addiction where traditional 28-day programs weren’t effective.
The model is an outpatient model meaning that people can continue to do work or school while getting treatment. It has a combination of cognitive, behavioral, and other evidence based techniques – meaning techniques that are based on research.
The Matrix Model is based in a research paradigm during the 1980s where a grant from SAMSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), the federal organization that treats drug addiction and funds research, funded a study for us to create a model allowing us to treat cocaine addiction in a unique way.
The Matrix Model is outpatient, uses cognitive, behavioral, and other evidence and research based techniques in order to have higher success rates in treating addiction than traditional treatments.
Can you go into more about it being an outpatient center and what that means?
Jeremy Martinez: Many people when they think of rehab, they think of celebrities going to rehab, people think about in-patient or residential rehab centers where someone goes away and stays for a certain period of time. Often time there’s a common treatment of 30 days in a residential in-patient setting. Research has shown us that neither in-patient, residential, or outpatient on it’s own is superior. In fact the only thing that makes a difference is the length of time a person stays in treatment. For an outpatient model such as ours it is three hours per day, three days a week treatment, which lasts 16 weeks.
From a cost effective standpoint, a person who is spending a certain amount of money on drug treatment, a 16-week program is going to have a better outcome for the same amount spent during a 30-day residential program. That’s one of the big benefits from a research and a cost saving perspective.
You focus on drug and alcohol addiction, has the way those have been treated evolved over the years?
Jeremy Martinez: We started our model based on treating cocaine addiction. We had subsequent funding to look at our model in treating methamphetamine addiction. There was another wave of an epidemic with methamphetamines during the 1990s and our model was shown to be very effective there. We’ve expanded the model and in fact published a couple of new manuals that show how to use this model to treat other drugs and alcohol as well.
Certainly drug use has evolved as time has gone on. Certainly here in California we notice there’s a surge in the use of marijuana and more and more young people coming in for marijuana addiction, which is probably unexpected when thinking about legalization and broadening of the availability of marijuana.
Can you talk about the success that Matrix has seen over the years?
Jeremy Martinez: For treatment in general, after about a year period, most treatments are about 50 percent successful. We found that in folks completing our program it’s about 75 percent successful, which is quite a bit more than treatment as usual.
What’s the first step for someone who has a drug or alcohol addiction?
Jeremy Martinez: If a person considers that perhaps drug and alcohol is becoming out of control in their life, they are welcome to come to our website and give us a call to discuss it. We have a free consultation so anyone can come and discuss this with a counselor free of charge, no commitment is necessary.
Matrix Institute is located at 1849 Sawtelle Blvd #100, Los Angeles. For more information, visit matrixinstitute.org or call 800.310.7700.
