Island addiction center

Amy: off-grid therapy

Amy Winehouse couldn’t take it but others have found hope across the causeway. A bleak island off the Essex coast is becoming the celebrity rehab clinic of choice.

Osea Island seems an unlikely place of refuge. It rises from the sea off the Essex coast, cut off from the land apart from an ancient stone causeway that uncovers for an hour or so at each low tide. The narrow link looks daunting, with deep water on each side, and the glistening rocks lend a forbidding air to the scene.

Hidden inside the woods that cover the island is a medieval village and, nearby, a red-brick manor with its own power and water supply. There are no signs to reveal it is in fact a clinic called The Causeway, a place little known outside the exclusive circles of the rich and famous. This was where Amy Winehouse came for treatment after her collapse following an overdose of drinks and drugs.

As the lyrics of her song, Rehab, might suggest, she didn’t stay long: ‘They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no. I’m not gonna spend 10 weeks have everyone think I’m on the mend …’

She spent less than 48 hours at The Causeway before leaving in a helicopter for London to have a brain scan. She met up with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil who took her to the London Clinic. After a night in the capital she flew back to Osea but left after a further few days. Others fighting addictions have stayed. The island clinic is fast becoming the rehab of choice for celebrities and the very wealthy.

Those who might once have checked into The Priory in Roehampton or the Betty Ford Clinic in America, are now taking a 20-minute helicopter flight from London to Osea. Count Gottfried von Bismarck, the great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany’s Iron Chancellor and founder of the modern republic, spent six weeks on the island shortly before his death last month.

Von Bismarck, an exotic and louche hedonist, was an alcoholic and heavy cocaine user. At Oxford he was blamed after Olivia Channon, the daughter of Mrs Thatcher’s cabinet minister Paul Channon (later Lord Kelvedon), was found dead on his bed after overdosing on heroin. Von Bismarck had a reputation for hosting drink- and drug-fuelled orgies. Given to camp outfits that often included fishnet stockings, he drifted between society and London’s demi-monde.

Last August a young man fell to his death from a window at von Bismarck’s £5 million Chelsea flat.

After this episode, von Bismarck, 44, checked into The Causeway. The clinic had already acquired a reputation among Britain’s aristocratic families.

Among those who sought help there was Nicholas Knatchbull, the great-grandson of Lord Mountbatten, godson of Prince Charles and a friend of Prince William at Eton. Knatchbull, 26, was sent to The Causeway by his parents, Lord and Lady Brabourne.

He began experimenting with drugs in his teens and by the age of 20 was seeking help for his addictions. Nothing seemed to work and his family took legal advice on cutting him off from his £100 million inheritance before he was taken to the clinic at Osea last year.

Knatchbull had been using two highly potent drugs, ketamine, a horse tranquilliser which produces a psychedelic effect, and MDMA, the key ingredient of ecstasy. One of the reasons Knatchbull went to The Causeway was that he had worked as a record producer and the island has its own world-class recording studio.

This was the idea of Nigel Frieda, owner of Osea Island. Frieda, the brother of celebrity hairdresser John Frieda, is the ex-husband of Leonie Frieda, the writer. Ms Frieda recently had success with her biography of Catherine de Medici.

She and Nigel Frieda built up and co-owned the Matrix studio empire. As a record producer, Frieda helped create hits for some of Britain’s most successful bands, including the Rolling Stones, Oasis, Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry.

Frieda bought Osea for £5.4 million in 2004 and built a state-of-the-art studio near the ancient hamlet that used to house the island’s tiny population. The studio is a business in its own right, but it is also available to rehab clients.

Knatchbull produced a record there during his time on the island. A former employee explained: ‘It was part of Nick’s therapy. While he was doing his music he wasn’t doing drugs. It kept him going and gave him a focus. Nigel worked with him and Nick seemed really happy for a while. But I think he got bored. Making good music can be hard work and I’m not sure he was up for that.’

Recovery programmes are run by Brendan Quinn, Nigel Frieda’s business partner and founder of the clinic. Quinn, a former psychiatric nurse, specialises in treating addicts in their own homes and offers a service in which he will fly anywhere in the world within 24 hours of receiving an SOS call.

He recently took a client to meet the Dalai Lama for ’spiritual cleansing’.

People in rehab at Osea are called ‘guests’. They stay in apartments in the 16th century village or in rooms at the manor house. A six-week stay in the house costs £60,000; in the village it is £30,000.

These prices make The Causeway one of the most expensive rehab centres in the world. Its supporters include leading psychotherapist Beechy Colclough whose former patients include Robbie Williams and Sir Elton John.

The Causeway’s fans say its location makes it unique. It cuts people off from the world, quite literally, giving a sense of a new beginning. There are no pubs or bars and the ones on the mainland can only be reached after negotiating the causeway at low water. Getting back on the island would almost certainly involve waiting 12 hours until the next low tide.

The Causeway’s supporters say it attracts the kind of people who are used to luxury and can afford it and success in battling life-threatening addictions is priceless.

Many who visit the clinic are high-flyers in the music industry and not all are addicts. Some are attracted to The Causeway’s de-stressing programme. It includes massage, reflexology and yoga. The chef was hired from a gastropub, The Ebury in Pimlico.

A typical lunch menu features oysters, salmon, new potatoes and salad from the manor’s own garden. The rooms are furnished with antiques and fine art; dressing gowns are from Mulberry.

The island’s remote location helps underline its exclusivity. It lies half-a-mile off a headland called Decoy Point and covers 320 acres in the Blackwater estuary. The nearest town is Maldon.

The island used to be owned by Frederick Charrington, the London brewer, who established his own rehab centre there in the early 1900s to help his employees who had developed an overfondness for their own product.

An important part of Charrington’s recovery regime was to give his alcoholics vigorous exercise. It forms part of the treatment used by Brendan Quinn today. The Causeway has a fully equipped gym and guests are encouraged to cycle, sail, play football or train with weights.

They can help out in the large kitchen garden, or simply wander around the island. Guests are encouraged to meditate and part of the treatment involves sessions with a ’spirituality group’. Those with serious addiction problems are assigned a clinical nurse.

Neither Quinn nor Frieda would talk about their island venture. Quinn said: ‘Anonymity is a very important part of the ethos here. We don’t want to change that.’

But a former member of staff said clients are cut off from drink and drugs and some find it hard to cope. Nicholas Knatchbull relapsed after going to a rave in London. Amy Winehouse went out to a pub with friends after her first short stay at The Causeway.

The ex-employee said: ‘One of the big parts of the treatment is keeping people clean once they have got over the initial shock and are OK without the stuff. There are life-management courses that try to teach them how to stay healthy and keep off the drink or drugs.’

Nicholas Knatchbull did a full course at The Causeway, but it didn’t cure him. He was later admitted to a rehab centre in South Africa.

It appeared that Gottfried von Bismarck did not relapse after his stay on the island. Friends said he had made a determined effort to stay off drugs and none was found in his flat after he died. His death was believed to be linked to an epileptic condition from which he had suffered for years.

The Priory was always the first resort for celebrities who had addiction problems. Kate Moss, Michael Barrymore and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson are among former patients. This is the kind of clientele now being attracted to the remote and rather bleak Osea Island.

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