I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday Story, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story.
It's estimated about 50 million people in the United States struggle with an addiction to drugs or alcohol.
Most never get treatment.
Of those who do, about half relapse in the first year.
But in Italy, there 's an addiction treatment program that appears to be having huge success
at getting and keeping people sober.
The program has a big fan in the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I've seen this beautiful model that they have in Italy called San Patriciano.
It's good.
And that's what we need to build here.
San Patroniano is one of the largest addiction treatment facilities in the world.
Recently, Deborah Becker, a senior correspondent at WBUR, went to see how it works.
Well, I've arrived here at San Patroniano in Italy.
I'm surrounded by rolling farmland, vineyards, olive trees, mountains.
It's beautiful.
And I'm going to what looks like a college campus.
There's a large terracotta-colored building surrounded by black iron fencing.
I'm here at the main entrance, and I'm going for a tour.
When we come back, a visit to a different style of drug treatment.
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