A Desperate Call
In 2019, Reveal reporter Shoshana Walter received a distressed call from a woman named Penny Rawlings.
Shoshana had spent years investigating a series of drug and alcohol rehab facilities across the United States that were sending residents to work at chicken processing plants, fast food restaurants, oil refineries and other businesses – all without pay. Her work, done in tandem with reporter Amy Julia Harris, spurred investigations and lawsuits. In 2018, it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
With each exploitative rehab the reporters examined, their questions loomed larger: How many of these facilities are out there? Where did this approach originate? How did residents end up in these places?
Penny had recently sent her brother to a rehab called Cenikor after he’d spent years struggling with addiction.
“I had pretty much cut my brother out of my life three years ago, and we were very close,” she told Shoshana. “And I told him, if you don't get clean, I'm not – I will not help you anymore.”
Then she read one of Shoshana's stories and started to reconsider her decision.
Shoshana told Penny what she already knew, then started digging deeper. She called Penny’s brother, Tim, to learn more about his experience at Cenikor. He told her he’d been worked to the bone – in a call center, making steel cables, even doing electrical work he’d never been trained for. He’d expected a “top-notch” experience, he said. But what he got was the opposite: long hours and little actual drug treatment. Often, he was subjected to bizarre therapies that did more harm than good.
“All they do is just work the dog shit out of you,” he told Shoshana. “And you don't get paid.”
As Sho continued reporting on Cenikor, she uncovered a fascinating story that spanned decades and touched thousands of lives. A story of power, exploitation, cults, presidential endorsements, forced vasectomies and attempted assassinations by rattlesnake.
We’ll be telling that story on our radio show and podcast over the next six weeks in our brand-new serial, American Rehab.
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