America’s Rehab Scandal

Investigative reporter Shoshana Walter has spent a decade uncovering how America’s $53 billion rehab industry exploits the people it claims to help. Her debut book, Rehab: An American Scandal, follows four people through a system of unpaid labour, unregulated programs, and treatment that fuels relapse.

“Just because people aren’t dying doesn’t mean they’re not still suffering, doesn’t mean their families and communities aren’t still suffering.”

In this episode with Mark Labberton, Walter reflects on the human cost of America’s failed treatment system. Together they discuss court-ordered rehab as unpaid labour, the deadly paradox of thirty-day programs, faith-based facilities exempt from oversight, racial disparities in the opioid crisis, the treatment gap for mothers, and why recovery capital and low-barrier care offer a more promising path.