Gad Avnon

Gad Avnon founded Harmony Retreat in 1993 with his wife Pam, opening their farmhouse outside Greytown to people struggling with addiction. More than thirty years later he still leads the clinical programme himself, and he is usually the first person a family speaks to when they call.

Over three decades he has treated thousands of people through drug and alcohol dependency, trained corporate and government teams across South Africa, and spoken at conferences on addiction, treatment and recovery. He is featured regularly in the media and on radio, and stays close to the work that matters most: admissions, one-on-one counselling, family support and interventions.

Faith and community

Alongside his clinical work, Gad is an assistant pastor at Shalom Fellowship in Greytown, where he leads the men's ministry and a prison outreach that takes him into correctional facilities in the area. He has never treated faith and treatment as separate things. Both, in his experience, come down to the same practical work: helping a person face the truth, take responsibility, and rebuild a life that had come apart.