“Archangels gave me my life back. Their team is the most amazing, caring people I have ever met. The housing they sent me to was amazing, the groups are amazing, and this whole project is amazing. If you're tired of being sick and tired, reach out and save your life.”
“This facility is run by some of the best people you could ever ask for. They are extremely professional and truly dedicated to helping those struggling with mental health and addiction. They truly saved my life. I will be forever grateful for everything they did for me.”
“I had the honor of touring this facility, and it was absolutely beautiful, clean, and thoughtfully designed. But more than how it looked, you could feel the love in every detail. Watching the staff interact with clients genuinely touched my heart.”
Plain, fact-first answers about how care works here. Want to talk to a person? Call (888) 464-2144.
A 60-second walkthrough of the Tinton Falls clinic, the space where the program actually runs.
A large percentage of people in treatment for substance use disorder have a history of trauma, whether single-incident trauma (an assault, an accident, a sudden loss), developmental trauma (childhood abuse, neglect, household instability), or chronic trauma (combat, prolonged interpersonal violence). The relationship between trauma and addiction is well-documented in the clinical literature. Untreated trauma keeps the nervous system in a state that substances offer relief from; the substance becomes part of the trauma response. Treating one without the other rarely works for long.
The Archangel Centers delivers trauma-informed care across the program as the default, with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) available for clients whose individual therapist recommends targeted trauma processing. We position the trauma component of our work as trauma-informed care with EMDR available, rather than as a primary trauma program.
Trauma-informed care is not a single technique. It is an organizational and clinical stance that recognizes the role of trauma in the lives of most clients and adjusts how care is delivered to reduce the chance of re-traumatization and increase the chance of healing. Specific elements:
In practice, this means group facilitators are trained to recognize trauma responses, individual therapists know how to slow down when something opens up that the client is not ready for, and the clinical environment itself (physical space, schedule, language) is built to reduce activation.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a structured therapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, with subsequent decades of clinical research. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (originally side-to-side eye movements, now often using sound or tapping) while the client briefly attends to a traumatic memory, with the goal of reprocessing the memory so that it is stored more like a normal memory and less like an active threat.
The clinical observations that drove the development of EMDR were that traumatic memories often remain "stuck," with the original sensory and emotional content as present as it was at the time of the event, and that something about bilateral stimulation during recall changes that. Decades later, researchers continue to debate the exact mechanism, but the clinical evidence for EMDR's effectiveness in post-traumatic stress disorder is well-established.
EMDR is now endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a first-line treatment for PTSD.
Group rooms, private therapy offices, the medical office, family programming rooms, and the wellness space, designed for clinical depth and nervous-system regulation.
EMDR follows a structured eight-phase protocol:
1. History and treatment planning. Identifying target memories and developing the plan. 2. Preparation. Establishing rapport, teaching self-soothing skills, ensuring the client has resources for distress regulation. 3. Assessment. Identifying the specific memory, negative belief about self, desired positive belief, and emotional and physical sensations. 4. Desensitization. The bilateral stimulation phase, during which the client briefly attends to the memory and notices what comes up. 5. Installation. Strengthening the new positive belief. 6. Body scan. Checking for residual physical tension associated with the memory. 7. Closure. Returning the client to baseline at the end of each session. 8. Reevaluation. Tracking progress across sessions.
The pacing matters. EMDR is not done in a single session, and the preparation phase is often the longest. Skilled EMDR clinicians know when to pace work down to keep the client within their window of tolerance.
For many people, the relationship between trauma and substance use is something like:
1. A traumatic experience (or chronic traumatic environment) overwhelms the nervous system's capacity to process and integrate 2. The unprocessed trauma produces ongoing hyperarousal (anxiety, vigilance, insomnia), emotional numbing, intrusive memories, or all three 3. Substance use, often discovered by accident, briefly relieves the symptoms 4. The relief is real but temporary; the substance does not address the underlying trauma 5. Use escalates as tolerance develops and the substance becomes the only reliable regulator of the nervous system 6. The substance use becomes its own source of trauma, adding to the original burden
Treating only the substance use without addressing the trauma rarely produces durable recovery. Treating only the trauma without supporting the substance use leaves the client without their main coping tool while the new tools are being built. Doing both, in sequence and in parallel, is the work.
The clinical sequence at Archangel is typically:
1. Stabilization first. Substance use stabilization (often with MAT for opioid or alcohol use disorder), basic skill building (DBT distress tolerance, CBT coping), and the establishment of a safe clinical relationship. 2. Trauma-informed processing groups that introduce trauma content in a structured, paced way, without requiring individual disclosure. 3. Individual trauma processing, including EMDR for clients whose primary therapist recommends it, once the foundation is stable. 4. Integration, where the work in trauma sessions connects to the broader recovery and life-building work.
The order matters. Diving into trauma processing before substance use and emotional regulation are stable risks destabilization and relapse.
Treatment integrates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, narrative therapy, and trauma-informed care with EMDR available in individual therapy. The medical provider manages MAT (Suboxone, Vivitrol, Sublocade) and psychiatric medications when indicated.
Intake uses the full evidence-based battery: ASAM Criteria, LOCUS for mental health acuity, PHQ-9, GAD-7, the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, plus biopsychosocial, nutrition, and pain screens. The assessment drives the treatment plan from day one.
See Our ModalitiesEMDR is well-established for:
Evidence is growing for:
EMDR is generally not the first-line treatment for active psychosis or severe dissociation; the clinical picture is stabilized first.
After the preparation phases, a desensitization session typically:
Sessions are typically 60 to 90 minutes. The work is intense but the closure phase brings the client back to baseline before they leave.
Our program is an outpatient addiction treatment program that integrates trauma-informed care, not a primary trauma program. Clients whose primary clinical need is complex trauma without significant substance use are often better served by a primary trauma program. Our clinical lane is co-occurring SUD and trauma; that is the work we do.
“I came back from rock bottom. I'm here because I want to show others they can too. This isn't just a business. It's my mission.”- Mike Sorrentino, Founder
Mike and Lauren Sorrentino did not set out to build a generic treatment center. They wanted a recovery-grounded program that mixes lived experience, licensed clinical expertise, and family programming that actually moves the needle for the people who love someone in active addiction.
The clinic that resulted is small enough that each client knows their primary therapist by name, but resourced enough to deliver the full ASAM continuum from Partial Care through outpatient continuing care, with MAT and EMDR available when clinically indicated.
Read the Full StoryMost clients leave the first admissions call with a clinical assessment, an insurance verification, and a scheduled start date. Recovery starts with a decision, not a commitment. The admissions line is staffed around the clock.
Confidential, 24/7 admissions. Same-week placement is often available. Verify your insurance free of charge before any commitment.
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