I will never forget how terrifying it was every time we had to decide what rehab to send our daughter to. I knew that whether she died of alcohol poisoning or (please, God!) eventually recovered from her addiction hinged on our making the right treatment decision, and I desperately wanted to choose a treatment center with a good track record.
Yet when I asked the rehab sales reps what their success rates were, the honest ones said something like “trust us, we’re one of the best”. And the dishonest ones claimed success rates of 80% or more. One treatment center owner even had the nerve to tell me that 98% of his patients were in recovery! As much as I wanted to believe that addiction treatment could be that effective, I knew he was lying through his teeth – he didn’t care about our daughter; he just wanted our money.
Addiction treatment is healthcare, for heaven’s sake! If our daughter had leukemia, we could go online and immediately learn which pediatric hospitals have the best five-year survival rates:
Why doesn’t this type of data exist for addiction treatment?
I was so upset by this that once our daughter was finally on the road to recovery, I decided to try to fill this need. Ten years later, the outcomes research company I started has followed up with over 40,000 patients to learn how they have been doing since leaving rehab.
How Success Rates Should be
Scientifically Measured
Former addiction treatment patients are a notoriously difficult group of individuals to keep track of, but by making 10-15 attempts each time, paying them a small amount to complete an outcomes survey, and reaching out to “locator folks” the patient had given us permission to contact should their cell phone no longer work, we’re typically able to reach 50% to 60% of former patients at one, six and twelve months post-treatment. Most of the patients who complete surveys report that they’ve been meeting their drug and alcohol usage goals for at least the last 30 days.
The group of patients we aren’t able to contact is statistically very different from the group who respond. Non-responders are far more likely to have left treatment early, to have spent fewer days in treatment, and to be addicted to drugs (such as heroin and cocaine) that are harder to stop using. In fact, quite a few of these individuals who “couldn't be contacted” start to take our online research survey, but stop when they come to the question “Have you used any non-prescribed drugs or alcohol since you left treatment?”. If a former patient doesn’t respond to our repeated requests to let us know how they’re doing, it’s a safe assumption that these individuals are using again.
With the exception of multi-year treatment programs treating doctors, pilots or other professionals who will lose their professional licenses if they don’t remain sober, it’s rare for more than 50% of patients to be reachable and meeting their treatment goals six or twelve months after treatment. A rehab that tells you that 75% or more of their patients are in recovery one year after leaving treatment is either making this number up or reaching only a portion of their patients and assuming that this small group of patients is representative of all patients.
What It Means When a Rehab Claims 80% of Patients Recover
Many rehabs will send out a text or two to former patients asking how they’re doing and say “80% of the patients who responded said they were abstinent, so we have an 80% success rate”:
Wouldn’t it be great if this were true? Unfortunately, centers using such a lackadaisical approach are lucky if 20% of their patients respond. And the people who do quickly respond tend to be those who are proud of how they're doing. The truth is that if you’re not able to reach someone, you have to assume they’re using again. So in reality, this center doesn’t have an 80% success rate, they have a 17% success rate:
How to Find the Best Rehab For You
My daughter and I created Conquer Addiction to provide independently-verified success rate data to families searching for high-quality addiction treatment. Rehabs interested in promoting their success rates can submit outcomes research results to Conquer Addiction’s independent panel of expert judges once each quarter and receive a 1-star to 5-star success rating. Rehabs are free to use any outcomes research company they wish or even do the research themselves as long as they follow the outcomes research requirements set by the judges. FYI, a center only able to confirm that 17% of their patients were abstinent wouldn't even qualify for a 1-star rating on Conquer Addiction!
To find the best rehab for you, enter what you’re looking for in Conquer Addiction:
You’ll be given a list of rehabs that meet your needs with those with the best independently-verified success rates at the top of the list. Click through to learn more about any of these centers, and you’ll see the actual outcomes research results that earned them their 4-star or 5-star rating:
Recovering from addiction is incredibly difficult. If you can, give your child, spouse or other loved one the best possible chance of success by sending them to a rehab that has invested in proving its treatment works.
And if you must choose a rehab that isn’t accurately tracking its outcomes (because the sad truth is that most rehabs still aren’t bothering), please help the families who will be searching for treatment next year by asking every rehab you approach to start monitoring and reporting their outcomes.