Addiction rehabilitation residence opening in Maberly

Craig Bakay | Apr 18, 2018

Anthony Fritz knows all too well what what addiction is like.

“Five years ago, I was breaking up with the mother of my two children (ages 6 and 3),” he said. “I didn’t have the coping skills.

“It started with wine, then beers, then shots and escalated into business problems.”

He said he bottomed out Jan. 31, 2017 when friends got him into rehab in Port Hope.

“I couldn’t even get off the couch,” he said. “Luckily, I had really good friends that got me counselling and got me back up.”

And so, now Fritz wants to give back and to that end, he bought the Hindu retreat on Maberly-Elphin Road and is turning it, and its eight bedrooms, into the Ottawa Maberly Addiction Rehabilitation Residence.

“We’re looking at being open May 1,” he said. “We’ve renovated the inside and are just finishing up the outside.

“As far as I know, we’re the only private centre available between Kingston and Ottawa.”

Fritz said they’re “connected” to rehab networks in various centres and intend to be “family-oriented” as opposed to being institutional in nature.

“We’d prefer our clients be over 25 years of age but if someone is 20 and we believe that we can help them, we will,” he said. “It’s just that however much family might want to get younger members into a program, we aren’t really geared in that direction.”

One of the the things Fritz said they’ll offer is a back-to-work program.

“About 30 per cent of rehab clients are in need of employment,” he said. “No other centre I know of offers that.”

He said they’ll offer 30-, 60- and 90-day programs specializing in adult chronic relapse prevention.

For more information, visit ottawamaberlyaddictionrehabilitationresidence.com.