results

The Other Side Academy is not just about getting people off drugs. It is about helping people create purposeful, connected and happy lives. Ultimately, the only real measure of our work is how many of our students develop the character required to create that kind of life. That is our ultimate goal.

Our minimal goal is that in the years after graduation, our students are drug free, crime free and gainfully employed.

In the coming years, we will refine our way of assessing how well we and our graduates are doing at achieve the ultimate goal. We are in the process of creating a university partnership with the U of U’s Sorensen Impact Center to help us do so in a valid way.

Our Results as of 12/31/2019

The following data was collected as of December 31, 2019 from internal records as well as from surveys conducted by The Other Side Academy. It covers the period of 2015 to 2019.

  • Retention Rate: 51%
  • This is the total percentage of people who make a commitment to stay 2 years and who are still present at the end of the 2 years.

  • Elect to Stay an Optional Third Year: 62%
  • This is the number of people who complete their required two-year commitment and without any court requirements, choose to stay a third year within the program.

  • Employed upon Graduation: 100%
  • This is the percentage of people who had a job when they graduated from The Other Side Academy.

  • Recidivism Rate of Graduates: 15%
  • This is the percentage of people who have completed the minimum 2 year program and have been rearrested after graduation.

  • DCE Rate of Graduates: 70%
  • DCE means Drug-Free, Crime-Free, and Employed for all graduates of The Other Side Academy.

  • DCE Rate of Graduates who Stayed 3+ Years: 89%
  • This is the Drug-Free, Crime-Free, and Employed rate for those students who elected to voluntarily stay a third year in the program.

Click to read our Indictment of the Rehab Industry

Shame on the rehab industry


No Transparency = No Accountability = No Integrity

We believe firmly that while not everything that matters can be measured, if things truly matter to you, you must attempt to measure your effectiveness. Measurement is the discipline of both integrity and accountability. The drug rehab industry today suffers from a scandalous lack of both integrity and accountability. Treatment providers in this $35 billion industry toss out “success” statistics that are either complete fabrications or are supported by scant evidence. Many measure outcomes the way you would measure customer satisfaction at a restaurant. They make wild claims based on satisfaction surveys they mail to clients whose responses are suspect. And when a small percentage of clients return the survey, they extrapolate from the 10% to claim that 80% of their clients “report” being sober. Or that 90% of their clients “strongly agree” that they are doing much better. Whatever that means. Imagine a surgeon who loses 70% of his patients on the operating table, then claims wild success because 80% of the survivors say they liked him.

Research shows that true success rates (long-term sobriety, stable employment and consistent pro-social behavior) among long-time criminal addicts is in the 5-10% range. And that’s for those who complete treatment. If you factor in those who fail to complete their 30, 60 or 90-day programs, the real numbers are even lower.

The Other Side Academy calls for the entire treatment world to begin practicing the same integrity we teach our students. A chronic neglect to uncover the truth is no different than lying. It’s even worse when you benefit financially from your failure to seek and reveal the truth. We urge everyone to find responsible ways to demand transparency, accountability and integrity from the $35 billion industry that claims to have the answers to the suffering of over twenty million Americans. Lives depend on it. It’s time for treatment providers to practice what they preach.