The Addict Who Won The Bachelorette: Zac Clark On Getting Sober & Staying That Way

What It Covers

Zac Clark, founder of Release Recovery and winner of The Bachelorette Season 16, details his progression from teenage drinking in Haddonfield, New Jersey through brain surgery at 24, prescription opioid dependency, heroin and crack addiction, two rehab stints, and nearly 15 years of sustained sobriety built on AA, therapy, community, and service work.

Key Questions Answered

• •Abstinence vs. Emotional Sobriety: Stopping substances and achieving genuine recovery are separated by a significant gap. A "dry drunk" — someone who quits without doing psychological work — can be worse off than someone still using, because the underlying pain driving addiction remains completely unaddressed. Families and individuals must understand that removing the substance only eliminates the solution to an unresolved problem, not the problem itself. Real recovery requires active therapeutic work, community, and honest self-examination.
• •Family as Co-Participants: Family members of addicts often develop their own compulsive cycle around the identified patient, seeking relief through engagement with the crisis in a way that mirrors the addict's relationship with substances. When families enter their own therapy, attend Al-Anon, and interrupt established enabling patterns — such as refusing small financial requests — it disrupts the addict's expectations and can catalyze genuine willingness to change more effectively than confrontation or intervention.
• •Willingness Cannot Be Manufactured: The internal readiness to recover is not something that can be instilled through intervention, family pressure, or fear. Clark describes willingness as a spiritual event that arrives at an unpredictable moment — his came in a Camden, New Jersey bank after his father found him attempting to cash a forged check. Families waiting for a loved one to become willing must focus on their own health rather than trying to force or accelerate that moment in another person.
• •The Kicking-and-Screaming Admission: Patients who arrive at treatment resistant, angry, and openly reluctant are statistically more workable than those who arrive composed and claiming to have everything figured out. The composed, performative patient is masking unwillingness and is at higher risk of poor outcomes. Genuine distress, tears, and resistance signal honesty — a foundation that clinical staff can actually build on, whereas the person performing compliance tends to repeat the same cycle repeatedly.
• •Treatment Quality and Community Gaps: High-cost residential programs charging $150,000–$200,000 monthly in settings like Malibu hillside mansions frequently produce poor outcomes because they lack genuine peer community and humility-building structure. Clark argues that without community, fellowship, and real-world application of recovery principles, even world-class clinical environments fail. The treatment industry lacks major regulated brands, leaving families vulnerable to predatory private equity-backed programs that prioritize real estate aesthetics over evidence-based care.
• •Opioids' Deceptive Early Profile: A widely misunderstood aspect of early opioid use is that proper dosing produces alertness, focus, and energy — not the stereotypical nodding-out presentation. Clark traces his heroin addiction directly to post-surgical morphine administered after brain tumor removal at 24, when the pain relief felt so complete he immediately committed to chasing that sensation. This functional early phase allows users to maintain jobs and relationships, making detection by family members and employers extremely difficult until the addiction accelerates.
• •Recovery Principles as Universal Life Tools: The practical tools of 12-step recovery — daily inventory, making amends, showing up consistently, sitting in the front row, introducing yourself, accountability — function as broadly applicable life frameworks beyond addiction. Clark credits these behaviors, adopted when he moved to New York City in January 2012 without a job or connections, for his professional success building Release Recovery to 140 employees and 80-plus beds across New York and Texas over nine years.