Best Sex Rehabs at The Holistic Sanctuary
Luxury Sex Addiction Rehab: Private, Clinical, and Discreet
Johnny Tabaie, Founder & CEO, Holistic Sanctuary·Medically reviewed by 
Dr. Jose A. Jimenez, MD, Medical Director·Published · Last medically reviewed Holistic Sanctuary treats compulsive sexual behavior at a licensed residential facility in Baja California, Mexico. Care is one-to-one rather than in groups, three to five clients are on site at a time, and every candidate is medically screened before admission. Programs run four weeks or longer.
What this condition is, and why the label is contested
There is a real disagreement among clinicians about what to call this. The DSM-5, the diagnostic manual used across most of American psychiatry, does not list “sex addiction” as a disorder. The World Health Organization’s ICD-11 does recognize compulsive sexual behavior disorder, classified among impulse control disorders rather than among the addictions. Serious researchers still argue about which framing is correct.
We mention this for a specific reason: a good deal of the marketing in this field depends on you not knowing it. Facilities present “sex addiction” as a settled medical diagnosis with an established treatment, because certainty sells. The honest position is that the behavior pattern is real, well documented and genuinely destructive, and that the professional argument is about classification rather than about whether people are suffering.
What this means practically is that you should be skeptical of any program claiming a standardised protocol for a condition the field has not finished defining. Treatment that works here is built around the individual, because there is no validated one-size protocol to fall back on.
The pattern matters more than the name
Whatever it is called, the pattern people arrive with is recognisable and consistent: behavior that has escaped their control, continues despite mounting consequences, consumes hours that used to belong to work and family, and is accompanied by shame severe enough that most people have never said it out loud to anyone. Many have concealed it successfully for years, which is its own exhausting second job.
The consequences that finally prompt a call are usually external — a marriage, a job, a legal problem, a discovery. By that point the person has typically tried to stop on their own many times, and the repeated failure has become its own evidence, in their mind, of a character defect. It usually is not one.
What tends to sit underneath
Unresolved trauma
Compulsive sexual behavior very frequently sits on top of earlier trauma, and treating the behavior while ignoring what it regulates tends to produce short-lived results. This is the single most common reason people relapse after a conventional program: the behavior was addressed and the driver was not. Our trauma treatment and PTSD programs address the same underlying territory.
Co-occurring substance use
Alcohol and stimulants in particular co-occur often, both because they lower inhibition in the moment and because they are used to manage the shame afterwards. Treating one and not the other reliably fails. If substances are part of the picture, say so at the first conversation — it changes the medical plan rather than disqualifying you. See our rehab programs and detox.
Untreated mood and anxiety disorders
Depression and anxiety are common companions, and it is often genuinely unclear at intake which came first. That question usually cannot be answered from the outside in a single assessment, which is an argument for a longer program with physician involvement rather than a short behavioral intervention. See depression treatment and anxiety treatment.
Why the group model fails a particular kind of person
Most residential sex addiction treatment in the United States is built on group work — group therapy, twelve-step fellowships, shared disclosure. For many people that structure is exactly right, and the shared recognition is the thing that breaks the isolation.
For others it is the reason they never go. A public figure, a physician, a company director, or anyone whose disclosure carries professional or legal consequence, cannot realistically do meaningful clinical work in a room of strangers whose confidentiality is a norm rather than a contract. What happens instead is careful, partial disclosure — which is not treatment, it is performance, and it wastes the four weeks.
We run no group circles at all. Care is one-to-one throughout, typically more than 150 one-to-one hours a month, with three to five clients on site at any time. That is not a luxury feature; for this particular condition it is often the difference between a person telling the truth and not.
How the program works
Medical screening comes first
Every candidate is assessed before admission, with bloodwork and cardiac testing run on site by our own physicians rather than accepted from records you bring. Admission is by medical clearance. Every inquiry is reviewed by our physicians — on-site bloodwork and full cardiac assessment — before a place is offered. Being told this is not the right place for you is a real possible outcome, and it is a more useful answer than being admitted regardless.
A sequence, not a single intervention
The Pouyan Method is a sequenced protocol: medical stabilization, nutritional and metabolic repair, our Brain Repair IV Protocol, plant medicine where a physician has specifically cleared it, and daily individual clinical work. No two plans here are identical, and for this condition the psychological work carries more of the weight than it does in a straightforward substance program.
Length
Four weeks is the minimum. Behavior that has been entrenched for a decade is not reorganised in a fortnight, and the program length is set by clinical assessment rather than sold as a tier. Options are published on our prices and packages page.
What happens after
The month here is the beginning. Continuing care, the conversation with a partner or spouse, and the professional or legal situation waiting at home all need a plan made before you leave rather than after. That planning is part of the program, not an upsell.
Comparing the options honestly
| Typical group-based program | Outpatient therapy | Holistic Sanctuary | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Group work, shared disclosure | Weekly individual sessions | One-to-one residential, no groups |
| Clients on site | 20–80 | n/a | 3–5 |
| Privacy | Peers know who you are | High | High — no group exposure |
| Co-occurring substance care | Sometimes separate | Usually referred out | Same team, same program |
| Medical oversight | Varies | None | Physician-led, on site |
| Intensity | Full-time, 28–30 days | 1–2 hours a week | 150+ one-to-one hours a month |
Outpatient therapy with a clinician experienced in this area is a reasonable and much cheaper first step, and if it has not been tried it is usually the sensible thing to try. This page is written for people for whom it has not been enough.
What discretion actually means here
Discretion is claimed by every facility in this category, so it is worth stating what it consists of operationally rather than as an adjective. There are no group sessions in which other clients learn why you are here. There are three to five people on site. Correspondence and billing carry no clinical description. Staff are bound by contract, not only by convention. And because the facility is small, the number of people who encounter you at all is small — which is a structural fact rather than a policy that depends on everyone remembering it.
What we will not promise
No success percentages. We do not publish figures we cannot substantiate, and anyone quoting a recovery rate for this condition is quoting a number nobody has robustly established. No promise that the behavior will never return — relapse is a feature of this pattern and a program that pretends otherwise is setting you up to hide it when it happens. And no claim that four weeks resolves what took years to build. What we will tell you, before you book, is whether we believe we can help in your particular case.
Related reading: mental health treatment, trauma treatment, rehab centers, and our reviews, including the criticism.
How this differs from simply having a high sex drive
This distinction matters, and it is frequently blurred — sometimes by clinicians, often by the internet, and occasionally by a distressed partner. A high libido is not a disorder. Unconventional preferences between consenting adults are not a disorder. Neither is a religious or cultural conflict about sexuality, though that conflict can cause genuine distress and deserves care of a different kind.
What distinguishes a clinical problem is loss of control and continuation despite consequence. The person is spending more time than they intend, has tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to cut back, and continues after meaningful losses — a relationship, a job, money, health, or standing. The behavior has stopped being a choice they are making and started being one they are managing.
We take that distinction seriously at screening because getting it wrong in either direction causes harm. Treating ordinary sexuality as pathology is damaging, and it happens. So is dismissing a genuine compulsion because the person is functional in every other part of their life — which happens more often, particularly to high-performing people whose competence elsewhere is read as evidence that nothing is wrong.
The patterns people describe
Most people arrive with some version of the following. Not all of it applies to everyone, and no list substitutes for an assessment by a clinician.
- Hours consumed daily by behavior or by planning and concealing it
- Repeated, sincere attempts to stop that have not held
- Escalation — the previous pattern no longer produces the same relief
- Continuation after real losses, including ones the person cares deeply about
- Elaborate concealment: separate devices, accounts, finances, or timelines
- Using the behavior to manage stress, loneliness, boredom or emotional pain rather than for pleasure
- Severe shame afterwards, frequently followed by a return to the behavior to relieve the shame
- Risk-taking that is out of character in every other area of life
That last loop — shame driving the return to the behavior that causes the shame — is the engine of the whole thing, and it is the reason approaches built on moral framing tend to make it worse rather than better.
The partner, and the family
If there is a partner, they are usually in their own crisis, and it is often more acute than the client’s. Discovery of concealed behavior causes a recognisable trauma response — intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, sleep disruption, a collapse of trust in their own perception of the last several years. This is real and it deserves its own support, which should not be provided by the same clinician treating the client.
We are honest about the limits here. This is a residential program for one person. We will help plan the conversations that need to happen and coordinate with a partner’s own therapist where that is wanted, but we are not a couples program, and a facility that markets itself as fixing the relationship as a side effect of treating one person is overselling.
What the first week actually looks like
The first two or three days are medical and unglamorous: assessment, bloodwork, cardiac testing, a full review of current medications, sleep, and nutrition. If substances are part of the picture, that stabilization comes first and everything else waits. Nobody begins meaningful psychological work while acutely withdrawing.
From roughly the third or fourth day the individual clinical work becomes the center of the day, several hours daily, alongside bodywork, structured physical activity, nutritional protocols and our IV therapies where indicated. There is no group schedule to attend, which surprises most people, and no daily obligation to narrate your history to anyone but your own clinician.
Plant medicine, where a physician has cleared it, sits later in the sequence rather than at the start. It is not the opening move and it is not offered to everyone. Whether it is appropriate at all is a medical decision made after screening, and for a meaningful proportion of candidates the answer is no.
What the modalities are actually for
It is worth saying plainly what each part is meant to do, since these programs are often described as a list of impressive-sounding components with no explanation of why they are there.
- Medical stabilization and bloodwork — establishes what is physiologically true before anyone makes psychological interpretations. Thyroid, hormonal and metabolic problems can masquerade as behavioral ones.
- Nutritional and metabolic repair — chronic compulsive behavior and the sleep loss that accompanies it leave measurable deficits. Correcting them does not treat the condition, but attempting the psychological work without correcting them makes it considerably harder.
- Brain Repair IV Protocol — our proprietary nature-derived intravenous formula, used to support recovery during the program under physician supervision.
- One-to-one clinical work — the core of the program for this condition, and where the shame loop is actually addressed.
- Plant medicine, where cleared — used to reach the material underneath the behavior, not to treat the behavior directly.
- Bodywork, movement and sleep restoration — the unglamorous foundation. People underestimate how much of the compulsive pattern is downstream of chronic sleep disruption.
Cost, insurance and travel
We are a private facility in Mexico and we do not bill US insurance. Pricing is published on our prices and packages page rather than held back until a sales call, which is deliberate — a facility that will not tell you the price until it has your emotional investment is telling you something about how it operates. Some clients pursue out-of-network reimbursement afterwards; we make no representation that they will receive it.
Travel and arrival are coordinated by our team. The facility is in Baja California, within reasonable reach of Southern California, and the practical logistics are handled once a candidate has been medically accepted rather than before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is sex addiction a real medical diagnosis?
It depends which manual you use. The DSM-5 does not list sex addiction. The WHO’s ICD-11 recognises compulsive sexual behavior disorder, classified among impulse control disorders rather than the addictions. Clinicians still disagree about the right framing. What is not in dispute is that the behavior pattern is real, well documented and capable of destroying a person’s life.
Will anyone else at the facility know why I am here?
No. There are no group sessions, no shared disclosure and no communal therapy of any kind. Three to five clients are on site at a time, correspondence and billing carry no clinical description, and staff are bound by contract rather than convention alone.
I am a public figure. Can you accommodate that?
This is a substantial part of why the program is built the way it is. The absence of group work removes the single largest confidentiality exposure in conventional treatment. Specific arrangements around arrival, communications and records are discussed individually before admission.
How is this different from a twelve-step program?
Twelve-step fellowships are peer-led, free, group-based and genuinely effective for many people. We are a licensed medical facility providing individual clinical treatment with physician oversight. They are not in competition — a number of our clients use a fellowship afterwards, and we will help you find one.
What if alcohol or drugs are also involved?
Tell us at the first conversation. Co-occurring substance use is common here and it changes the medical plan rather than disqualifying you — stabilization comes first and the psychological work follows. Treating one and ignoring the other is a reliable way to waste four weeks.
How long is the program, and what does it cost?
Four weeks minimum, with length set by clinical assessment. Pricing is published on our prices and packages page. We are private, based in Mexico, and do not bill US insurance.
Do you use plant medicine for this?
Sometimes, where a physician has specifically cleared it after screening, and always later in the sequence rather than as the opening move. It is not offered to everyone and for a meaningful proportion of candidates the answer is no. It is used to reach what sits underneath the behavior, not to treat the behavior directly.
What about my partner?
Discovery causes a genuine trauma response and your partner deserves their own support, from someone who is not your clinician. We will help plan the conversations and coordinate with their therapist where that is wanted, but we are a residential program for one person and not a couples program.
Who wrote and reviewed this page
Medically reviewed by Dr. Jose A. Jimenez, MD — Medical Director, Holistic Sanctuary and Sanctuary Tulum. Thirty years in clinical practice, and the physician who signs off on every treatment protocol we run.
- Board-Certified Surgeon — National Autonomous University of Mexico
- Critical Care Specialist — American British Cowdray Hospital
- Certified in Point-of-Care Musculoskeletal Ultrasound — Harvard Medical School
- Board-Elected Member — American Academy of Regenerative Medicine
Critical care is the relevant discipline here. Ibogaine’s principal risk is cardiac, and the person deciding whether a candidate is cleared for it should be someone who has spent three decades managing patients whose hearts were the problem. See the full medical review board and how the review process works →
Written by Johnny Tabaie — Founder & CEO of Holistic Sanctuary and creator of the Pouyan Method. Johnny is not a physician and does not practice medicine; every clinical statement on this page is reviewed by Dr. Jimenez before it publishes. What Johnny brings is fifteen years running a licensed, physician-supervised facility, and the experience of having been a patient in seventeen programs before he built this one. Read his full background →
If you believe something on this page is inaccurate, tell us. We correct pages and log the change rather than quietly editing them.
Medical disclaimer. This page is for information only. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment recommendation. Holistic Sanctuary does not diagnose, treat, or cure disease. Nothing here has been evaluated by the FDA. Results vary from person to person; we do not guarantee outcomes and we do not publish success-rate figures we cannot substantiate. Ibogaine and other plant medicines carry real risks, including cardiac risk, and are not appropriate for everyone — every candidate is medically screened before admission, and a substantial share of inquiries do not proceed. Always consult a qualified physician before starting or stopping any medication. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency service or the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
Speaking to us
If you are weighing this for yourself or for someone in your family, the useful next step is a conversation with a clinician rather than a brochure. We will tell you if we are not the right place, and we do that often. Call +1-323-612-9904, or begin an application and a member of the medical team will review it before anyone calls you back.