Amber Hollingsworth (addiction-treatment professional with ~20 years' experience) explains key "ugly truths" about the addiction treatment industry to help viewers make better decisions. She outlines the variety of treatment options (counseling, psychiatry, IOP, PHP, sober living, detox, recovery communities, nonprofit programs), warns that payers (insurance, state, religious orgs, or private pay) often control treatment decisions, and notes capacity limits and high clinician burnout (she quotes that many counselors last ~5 years). She emphasizes educating yourself, assembling multiple services when no single program fits, and offers an insider's guide linked in the description. The segment closes by reassuring viewers that many patients report positive experiences and by pointing to a follow-up video on what good treatment centers do.
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After working in the field of addiction recovery treatment for almost 20 years, there are definitely some not so pretty truths about the behind the scenes of the addiction treatment industry. And I want to help you understand what those are so that you're better equipped to pick the right kinds of help for you or a loved one. For those of you who are new here, welcome to put the shovel down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your family and your life back on track. Get back out there and live the life that you want to live. I want you to know you are not powerless. You do not have to hit rock bottom. And there are many things you can do to help an addicted loved one. If you want to be back in control of your life, subscribe to this channel and I'll make sure you are always five steps ahead of addiction. One of the first things I want you to know is that they are all different types of addiction treatment, from counseling to psychiatry to intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization programs, sober living, detox recovery communities, non for profit programs. There is so much out there, and let me tell you what it is. Not all created equal. So the first thing you really need to do is educate yourself about what kind of options are out there. A lot of times when people are ready to get help, they just jump at what, whatever option is right there. And they don't make a smart, strategic decision which can wind up costing you a lot of time and money. And to be honest, you only get so many shots at this thing. There are pros and cons to every single option. I actually wrote an insider's guide on this to help you understand all the different options. Free paid insurance, what cost, what, what helps with what, what not to do. And I'm going to put the link in the description. And so you can make heads or tails of all the different options you have. Now the next thing that I want you to understand is that addiction professionals don't have all the answers. A lot of times people and families are coming to us with huge problems, not just addiction, but addiction and mental health. And maybe there are housing issues and financial issues and all kinds of issues. And you're looking at the counselor or the doctor or the social worker or the nurse and you're thinking, oh, they have all these resources and they can solve all these problems. Well, that's just not really the way that it works. Most addiction treatment centers or programs can do a really good job of checking one or two or three of those boxes. But there's no one person or program out there that can solve all the issues. Let me give you an example of what I mean. A lot of times people will contact me and they'll say, well, I have a daughter who has autism and addiction and she's ADHD and she really hates going to groups or what do I do? As you can see, that's a complicated case. And I personally, maybe there is, but I don't know of a program out there that can treat and handle all of those different things at one time. So a lot of times what you have to do is you have to look at the pieces that someone needs and you have to sort of pull them together and create a plan that works specifically for you or your loved one. And it's okay if you can't get that all in some kind of one stop shop. The next truth I want to tell you is one of those kind of ugly truths that you're probably not going to like hearing, but it's the truth nonetheless. And that truth is, is that the one that pays for the treatment makes the decisions. Let me tell you what I mean by that. If the insurance is the one paying for the treatment, then the insurance decides how long of a treatment someone needs and what they get treated for and what kind of programs they have access to and what when the person is ready to be released, the insurance company will make those decisions. Not the doctor and not the counselor. It's the insurance company. Now the doctors and the counselors and the nurses, they can have input in on all that. But at the end of the day when the insurance company says this is what we're paying for, we're not paying for anything else, then that's the way it's going to go. Let's say you get treatment at a non profit place. There are lots of organizations out there that try to help people either on a sliding scale or for free of charge, which is awesome. But there's still somebody paying for that. If it's the state, the state makes the decisions. If it's a religious organization, the religious organization makes the decisions about what, how much and how long. If you are private paying for your treatment, meaning you're paying for it yourself or your loved one is paying for it, then you have a lot more control over what kind of help you get, how long you get that help, what kind of resources you have access to. I know that's difficult to hear, and I'm not saying that you have to have like A ton of money to be able to get good treatment. That's really not what I'm saying. I really just want you to kind of understand the limitations here. But I don't want you to feel like they're not workarounds. Like let's say, for example, you're dealing with somebody who has like a co occurring disorder that's like addiction and a mental health issue. Maybe there's like a non profit place that they can go and get residential treatment for the addiction. But maybe there's the insurance or a family member that's willing to pay for like an individual therapist while they're there that works on maybe the co occurring issue because they don't treat that at the nonprofit place. That's what I mean by you may have to pull together different pieces to make this thing work. And that leads me to the next thing I want you to understand about the ugly truth behind the addiction treatment industry. If it's an insurance driven organization or a non profit organization, that there's probably a lot of overwhelm going on, meaning that they probably have more people seeking help than they can really effectively deal with. And ultimately what that breaks down to is either you're going to be in kind of like a waiting list, you may have to wait to get into the program that you're trying to get into. Or even if you're in the program, you can expect that you're probably not going to get like a super ton of individualized attention. But I don't want you to let that turn you off from the idea of getting help. There are ways to get it done. You just need to know what you're working with. And another thing that I should probably tell you is that the burnout rate for clinical professionals working in the addiction field, really high. In fact, I heard a statistic once that most addiction counselors only last about 5 years. Which honestly is really kind of scary when you think about how much school you have to go to to be an addiction counselor. Like it literally takes more years of school than most addiction counselors are in the field now. Of course, you have to get paid something to be able to make a living and continue to do it. You're not really doing it necessarily for a money reason. You're doing it for a heart reason mostly. However, I do want you to know that addiction counselors, they don't make very much money. But that's not even the big issue. The bigger issue is most addiction counselors, they work in these bigger, larger organizations that have to see A ton of people. And so it becomes like a revolving door. And what happens is you start to see the same people coming in and out all the time. You start to see these very complicated cases that you can't make progress on. And so you end up not getting that really like, fulfilled heart thing that you went into it for. And it can cause you to feel frustrated and burned out. Not to mention all the families that are sort of calling you and they're literally like putting all their hopes on top of you to save their loved one. It is a ton of pressure. Now I get it. None of the things I'm telling you is great news, and it probably doesn't leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling about the options that are out there. But actually knowing these things will help you navigate the system so much more effectively, especially if you get that guide so you know what kind of options you're looking at, what you need so that you don't end up wasting a lot of time, money and energy on all the wrong things. I'll put that link in the description below, but I kind of feel like I've given you some bad news and I kind of feel like I need to leave you on kind of a good note. So I will say this. Despite all of these challenges and problems, most anytime I've ever had a patient that was in an inpatient treatment center or even an intensive outpatient program, they if you ask them about their experience, nine times out of 10 they actually had a really good experience. Even the ones that went kicking and screaming come back and tell me that it was really helpful that they got connected to other helpful resources. So overall, most people leave with a pretty good feeling about it. Now, up next, I want you to watch this video because it's going to tell you exactly what good treatment centers do so you know what questions asked and what you're looking for to know that you are getting the best possible help.
