It seems you can’t throw a rock in Malibu without hitting a celebrity going into our out of a rehab center.

So Journey Malibu’s founders are now marketing their treatment center toward a niche: not stars, but doctors, lawyers and airline pilots.

Entrepreneur Chris Loguidice and his partner Jim DeMarco, a medical doctor from Hawaii, opened their center late last year. Since then, they’ve wanted to find a way to stand out from the 26 other addiction centers already established in the famous beachside enclave. So they recently settled on targeting highly trained professionals with substance abuse problems.

Journey’s small group of clients – the center treats only six patients at a time – faces challenges that other addicts don’t. These include disciplinary actions from medical boards, bar associations and government transportation agencies. The clinic specializes by acting as an intermediary between its patients and the agencies that could stop them from practicing their professions. The clinic also will set up reinstatement programs to help get recovering substance abusers back to work.

Nearly 90 percent of doctors remain clean five years after treatment, compared with about 30 percent of the general population, DeMarco said. He attributed the results to the higher stakes involved in their profession.

“If they don’t get better, they lose their entire career; yet if they get better they can have a really fulfilling life,” he said. “They are a highly motivated group.”