Questions, answered.

NorthStar is a fully virtual, year-long medical program for people living with alcohol use disorder (AUD) or substance use disorder (SUD). We treat addiction the way modern medicine treats any other chronic condition: with a dedicated clinical team, medication when it helps, nutrient repletion, genetics-informed planning, and steady support over time.

Everything happens from the privacy of your own home. Our guiding belief is simple. Addiction is a medical condition, not a moral failing, and treatment should adapt to you. You don't have to adapt to treatment.

Most traditional options ask you to leave your life behind for a short, intense window and then send you home, often with very little medical support. We do the opposite. NorthStar brings the care to you and stays with you for a full year or longer.

We pair clinical medicine, including a physician-led team, medication, lab work, and monitoring, with genuine peer support and genetics-informed planning. Detox, inpatient rehab, and mutual-help groups have helped many people, and we honor that. Their published success rates tend to be low, in part because a chronic condition cannot be resolved in thirty days. Our model is built for the long arc of healing, and our outcomes reflect it.

Yes. Your entire care team meets with you by telehealth, and your support groups happen in virtual reality. Within roughly forty-eight hours of enrolling, we ship a discreet kit to your door with everything you need to begin.

We can start caring for you the same day you decide to begin, even before the kit arrives. We built NorthStar this way on purpose. Bringing care to the patient is far more effective than asking the patient to travel to care.

No. One of the most common misconceptions is that you need to feel confident or certain before beginning. In our experience, readiness usually comes after support begins, not before. Clarity improves as the brain stabilizes, and confidence grows with care.

If you are unsure, ambivalent, curious, or simply tired of how things have been, you are exactly who this program is for. The first step is a conversation, not a commitment.

No, and please do not stop suddenly on your own. For someone who is physically dependent, stopping abruptly can be dangerous and can raise the risk of seizures and other serious complications.

Our clinical team designs a safe, gradual taper that fits your goals and your biology, supported by medication and close monitoring. You come off alcohol the way people safely have for generations: at a measured, individualized pace, with a team watching over you.

NorthStar is a 365-day program, not a thirty-day episode. Addiction is a chronic condition, and the data is clear that longer engagement leads to dramatically better outcomes.

If you are still finding your footing as your first year comes to a close, we extend your care for another year at no additional cost. We do not discharge and send a survey months later. We remain your treatment home for as long as you need us.

Your kit ships discreetly, usually within forty-eight hours, in plain packaging. Inside you will find:

• A smart breathalyzer for breath alcohol (BAC) monitoring
• A blood pressure cuff
• A virtual reality headset for anonymous peer groups
• A DNA testing kit (a simple cheek swab)
• A lab testing kit
• Your nutrient supplements
• Drink Substitution Therapy™ samples
• Pregnancy tests, when applicable

Everything you need to begin is in that one box, and your care navigator helps you set it all up.

Absolutely, and that is the whole point. Because NorthStar is fully virtual, there is no facility to check into and no need to step away from your job, your studies, or your family. You can even take your treatment with you when you travel.

We build a flexible schedule around your real life, typically one to two hours a day. You stay home, with the people and pets who matter to you, while you heal.

NorthStar serves a wide range of people, with no initial detox required to begin. We care for:

• People with alcohol use disorder at every stage
• People with substance use disorder, including opioids, cannabis, cocaine, ketamine, nicotine, polysubstance use, and those with a history of traumatic brain injury
• People recently discharged from detox or inpatient care who want to sustain their progress
• People living with co-occurring conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or a history of PTSD or trauma
• People with co-occurring medical conditions such as elevated liver enzymes, or a history of pancreatitis or hepatitis

If you are not sure whether you qualify, the simplest path is to reach out and let our team talk it through with you.

NorthStar is the right fit for most people, but not everyone. Because we are a fully virtual program, a few situations call for a higher level of in-person or specialized care. In those cases our team will help connect you with the right resource rather than leave you to navigate it alone.

To begin care directly with us, patients need to be eighteen or older. If you are caring for someone with complex needs and are unsure where to turn, call us anyway. Helping people find the right door is part of what we do.

Every patient is supported by a dedicated nine-person care team, the same kind of multidisciplinary infrastructure used to treat conditions like diabetes and heart failure. Your team includes:

• A supervising physician (MD or DO) who leads your care and interprets your genetics and labs
• An advanced practice clinician (nurse practitioner or physician assistant) for hands-on clinical care and medication management
• A psychiatric nurse practitioner for mood and medication support
• One to two registered nurses for symptom monitoring, vitals, and medication education
• A licensed therapist for trauma-informed support and behavioral strategy
• Two peer guides with lived experience who check in with you and facilitate your groups
• A care navigator who coordinates everything, from scheduling to insurance

You never have to manage this system. We do that with you.

Care at NorthStar rests on five pillars that work together:

1. Provider meetings: regular check-ins with your clinical team
2. Medications: pharmacogenomic-guided, matched to your biology
3. Nutrient repletion: targeted supplements based on your genetics and labs
4. Peer-guided VR groups: anonymous, avatar-based support matched to your life experience
5. BAC and biometric monitoring: at-home breath, blood pressure, and heart rate tracking

The patients who engage across several pillars see the strongest results. Each pillar reinforces the others.

They are genuinely anonymous. You join as an avatar you create, which means you can speak openly without fear of being recognized.

We chose virtual reality on purpose. During the pandemic, many people found video groups draining and disconnected, with cameras off and attention elsewhere. VR brings back the feeling of being in a room together while protecting your privacy completely. Groups are matched by shared life experience, such as women, men, military service, or young adults, and there is never any pressure to speak before you are ready.

Your peer guides are full-time team members who have lived through alcohol or substance use challenges themselves. We match you based on what matters to you, which may include gender, background, and life circumstances, so the person walking alongside you actually understands your situation.

A parent of young children, for example, is often matched with a peer guide who has navigated that exact season. If a match is not right, you can change peer guides, no questions asked.

Most patients use medication at some point, and we think of it much the way we think of insulin for diabetes: medically helpful, not a matter of willpower or ideology. Medication stabilizes brain chemistry, eases cravings, protects sleep and mood, and creates the conditions that let nutrient repletion, therapy, and new habits take hold.

That said, you are always in control of what you put in your body. Our team makes recommendations, works with any outside providers you would like to involve, and adjusts as you go. We do not force medication on anyone.

This is one of the most common fears we hear, and it is understandable. The answer is no. Medication used in treatment is not about chasing a feeling. It is about removing the cravings and instability that keep the cycle going, so your brain has room to heal.

We use the lowest effective dose, review it often, and reduce it as you stabilize. Medication supports the work. It does not replace it, and it does not mean you are taking the easy way out.

We let your biology guide us instead of guessing. There are more than thirty medications with good evidence for treating alcohol and substance use disorder, and your genetics help us predict which ones are most likely to work for you and at what dose.

As one example, roughly a quarter of people carry a genetic variant linked to a poor response to naltrexone. Knowing that in advance spares you weeks of trial and error on a medication unlikely to help. We then fine-tune in real time based on your symptoms, your vitals, and how you feel.

For most people, no. Medication is a bridge, not a life sentence. As your brain heals and stability returns, doses are reduced, some medications are stopped entirely, and others shift to as-needed use.

Many patients find that the medications that helped early on are simply no longer necessary later. This progression is expected, and we plan for it together.

A taper is a gradual, medically supervised reduction in alcohol or another substance, rather than stopping all at once. Tapering is safer because it lowers the risk of seizures, hallucinations, dangerous swings in blood pressure and heart rate, and severe anxiety.

We often use a medication such as gabapentin as a physiologic bridge to ease the brain's rebound as it adjusts. The pace is individualized, and slowing a taper down is an adjustment, never a failure. Throughout, we monitor your vitals, your symptoms, and your BAC to keep you safe.

Because alcohol and substance use quietly deplete the body of essential nutrients such as B12, folate, magnesium, and zinc, and those deficiencies feed directly into low mood, poor sleep, foggy thinking, and cravings. The gut and the brain are deeply connected, and restoring these nutrients helps rebuild the building blocks your brain needs to feel well again.

We offer more than twenty targeted nutrient options, guided by your genetics and lab results, and we use injectable forms when a genetic variant affects absorption. The results are measurable. Patients see roughly twenty-five percent improvement in cognitive function by thirty days, and up to forty percent by one year.

Your genetics answer two questions that change everything about your care: why you became vulnerable in the first place, and what treatment is most likely to work for your biology. We look at hundreds of genetic markers to understand your risk, how you metabolize specific medications, and how your body handles key nutrients.

For many patients, seeing their risk explained in concrete terms is the first time anyone has shown them evidence that this was never about willpower. As we often say, this is about biology, not weakness. Once we understand your genetics, we can work with your biology instead of against it.

Yes, and we designed it that way from the start. When we send your cheek swab to our accredited genetics laboratory, it is labeled with an internal patient identification number only. No name, no date of birth, and no identifying information ever leave with the sample.

Your genetic results are linked back to you only inside our own secure system, and they are used solely to guide your care. They are never sold, marketed, or used for anything else.

For some people, yes. Moderation is not right for everyone, but it can be a legitimate, patient-led goal, and we never assume which path is yours. Two things are essential.

First, every patient begins with a period of alcohol-free time, not for moral reasons but biological ones, because the brain cannot reset and you cannot make a clear decision while alcohol is still present. Second, moderation requires a real plan: defined goals, identified markers of success and barriers, close contact with your clinical team, and ongoing BAC monitoring with a target of 0.05 or below.

If you start with moderation and later choose abstinence, that is informed choice, not conversion. If you maintain moderation, that is equally valid.

Drink Substitution Therapy™ is one of our core tools for both moderation and abstinence. It means replacing alcohol-containing drinks with non-alcoholic alternatives so you keep the ritual your brain associates with reward, while removing the alcohol.

Pouring a favorite non-alcoholic drink at the end of the day still releases some dopamine, which helps reduce cravings and avoid all-or-nothing thinking. Your kit includes Drink Substitution Therapy™ samples, and your team helps you build the rituals that work for your life.

Never. Monitoring is support, not surveillance. Early in treatment you will take two to three breath checks a day, and that information helps your team design a safe taper, see how you are responding, and step in quickly if you need more help.

The same idea is used in other chronic conditions, like a person with diabetes checking blood sugar or a heart failure patient using a connected scale. If we notice a gap in your readings, our response is to reach out with more care, never to discipline you.

We treat a return to use as clinical information, not as failure, and not as a reason for shame. Returns to use are common, we plan for them, and we even educate families in advance so they can respond with support rather than panic.

When it happens, we adjust your medications, look at what got in the way, and increase your support. What matters is the trend over time. The gaps between returns to use grow longer, BAC levels move downward, and things stabilize. You will never be blamed for being human.

Our outcomes are among the strongest in the field. Based on our validated December 2025 clinical data:

• 85.7% of patients meet both their short-term and long-term goals. That is roughly seven times the success rate of inpatient rehab and about ten times that of detox or mutual-help groups.
• Retention is exceptional: 91.9% at three months, 82.1% at six months, and 84.7% at twelve months. Retention is one of the strongest predictors of long-term success.
• Patients see large, measurable improvements in depression, anxiety, psychological distress, cognition, and blood pressure, alongside a steep drop in average breath alcohol levels.
• Our patient satisfaction score (NPS) is 88.2, which places NorthStar among the highest-rated healthcare organizations in the country.

Success here is not defined by one number. We measure it across alcohol and substance use, employment, family relationships, physical health, mood, and your own sense of well-being.

Most insurers ask patients to take part in at least nine hours of treatment per week for roughly the first three months. That sounds like a lot, but it is spread across things you are already doing in the program: VR support groups, peer sessions, clinical visits, labs, and breath checks. In practice it usually works out to one to two hours a day.

This requirement is set by insurance companies, not by NorthStar, and your care navigator helps you build a schedule that fits your life so your coverage stays intact.

In many cases, yes. We work with a growing number of major insurers and employers, and our care navigators verify your specific coverage and handle the insurance paperwork so you can focus on healing.

Because getting in network can take time, there may be plans we are still working to join. If your plan is not yet covered, we offer flexible options so that cost does not become the reason you go without care. The simplest next step is to reach out so we can check your coverage for you.

Yes. Your privacy is protected by strict healthcare privacy laws, and we hold substance use information to an especially high standard of confidentiality. Our virtual reality groups are fully anonymous, your genetic sample carries no identifying information, and your records are kept secure.

We built NorthStar so that you can get help privately, without fear of recognition or judgment.

By the time your year is complete, most patients have settled into stable routines, with their drinking or abstinence steady and their physical and mental health restored. The focus shifts toward maintenance, new goals, and getting the most out of life.

And if you are still finding your footing as the year closes, your care continues for another year at no additional cost. There is no day thirty-one and no abrupt finish line. We stay engaged for as long as you need us.

Family matters enormously, and we welcome their involvement with your consent. We offer family education and resources, because loved ones often carry months or years of stress and deserve support too.

The most helpful stance a family can take is steady, non-judgmental encouragement: setting up non-alcoholic options at home, learning what you actually need, and understanding in advance that returns to use can happen, so they respond with support rather than crisis. One of the kindest things we can tell families is that this was never a matter of willpower, and that healing is genuinely possible.