To everyone sayin that it's messed up someone can't get help in the US just because of money, it's not like that at all IME. It's pretty easy, I had an inpatient rehab let me live there for 7 weeks while they waited for my welfare/medicaid to get approved. I had a friend who decided to leave (and never got approved) and they didn't charge him.
The reason people don't get help is because they either don't know about programs like this, or they don't want to go to a public rehab or comply with their rules. btw the public walfare rehab I was in wasn't bad at all, sure some weirdos were there but it's a fucking rehab and IMO a rehab should be slightly shady to remind you what your options are. Getting to know a homeless crackhead alcoholic shows you the severity of your own problem.
the facility was this renovated 1920's insane asylum(mad cool building) with a decent staff,
free acupuncture, field trips, day passes (where you could leave on your own), access to all sorts of recreational stuff and better than hospital food. The staff was great because they knew who wanted help and who was just doing time so they could give help to the people who wanted it. and the people who didn't want help eventually got themselves kicked out. Since the building was part of the county psychiatric center (and i was there for so long waiting to get approved) the psych center started paying me an allowance (like the folks in the new psych center next door that were permanent skitzo cases etc lived) like $12.50 a week...lol.. it payed for candy and soda.
I should mention that EVERYONE in the paid insurance drug treatment community in that city talks shit about this place but that's beside my point. The popular insurance paid treatment place on the other side of town is fucking miserable, your basically locked in one building for a month and taken for walks twice a day. At my place there were open separate men and womens open outdoor corridors where you could go play sports or read a book or whatever during your free time. At night all the fireflies would get stuck (cuz these corridors had like 12 ft walls) so there would be like a couple hundred fireflies all stuck in the area the size of football field...all just drifting around....flickering...with the eerie 1920's insane asylum backdrop. lol i miss rehab....well i miss that view.
Since it was an insane asylum this place was
really cool inside. There was tons of eerie locked empty long hallways that connect the buildings. Like the place you slept and did treatment was nice and fairly new, but if you were walking to a different section you were taken by staff down these super creepy haunted looking hallways. i'm way off topic
this is from their site, under the criteria for admission. And thats not just for this one place, it's for all 7 OASAS treatment centers that cover all of New York State:
Fees based on Individual's ability to pay (No individuals denied access based on inability to pay)
http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/atc/norris/general.cfm
Norris is the rehab I was at. I give it a 4 star review. free fucking acupuncture! comeon now, the entire staff was licensed acupuncturists, so they'd have like 5-7 sessions a week. So if you're living in NYS and need help check out the link.
Welfare/medicaid paid for my inpatient/outpatient/halfway house (8 months) and aftercare. I saw the inpatient bill and it was over $21,000, just for inpatient. NYS probably paid close to $75,000 for my entire recovery. So the help is out there. People just like to bitch that there isn't because it's a damn good excuse to keep using. For places like this you just need some type of social worker/doctor to vouch for you and wait for a bed (very high turnover so you shouldn't wait more than a week).