Drug and alcohol treatment is expensive. There are addicts and alcoholics out there who want to get help, but ask themselves how they can ever afford it.

There are basically 3 ways that you can pay for a stay in rehab.

1) Private insurance
2) Government funded
3) Cash

Let’s take a look at each one.

Health Insurance

A certain percentage of people have health insurance, and that might cover all or most of a stay in a treatment center.  But even with good health insurance, sometimes people can’t afford rehab, for whatever reasons.  Keep in mind that this is becoming more and more of a battle each day, as insurance companies place more and more restrictions on who is covered for rehab, how often they can stay, and so on.

If you have insurance, call them up a local rehab and see what you can get covered for. Sometimes there will be a copay. In some cases it is very reasonable, in others it will be so high that you are back to the drawing board. You just have to get on the phone and talk to your insurance company and see what the deal is. Because of this, having insurance can be a mixed blessing when it comes to treatment. Sometimes they cover all or most of a stay, but other times it seems like they are too restrictive and limiting. It can be a bit of a crap shoot.

What if you don’t have insurance? State funding might be the answer

Rehab no insurance – The next option if you don’t have insurance is to get out the phone book and get on the phone.

Your first goal is to find and then contact all the treatment centers in your local area. If you can’t find them in the phone book or on the internet, you can start by asking your doctor to recommend one.

The first treatment center that you call can also point out any others in the area.

Once you have a list of potential treatment centers, you need to call them up and explain your situation. Tell them you are interested in treatment services but you have no insurance.

The treatment center will probably ask you if you are on Medicaid or Medicare. If you are then they may or may not accept those. If not, then they might have you call a state funding agency to try to get funded through the state.

This might sound complicated but it really isn’t. Most States in the U.S. have money set up for a certain number of participants to use for treatment. Some treatment centers accept this form of payment and others do not. So it is simply a matter of seeing if you qualify for the grant money and finding a treatment center that accepts it.

I know if might sound like a hassle but it’s really not so bad. Get on the phone and talk to the treatment centers and they can walk you through getting funded if you qualify. They want to help you and they want your business.

The last resort – Paying cash for treatment services

So what if you don’t have insurance and for some reason, can’t get funded through government money for treatment? Sometimes this is the case, and your only option will be to pay cash.  If you want to know how expensive is drug rehab, just ask them what their cash rates are, and be prepared for a scary answer.

Now usually this appears to be a deal breaker for most people because the cost is usually pretty high–ranging anywhere from around a thousand dollar right on up to over ten thousand. (Keep in mind that a thousand dollars is really a very low amount and could probably only buy you about 3 days in most treatment centers these days).

So for most people, paying cash sounds prohibitive at first. But people still do it every day, because they are desperate enough and want to change.

If it comes down to being your only option, be sure to check with treatment centers and see if they will work out a payment plan. Many of them will.

Paying cash for treatment services is not the end of the world. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would have paid a small fortune for the treatment I received when I first got clean and sober. Of course, back then I would not have believed it was worth it….it is only in retrospect that I know and understand the true value of my initial stay in treatment. A decent alcohol rehab can help an alcoholic achieve lasting recovery, and that is worth any price of admission that they might want you to pay. Of course there are no guarantees, but that is true of any treatment option.

Don’t let the high cost of treatment deter you, it’s cheaper than continuing to drink or use drugs!

Is drug rehab expensive?  Sure.  But, in spite of the prohibitively high cost of treatment, quitting drugs and alcohol will save you a lot more money in the long run, far more than the initial cost of treatment. This is in addition to the indirect cost savings you will experience based on an improved quality of life and better overall health.

Think of it this way: maybe your drug or alcohol addiction is only costing you a thousand dollars or so this year, but if you continue to use without arresting your disease, the costs will snowball as you go forward. Health and legal problems will multiply, your tolerance will increase and you’ll have to spend more money to get the same effect. The tendency towards cross-addiction might introduce new substances into your life that will incur more costs for you. And so on.  Figuring out how to afford rehab is the best thing you can do, in most cases.  Addiction might start out rather cheap but it adds up over time, and also has a tendency to snowball and get worse.

Low cost drug rehab

There are some ways that you can go to rehab for cheap, and in some cases people can even attend rehab for free. It all depends on how they are set up and what type of financial situation you are in.

Obviously, the cost of providing treatment is never going to be “free.” But for example, some long term rehabs are actually set up almost like a homeless shelter, and therefore are funded differently so that the people who go there do not have to pay anything. In some cases, the therapy and the programming at such places is good, other times, not so much. If you can afford to pay for any rehab of your choosing, you will obviously be able to get the type of therapy that you want.

Many referral services have options where they can direct you to a drug rehab that fits in with your insurance or your financial situation. Some rehab centers take Medicare, others don’t. The same is true of other payment options in some cases. So you have to call around and find out what is available to you, and what the cost will be.

This can be a quick learning process. Get on the phone and see what is out there. It never hurts to try, even if you don’t think you have a way to pay for treatment services.

The cost of drug rehab is measured with success

The lifetime value of a trip to drug rehab is measured in the millions of dollars. In other words, if a relatively young person goes to treatment and they stay clean and sober because of it, then the financial gains from that decision will likely pay them over a million dollars over the course of their lifetime. The cost of using drugs and alcohol is staggering, even when you just consider direct and indirect financial loss. Of course the real cost goes far beyond the monetary value involved, as we all know, but just looking at the dollars that get poured into an addiction, we can see that rehab is a tremendous value.

One problem is that many people who leave rehab will initially relapse, and this happens very shortly after leaving. Something like 80 percent will relapse within the first year of leaving treatment, and over half will relapse in the first 30 days. Those are rough estimates but they are in line with what the U.S. government data suggests based on huge treatment center follow up surveys with millions of participants. But here is the critical thing: getting clean and sober is a process, one that generally involves a few trips to rehab.

Most who find stable recovery do so after 3 or 4 trips to drug rehab. This is just the cost of doing business. If it was one trip to rehab and you’re done, that would be great. Everyone wants a magic bullet, a cure. But the fact is that it takes a continuous effort. Many will make it if they keep trying, and don’t give up.

The cost of inpatient drug rehab compared to other forms of treatment

Inpatient drug rehab is pretty expensive. But it works a bit better than cheaper forms of treatment. For example, you can save quite a bit of money if you went to outpatient treatment instead, where the client goes home each night but comes back for classes and meetings each day. However, the statistics show that outpatient is not as effective as inpatient, all things considered.

There are other forms of treatment too, such as counseling or therapy on an individual basis. Again, these are not going to give you the same advantages as inpatient rehab, and they still have significant cost. Best would be to combine such an approach with inpatient treatment.

You might even look at forms of treatment like drug maintenance, and compare the cost with that. Some people who are addicted to opiates might take Methadone or Suboxone on a long term basis in order to overcome their addiction. In these cases, if they stay on the medication long term, it is actually much cheaper to go to inpatient rehab, because the cost of the maintenance drug adds up quite a bit over time. Staying on a maintenance drug for a few years is not cheap, when you add it all up. Plus, you have to consider other costs, such as the inconvenience of taking and having to get additional medication every day, and so on.

What we think drug rehab costs: time, money, and social stigma

Many people who think of drug rehab consider several different costs, not just the financial end of it. They might be leery of going to rehab because of all of the costs involved, with money just people one aspect of this. For example, consider these other “costs”:

Time – being in drug rehab takes time away from “your life.” This is often a part of denial, as the person who is arguing this is generally living a messed up life of addiction anyway, and they are not doing anything super productive with their time anyway. Yet they argue that going to rehab for a few weeks or even longer is “ridiculous” in that it would tie them up for too long. In other words, the time investment for going to rehab is too high a cost for that person. For someone with a real problem, this is just a rationalization (as is any excuse to avoid rehab, actually).

Social stigma – many people are leery of going to rehab because of the “cost” in social stigma. This exists largely in their own minds, but they are afraid of incurring a stigma based on their drug addiction or alcoholism. They think that others will see them in treatment, or know that they went to treatment, and will then judge them for that. They believe that others will find out that they are an addict or alcoholic and think less of them for it. If they go to rehab, then they think they are exposing themselves to the world and inviting this stigma in. Thus, stigma is a “cost” in the mind of the addict who is afraid to be exposed.

Are there free drug rehabs out there?

There are some situations where rehab could be free, or entirely “covered” for some people, but of course, everything has a cost. It is just a matter of whether or not you are paying for that cost out of your own pocket or not. It is worth it to make the call to find out if you qualify for rehab based on your insurance or your financial situation. In some cases, there are funding agencies at the state level that can cover the cost of certain treatments for people who do not have any insurance or money to cover it otherwise. This varies from state to state and can also vary depending on your situation. Therefore, the best solution is to call and find out what your options are. It never hurts to try!

The bottom line

The bottom line is that almost anyone can afford to go to drug abuse treatment if they thoroughly explore their options and make it a real priority in their life.