Introducing American Rehab

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of American Rehab, our first-ever serialized podcast.

The series, which debuts today, is the product of more than three years of reporting on a uniquely American phenomenon: unpaid labor in the name of rehabilitation. What we found along the way shocked us: In 2017, we reported on drug rehab participants who suffered devastating injuries after being sent to work without pay at chicken processing plants. In 2018, we investigated how people seeking addiction treatment were thrust into adult care homes with little training or sleep, sometimes charged with administering the very drugs that landed them in treatment in the first place. Some accused top administrators of sexual harassment. Others were maimed while working for no pay at some of America’s largest companies.

Again and again, experts told us that sending people in desperate need of addiction treatment to work without pay likely violated federal labor laws. Yet each rehab we investigated seemed to point us to others employing similar tactics.

Over the course of six weeks, American Rehab explains how we reached this point – how a cult-like treatment approach, founded in the 1950s, gave rise to a model of work-based rehabs that’s thriving amid the opioid epidemic. A model that ensnares tens of thousands of people across the U.S every year, in almost every state.

The series offers a haunting glimpse of what happens when a country’s drug crisis collides with its obsession with work. It’s a tale of profits, power, deception, forced vasectomies and attempted assassinations via rattlesnake.

We hope you find it as captivating as we do.