Interview with Adam Multz, CEO

We sat down with Diamond Recovery CEO Adam Multz to ask him some important questions about what motivated him dedicate his life to helping others.

What was the inspiration behind starting your substance abuse treatment center Diamond Recovery?

There are so many different moments that have occurred in my life and my career that ultimately led me to start this company.

The initial spark in my personal life happened when I was just 16 years old. I was able to comprehend that my brother, who was my best friend, was struggling with substance use in the worst way.

3 distinct facts I can still remember:

Finding a great facility and securing a bed was not an easy task.
If my brother can get sober, anyone can.
If I could help my brother get sober, I can help anyone get sober.
My passion really started there, and in that moment I realized I wanted to educate people about addiction and help them find treatment.

What is your favorite part of the work you do?

I really enjoy that every day I hear a new story from a new person. Addiction treatment has a bad stigma, but when you’re in the trenches like I am you really see that addiction doesn’t discriminate. I see cases ranging from teachers, police officers and attorneys just as often as I do in college dropouts and the unemployed. Each of them are mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. Each has a different story but all have the same common denominator of addiction. It is humbling to work in a place where you know you’re changing lives everywhere.

What is your favorite part of the work you do?

What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone going through recovery?

I’d say the best piece of advice for someone going through recovery would be to “keep going”. I think getting sober is the easy part, staying sober is hard. With that being said, the disease of addiction has no lifetime cure. It’s constant work, and that work can be whatever it means for you. A lot of people find that continuous meetings, a home group, a sponsor, or having a sponsee are all wildly beneficial things. For me I’ve always believed there are multiple paths to the same goal. If these things work for you, great, stick with it. If therapy and going to the gym work for you, then stick with that. Whatever it is that keeps your mental health intact during the hardest of times is in fact the best thing for you. So don’t ever stop, just keep going.

What is the most rewarding part of the work you do?

This one is a tie for me. I am torn between alumni meetings and family meetings. Seeing the success and the full 180 from the day the patient comes into the time they graduate from the program is so fulfilling. At the same time, seeing the parents and family members come in to share their positive experiences with family members of other patients in the program melts my heart.

What makes Diamond Recovery unique?

We are treating addiction at the highest level. We understand our responsibility to create the safest and most comfortable environment all in one setting. We are essentially bringing a hospital into a hotel room. Prior to admission, we have a full scope of what our patient has struggled with, what they’re currently struggling with and what their goals are for the future. With all of this in our arsenal we are overly prepared for duration of our patients stay with us; medically, clinically and hospitably.

What is a current goal you are working toward at Diamond Recovery?

At Diamond Recovery we are working on expanding our reach to every state in the US. As it stands, people struggling with substance abuse and mental health disorders are outnumbering the beds available to treat in a severe way. I want to do my best to balance the scales.

How does Diamond strive to make a lasting impact on their patients?

Once a patient is discharged from a Diamond facility, they are assigned an alumni coordinator. This person will keep in touch with both the patient and the family for as long as they wish. This person will be there for them via phone or email, as a sober companion of sorts.

How do you want to implement change in the treatment community?

My biggest goal is to erase the stigma for people struggling with addiction. There is such a negative connotation when talking about this population. I really hope to achieve this by educating the masses on addiction. I believe that if people understood the nature of the disease and all it entails we could start to show some empathy as a country.

What is the importance of treating mental health for those struggling with addiction?

There are no cases of addiction where mental health disorders don’t present in some way, shape or form. It is very much a scenario of “what came first, the chicken or the egg”. Our job at Diamond is to clear the substances medically and treat the mental health aspect clinically. When we combine the two, we find a solution and highlight a new coping mechanism. Anything from lifting weights, running, meditation or yoga can work, really anything that isn’t going to be debilitating.

How do you implement the importance of mental health into the work you do?

We have highlighted a huge importance in mental health treatment. That’s why we started Diamond Behavioral Health. It is one thing for people struggling with addiction to also be suffering from some mental health disorders . It is another thing for there to be major mental health disorders with no addiction present. We have facilities online strictly for this population. Other businesses put both populations under one roof. We feel this is a major disservice to both populations, so we opened DBH to create full programming dedicated to mental health disorders.