Malibu is a haven for people seeking rehab, addiction treatment. Now, it's in flames.
Nicholas Mathews wasn't going to take any chances.
As fires engulfed the nearby Pacific Palisades, he decided to evacuate his rehabilitation center, Summit Malibu, before the flames reached it too. Thankfully, he has another addiction treatment facility − Stillwater Addiction Treatment Center in Montecito − and could relocate his residents there, where they can continue their recovery.
"We have very robust evacuation plans and a strategy to keep people safe, but there is no avoiding the fact that it's the exact opposite of what you want to accomplish," Mathews says. "In any wellness space or in treatment, it disrupts the entire process. It creates anxiety and stress. All the things that we're trying to prevent, it creates."
Still, he says, it's a blessing to allow his Malibu residents to continue their recovery amid the disaster. Other rehabilitation centers, he says, aren't so fortunate.
Many know Malibu as one of the most thriving hubs of wellness, not just in Southern California, but in the world. With its tranquil coasts and lush mountains, the city draws people from around the world in search of healing.
Many also come to Malibu specifically to recover from addiction, and the city is home to several rehabilitation facilities that offer a place to get sober in peace.
Now, as devastating wildfires threaten that community, many of those who came to Malibu for healing are seeing their worlds turned upside down.
"It's almost like apocalyptic," Mathews says of the wildfires, likening them to the Woolsey Fire in 2018, which also ravaged Malibu. "It really is the most eerie feeling. It feels like a movie or some video game set in a dystopian future. It's scary stuff."
Malibu is a healing hub. This week, it's in flames.
There are a few reasons why Malibu became such a haven for addiction treatment.
For starters, it's surrounded by nature − and a secluded place for the rich and famous of Los Angeles to seek treatment away from the prying eyes of the public, without traveling too far from home.
Its proximity to Los Angeles also gives Malibu the benefit of access to some of the best mental health professionals in the country. Mathews describes Malibu − and Southern California more broadly − as "consistently on the cutting edge of behavioral health science in the country."
"All these new things that come out over the years that we find are helpful for addiction and mental health are right in our own backyard," he says.
Mathews personally knows the challenges of recovery, as well as the essential role one's environment can play in their success with getting sober.
Malibu, he says, offers recovering addicts "an opportunity to reinvent yourself and discover who you are and what's important to you."
This week, a massive fire broke out in the Pacific Palisades, destroying homes, schools and businesses. Thousands of people throughout Los Angeles have evacuated their homes due to fires, which also broke out in Hollywood, Sylmar and Altadena. Malibu, located directly next to the Palisades, has also seen devastating damage from the fires, which were worsened due to powerful winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.
In addition to putting facilities at risk, the fires also undermined one of the main aims of Malibu rehabs − to provide as stress-free an environment as possible. Getting sober, Mathews says, is already hard enough, let alone doing it amid a natural disaster.
"If you are displaced from your home, you feel naturally insecure," Mathews says. "When you couple that with a population that is inherently anxious, suffers from depression, suffers from already feelings of inadequacy and insecurity as a result of their substance abuse or their mental health issues or their trauma, you name it, these things are compounded."
'It's a heartbreaking thing'
When natural disasters strike, people's priorities get streamlined quickly according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis previously told Paste BN.
First come the essentials: food, water and shelter. Once those get sorted, other needs start to come to the fore, particularly ones stemming from trauma and grief. Sarkis previously said it can take months − even years − before people who've been through a tragedy like a wildfire can process what they've been through.
Mathews says he's heard from people who have seen their Malibu rehabilitation facilities destroyed. Many of them, he says, run small, boutique operations.
"You hear about, 'Oh, my treatment center burned down, and that's it. It's over,' " he says. "People literally shut their doors because of things like this, and their clients get displaced. Their employees get displaced. It's a heartbreaking thing."
As for Summit Malibu, Mathews says he doesn't know yet what, if anything, remains of it.
No matter what, he says, he believes Southern Californians will continue coming to each other's rescue.
"That's one of the most beautiful things about Los Angeles," he says. "As aggressively divided as we can become, when anything catches on fire, we all come together. Politics be damned. There's no more, none of that stuff. We all come together and we support each other because we know that this does not discriminate. It affects everybody equally."