Is Rehab Even Relevant Anymore? Once upon a time, the thought of a mountainous log mansion with constant 24-hour supervision, chef prepared healthy foods and daily therapy seemed to be the perfect approach to obtaining sobriety for addicts. Clean rooms, clean air, clean living in a place far, far away from the reasons for why addicts become addicts should be enough to heal from and even rid our society of addiction, right?

Sadly, rehabs are not even making a scratch into the realm of addiction.

Let’s look at some drug and alcohol abuse facts, first:

• 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills saturated America from 2006 through 2012 (DEA statistics)
• People in the U.S. spent between $121 billion and $146 billion per year on cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine from 2006 to 2016 (RAND Corporation.)
• In 2019, alcoholic beverage sales in the United States reached approximately $252.82 billion.

It is clear that Americans are over medicating.

In reference to a previous White Tree Medical blog, “Rehabs Don’t Work — Nov 01, 2020,” the following Rehab Industry facts are important to remember.

• According to Statista, 16,066 In-Patient Treatment facilities were in operation in the US in 2020.
• The In-Patient Rehab Industry is estimated to be worth $53 billion by 2025 (Marketdata)
• It takes an addict on average five attempts in rehab to reach 12 months of sobriety
• At an average of 45 days and $50k per program, that is $250,000 of someone’s money,

either your insurance or your own, to achieve sobriety.

It is clear that the rehab industry is booming.

Yet only 7-12% of In-Patient Rehab addicts reach 12 months of sobriety.

After decades of exponential growth in the recovery industry, why is drug and alcohol addiction bursting in pandemic proportions across America? Why is addiction more rampant in our nation than ever?

1 in 25 chance

A new report from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) crystallizes just how challenging it is to break the bonds of addiction. If someone begins their journey into drug or alcohol dependency after the age of 21, they have a one in 25 chance of remaining addicted for life.

1 in 4 chance

According to this same study, those whose addictions start before the age of 18 fare even worse: They have a staggering one in four chance of developing a lifelong dependency.

Stay with us for one more staggering fact:

There are no universally accepted criteria for treatment facility effectiveness.

Rehab centers define success however they choose. Some rehab centers don’t mention their success rates, while others boast high rates that seem too good to be true.

The true goal, of course, is complete sobriety.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 40 to 60 percent of addiction treatment patients relapse. Adjusted for the number of times a patient undergoes treatment only 7-10% will achieve 12 months of sobriety.

SAMHSA reports that as of 2017, 4 million people were treated in In-Patient facilities. In an industry that is worth billions, why are we still only seeing such a small percentage of sobriety success?

If billions are being poured into these facilities for such abysmal results, if there is no industry standard established for that success, and if the cost of this treatment is so exorbitant that 80% of US addicts have to go without help each year, isn’t rehab really irrelevant?

Perhaps we have to stop looking at addiction as a moral and behavioral problem only and start looking at it for what it is…

Addiction is a disease.

If you are admitted to an ER because you fell from your ladder and broke your leg and are bleeding out, the doctors don’t stand around lecturing you on your poor ladder choices. They rush you into surgery to treat the medical problems you are presenting. The same applies to the disease of Addiction.

With Addiction, before ANY true recovery can take place, the brain must be healed first.

White Tree Medical is NOT an In-Patient Recovery facility. We are an outpatient detox medical center. The difference is that we focus on a longer-term program to detoxify you from your drug or alcohol addictions. We focus on medically healing your brain, first, while you stay in your family and in your life.

As a final statistic, we have achieved a 12-month sobriety success rate with our patients 84 percent of the time from the FIRST treatment program.

Rehabs are not working. White Tree Medical isn’t rehab. Call us today. 801 503 9211.