Rehab Doesn’t Work
In the end, there is simply no need to remove alcoholics from the support of relatives and friends and shut them away for the customary month in rehab. There is no need for alcoholics to be led to expect a miracle, only to be judged a failure if one does not occur. And there is no need to spend tens of thousands of dollars, again and again and again, on an approach that keeps landing people back where they started.
Alcoholism is an illness. But although those in the rehab business sometimes use that word, the 12-step approach they advocate is weak medicine. When any other illness causes great suffering, our society devotes time and money and effort to studying it and to developing treatments that are empirically found to work.
See the full article on why rehab doesn’t work here.
We are spending an awful lot of money on what doesn’t work.
An important point is that the person’s desire to stop and their decision to seek help is the most important step. People won’t stop until they really want to; then many are unable to stay sober.
AA meetings are essentially free. We ought to try that first before showering money on the rehab industry.
Aren’t we spending a lot of txpayer money on rehab, as well as all the private money?
The real question: If we find out that rehab only works in 10% of cases (if that), then what do we do in its place? AA seems relatively cheap and easy. But, what’s the success rate there?
I guess the question is: If there are no reliable, cost-effective treatments for alcoholism, then do you just say, “We’re sorry, but we don’t know how to treat that disease yet?” That doesn’t seem like a socially-acceptable solution.