2025-09-05
30 分钟This is In Conversation from Apple News.
I'm Shamita Basu.
Today, the dark side of America's rehab industry.
The United States is in the grip of a devastating opioid epidemic.
Since 1999, more than a million Americans have died of drug overdoses.
And while fatal overdoses have fallen in recent years,
hundreds of thousands of people continue to cycle through treatment programs,
many of which fail to help them achieve lasting recovery.
There's no snap of the finger magic cure for addiction.
It can be a long-term problem and a complicated problem to solve.
That's Shoshana Walter.
She's covered the addiction treatment system in the U.S. for years.
As a reporter at Reveal, she co-hosted the podcast series American Rehab.
And in her new book, Rehab and American Scandal,
she lays out how the very system meant to help people recover has too often failed them,
and in some cases even exploited them.
She argues that this system bears responsibility for prolonging America's addiction crisis.
Someone who's entering a treatment program is especially vulnerable
because they have accepted that they have a problem and they want help.
And now their lives are being put in the hands of treatment providers that often have good intentions,