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New Women-Only Addiction Treatment Center Opens In Jacksonville

Ryan Benk
/
WJCT News
Lakeview CEO Roy Serpa cuts the ribbon to the addiction treatment center's new women's facility

A Jacksonville addiction treatment center is opening a state-of-the-art gender-specific facility.

Lakeview Health’s new addition will treat women only.

A crowd of more than 100 people were at Lakeview Friday for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Lakeview CEO Roy Serpa told observers gender-specific treatment will make it easier for women to focus on recovery.

“Women may not go as deep in a group therapy with men about trauma in particular. And if they’re amongst women, it’s kind of a sorority of women getting better, kind of a sisterhood,” he said.

Serpa said the new facility expands Lakeview’s residential capacity by 54 beds, but many more than 54 women will receive the specialized treatment.

“We’re going to do an outpatient center; we’re going to rebuild our in-network program; and along with the outpatient center, we’re going to add apartments on to the campus for different levels of care and treatment,” he said.

A Dallas-based investor group bought Lakeview in 2012 to expand the facility’s capacity and continue its mission of abstinence-based, 12-step treatment.

Serpa said the only requirements for women seeking treatment are that they have a clinical addiction and they carry commercial insurance. 

Ryan Benk is a former WJCT News reporter who joined the station in 2015 after working as a news researcher and reporter for NPR affiliate WFSU in Tallahassee.