It's a fine line you have to walk.

I have to walk. I have to walk fine line to not be a squeaky wheel.

You know, I just knew that the cards were stacked against me,

so I felt like I was on a

mission to find somebody who could represent better than I could. Deb, though, she has a way of,

like, when I, if I go off a little bit too much in, like, the wrong direction, she just kind of,

hmm, you know, she wrong direction she just kind of hmm you know she she just just

huh and that's my way of being like okay maybe I need to reel it back in a little bit you know

back down to earth but she was so great and she was so disturbed by what was happening

and passionate I mean she really kept going and going and going.

And I just love her. And I don't know when it turned in or how it just turned into a friendship, you know.

And I still tell her all the time, I hope I am you

when I grow up, you know, I want to be Deb. And then she reminds me I'm Lauren Chulgin. And by the end of this episode, two women are going to catch a bad guy, a guy who was a big deal in addiction treatment in Southern California. So far in this podcast, we've learned a lot about why that often does not happen.

So I was really curious to hear about this guy named Chris Batham.

He was the owner and CEO of a substance use disorder treatment company in Los Angeles.

He called himself the rehab mogul, and he will likely be in

prison for the rest of his life, for sexual assault and insurance fraud. Hundreds of people

worked at or attended Batham's facilities, so there are lots of people out there who could tell

you about Batham and what he did. But I found two women named Rose and Debbie,

and their experience in all this taught me more about how to catch a predator than anything else

I've read or heard. So let me tell you about Rose Stahl. In 2013, Rose was living in Los Angeles, and she was talking to a friend about how she was thinking about drinking again. Rose had been in recovery for a while at that point, and this friend was like, oh, you should meet this guy, Chris Batham. He's a therapist, this friend said. He specializes in addiction, and he might

take you for free. Free sounded especially great. So Rose started seeing Batham for weekly therapy

...