The cost of addiction treatment

The cost of addiction treatment has always been high. For many, referral from local drug and alcohol teams has been the only option. You may have been looking for an alcohol detox, a drug rehab, or another form of addiction treatment and found the costs high. I visit a lot of addiction treatment centres and over the last 10 years there have been changes, some for the better, some quite disturbing.

Funding

I look at the list of clients that will be in a workshop I am presenting and notice that all of the people are private clients, meaning that funding has been by them or their families.  Where are the clients then that have been desperately seeking residential treatment through government funding? This is not an isolated state of affairs. Other rehabs I have visited are also seeing fewer referrals from community drug and alcohol teams, in fact, there are hardly any at all. There is still the possibility of gaining funding for residential treatment and you can begin this process by visiting your local drug/alcohol services. Unfortunately though, this can be a very long process and a residential place is not guaranteed

Detox

Our helpline takes calls  from  people who are often shocked at the cost of addiction treatment  and we often hear the same thing “I have been attending my local services for months, and have been refused rehab” Those that have managed  to find funding , usually from the family, may only be able to afford a short stay which allows for detoxification. Once leaving treatment, further support is vital. To find out more about alcohol and drug detox, please contact us.

Support

It is not surprising then that rehabs are responding by gearing toward 4 week programmes and are relying upon the client finding support within their communities post treatment. 12 step fellowships such as Alcoholics anonymous and cocaine anonymous allow many to find their feet in recovery and are playing a big role in supporting people leaving treatment.

Our recovery coaching service has been able to offer one to one support to those that need it and is being asked for regularly by families that feel that treatment won’t be enough. We usually work with someone for between 1-3 months and sometimes longer.  Not as expensive as long term rehab, our Recovery Coaches work closely with people to help them maintain their sobriety in a way which for those willing to engage, has allowed for a return to a healthy life.

Lower cost treatment

The massive cuts in funding available for treating addiction allocated to local councils has had an impact on addicts trying to quit and the way in which treatment centres deliver their services. Treatment Link has been actively seeking rehabs that have excellent treatment programmes and which are at a low cost. A difficult task, the cost of addiction treatment remains high, but we have found a few in the UK that are below £7000/month which we trust and have referred to and have had to look to places such as South Africa and Thailand for other options for those on a low budget needing an alcohol detox, drug detox and rehab.

By continuing to cut services and funding, the cost of addiction treatment is likely to always be too high for those most in need of it. If you are struggling to find the help you need, an alcohol detox, or rehab, or just want advice on options, please call us. Our advisory service will not cost you anything and if advice is all you need, then that is all we will give. You can also visit our faqs page here