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My Time Recovery Center, a new drug treatment facility, will be opening in Fresno next month, providing more resources to counter the increasingly dire problem of substance abuse in the Central Valley.

published on March 5, 2018 - 11:04 AM
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A new facility is coming to Fresno aimed at helping those struggling with substance abuse through all the steps involved in recovery.

Located at 1107 W. Rialto Ave. near Shaw and West avenues, My Time Recovery Center is the result of a collaboration between Flindt Andersen, the founder of Parents and Addicts in Need (P.A.I.N.) and the Sample family — parents Scott and Rene and their son, Scotty.

My Time Recovery will be working alongside P.A.I.N. to assist clients through each step towards sobriety. While centers exist in the Valley, Andersen stated that he has recommended the majority of the people he has counseled to facilities out of the area, where he said that there is a better “continuum of care.”

“Not every treatment center works for everybody, so you have to decipher where that person actually is going to fit in,” Andersen said. “We have found that the majority of those places are outside of the San Joaquin Valley.”

The process begins when My Time Recovery initiates residential living for the client. After the detox, they will then be moved to inpatient treatment. Based on their addiction, it can take 30 to 90 days. When this is over, the client will then enter the outpatient program.

Clinical operations for the center will be overseen by Carrie Randazzo, Ph.D., a former psychology professor and lead faculty member at National University in Fresno. Randazzo was approached for the job by Scotty Sample, whom she previously helped in recovery.

One part of the treatment that will be deployed by Randazzo will be neurofeedback. This form of therapy, which involves the reading of a patient’s brainwave frequencies, has been found helpful among patients combating chemical dependency.

“That’s something different at My Time that other sites in Fresno don’t have yet. There are individual counselors and therapists who use neurofeedback in Fresno, but not a recovery center,” Randazzo said. “So we’re adding a specialized modality that others don’t.”

In the outpatient program, a person in recovery will then work with P.A.I.N., which will integrate them into a sober-living environment. My Time Recovery will also work to integrate clients into the sober community of Fresno. This will be carried out through meetings, outings and activities that are free of drugs and alcohol.

Sample and Andersen are both able to draw on personal experience to help others on recovery. Sample is now approximately three and a half years sober after going down a path to addiction that started with a prescription to OxyContin in high school. As for Andersen, he was taking dozens of Vicodin daily, becoming sober after being told that he had only six months to live.

Through personal experience, Andersen and Sample agree that getting clean is the easier part of rehabilitation. The real challenge, however, is in staying off of the substance. This includes resisting triggers — the mental and physical cues that can cause a recovering patient to relapse.

“How do you learn to live clean and sober? How do you learn to deal with those triggers?” Andersen said. “Triggers are an extremely powerful emotion that in the blink of an eye, you can go from clean and sober to using on a street corner again, or using in your bedroom, or whatever the case may be. It takes time for somebody to learn to live in recovery and live well.”

In preparation for a March 5 opening, My Time Recovery will be holding an open house on March 1. They also plan on holding an industry night on March 8 for members of the medical community.

The goal is to improve the sober living infrastructure in town.

“If we’re going to continue to improve the recovery community in Fresno, this is the start,” Andersen said. “Because we’re working with people that are like-minded, that have the same philosophies, that have the same passion — that have the same gift for helping those in recovery.”


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