Recovery Direct was founded by Vaughan Pankhurst and his team to address the fundamental shortfalls in handling addicted patient residential care, groups, aftercare and long-term addiction recovery. The company has grown to include a specialist network of professionals in a variety of disciplines who are committed to working on the many interrelated addiction disorders in patients.

Our programme is one of the few that addresses the underlying trauma issues on which addiction feeds. Recovery Direct runs daily intensive individual counselling sessions, as well as group therapy programmes for patients.

Recovery Direct’s team are specialists in psychiatric trauma counselling related to treating alcohol, benzodiazepine, cocaine, dagga and heroin addictions and general substance abuse.

Inpatient Residential Facility

Recovery Direct is an exclusive rehab centre based in Cape Town. The facility offers patients a full spectrum of therapeutic care required including trauma counselling to ongoing after-care.

The luxury setting of the centre acts as a beautiful backdrop for breaking down the emotional barriers patients have towards resisting recovery from substances like drugs, alcohol, or other addictions or problematic and self-destructive behaviours such as gambling, food and self-image related problems.

The non-punitive and patient treatment focus creates a flexible programme centred around what each individual needs to undertake the first steps in their path to finding long-term recovery.

Programmes include specialist consulting psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and medical specialists drawn from an extensive network of registered professionals dependent on the unique requirements in the recovery of each patient.

The centre is set in a tranquil upmarket environment based in Cape Town, away from the grind of day to day life yet still within close proximity to any required services. Patients are treated by expert recovery guides ensure that they have the support they need to break the cycles and grow beyond their addictions.

Recovery Direct is a programme that is structured to care for patients that are in need of care from a range of disorders including substances, behaviour issues such as problems with food, intimacy, gambling prescription medications. It is a great privilege of ours to help so many people find their path to recovery and personal fulfilment.

One evening at my home in Cape Town, a conversation about the distinctions of Recovery Direct’s outpatient programme led to a conversation about completely changing the stigmas and perceptions that surround addiction and the treatment of people struggling with mental health issues.

The truth still is that patients coming from formalised centres, where they managed to get “better” but were still only marginally better off than before they went into the formalised “detox” process.

This process of recovery had in some cases been introduced in the recovery centre, however, this treatment very rarely included the progressive thought patterning and care required to start actually living clean, sober and “in recovery”.

It was on this very basis that Recovery Direct built such a popular outpatient programme.

Relapse prevention is an addiction community support programme founded by Doug Kemp in dealing with the greater issue of addiction in South Africa.

The site features a number of free online resources to help addicted individuals to stay on the path of long-term recovery and aims to grow to support a far wider community living in sobriety.