#72: Beyond the Brochure: What to Look for in a Treatment Program

Choosing a treatment center can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re scared, exhausted, and trying to do the “right” thing for someone you love. In this episode of The Unbreakable Boundaries Podcast, we break down how to navigate this decision with clarity, confidence, and compassion.

We start by unpacking what “the right fit” really means. It’s not just about a glossy website or a quick admission date—it’s about matching your loved one’s needs with the appropriate level of care, philosophy, and support. We talk about how to avoid panic-driven decisions and instead move toward thoughtful, informed choices.

 
Next, we zoom out from the crisis moment. Recovery isn’t a 30-day event; it’s a long-term process. We explore how treatment centers fit into the bigger picture of ongoing care, relapse prevention, and rebuilding a life. You’ll hear why families should think past “getting them in somewhere” and focus on what comes after discharge.

Not everyone needs or benefits from the same level of care. We break down PHP and IOP—what they are, who they’re for, and how they differ from residential treatment. We discuss how these programs support step-down care, help maintain progress, and can be powerful tools in a continuum of treatment, especially for people balancing work, school, or family responsibilities.
  
Here we get specific about what should be non-negotiable when choosing a program. We cover essentials like evidence-based treatment, licensed clinicians, medical oversight, individualized care plans, family involvement, and ethical marketing and billing practices. We also talk about red flags—high-pressure sales tactics, vague clinical information, or promises that sound too good to be true—and how to spot them.

We close by focusing on you—the family. Recovery isn’t just about the person entering treatment; it’s a family process. We discuss how families can participate in treatment in healthy ways, support without enabling, and get their own help through therapy, support groups, and education. You’ll learn why your healing matters just as much, and how an effective treatment center will include and support the family as part of the plan.

By the end of the episode, you’ll be better equipped to ask the right questions, recognize quality care, and choose a treatment center that supports real, sustainable recovery for your loved one—and for your family as a whole.

Transcript

Jennifer Maneely: 0:00

Welcome back to the unbreakable boundaries podcast with your host. Myself, Jennifer Maneely, in today's episode, I wanted to dive in deep, and I think I've talked about it on this podcast before, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper about talking about picking treatment centers for your loved one, because that can be a really confusing and very angsty place for family members to be. It's one of those, how do I even pick a treatment center for my child? What if I choose wrong and it costs them their life? How do I pick through all of these different types of treatment and so forth and so on? So I'm going to give you some of my own opinions and perspectives, some of the things that I have seen that works well, some things that I've seen that doesn't work well, some mindset issues that go along with your loved one and how to deal with some pushback that you are inevitably going to deal with. So here we go. Now, I understand that treatment centers can be incredibly costly, and so there is definitely that, that financial pressure that is put on, you know, to the families, it's overwhelming. So you sit down at the computer starting to research on Google, and it's, it's like 20 pages of sponsored ads. A lot of them are, call this hotline. Do this, you call there, you get the run around, and it's, it's just really hard and confusing, and then you got all of the different types of treatments. So you have the inpatient treatments, you have the IOPS, the intensive outpatient treatments you have the PHPs, the partial partial hospitalization. You have transitional houses, sober living houses, Oxford house. You have all of these different styles of things, and all of them are telling you that this, this is their the best one for your loved one, and it's definitely going to help. And how do you navigate through all of these different styles? So let's start with inpatient, which is probably one of the more harder and more difficult treatments to talk your loved one into, because it does consist of taking them and putting them somewhere for that's the most average time period is like 30 days. We'll just call it a 30 days. There's some that's 45 days. There's some that 60, there's some that's much longer term than that, and then some that's a little bit shorter term. 30 days is a good amount of time, though, if you're going to do inpatient, as long as there is some things going on afterwards as well, but we can talk about that as we move forward into talking about these different treatments. So inpatient is really good for someone that just they're just really having a hard time not using drugs, and they need to have a place to go that's safe, that they can get their mind, what I call unhijacked. So like when a mind is hijacked, it's where, that's where the mental health and like the addiction, all of that comes in. So when someone is just in that place of using drugs, it does start feeling like they no longer have a choice in using drugs. They have to use it. Their brain is attached to this chemical, and their brain is going to tell them that it needs it and and depending on the drug, physically, their body is also going to tell them that they need that drug, right? And it's can be really hard to get someone who is completely hijacked from the drugs to stop using without putting them into an inpatient and allowing their brains to come back un hijacked, so that they start having a choice again, right? So there's a difference between someone who is choosing to use drugs and then someone who is just so far gone. They're hijacked. They can't stop, right? And I have myself been in that place where it just feels like I'm not going to be able to stop under any circumstance if I'm not somewhere safe. So. So I've gone to inpatient rehabs for 30 days a couple of times, and it was really beneficial. Part of the challenge is convincing your loved one to actually go do that, because that seems a little bit like a prison, a little bit like they don't want to leave their lives. Maybe they have kids, maybe they have animals, all of those things, if you have any hope of convincing them to get into an inpatient rehab, all of those things has to be answered. First is, what are they going to do? They probably don't have a job, but like, if they do have a job there, they might not want to let it go, and that can be really challenging, and that's where maybe some of the other treatments can come into play. But we can talk about that again in a little bit. But I think that when someone is just completely gone and completely hijacked, inpatient is probably the only thing that, I won't say, the only thing that works the best, but it is one of the things that works the best, and it's probably not going to be very effective or stop the hijacking, unless they are in in a treatment facility for that 30 days. Now, let's talk about what happens afterwards, because I think a lot of times families believe, hey, you need to go to rehab, and that's just it right, like you go to rehab, you get back on track, and then you get out of there, and you start living your your life again, as if nothing ever happened. You just are able to move forward with life. And that is not at all how treatment works. So one of the things that I really want to bring to this podcast and bring as education is that this is a journey some of you know that some of you may not know that, but this is a long term journey, and when I talk about these things and these sustainable practices that go on, I'm looking at a timeline of, is it going to help someone, not just for the next year or two, but is The foundation that they're building set up to sustain themselves successfully for, like, the next 1520, 30 years, for the rest of their lives, right? So, like, if they, if people, build a weaker foundation, it's not going to be sustainable for the 1015, 20 year timeline. It's going to be sustainable for the year or two timeline, which, yes, is a long time in the scheme of someone not using drugs, who's used to using drugs all the time, every day, like every day, every other day, whatever their timeline is, that it is a long timeline for a year or two, but then they just fall right back into it, and that can be defeating, not only for them, but it can be defeating for the families as well. And so when I talk about things, I want to look at the 1015, 20 year timeline of sustainability and what, what sets people up to create that strong foundation. And so, you know, just thinking that inpatient is just is enough for them to gain the skills and the tools that they need. It's really only designed. Yes, they have programming. Yes, some of them will tell you that their programming is better than others, and maybe that is partially true. Not all treatment centers are created equal. I'm not going to sit here and argue that point, however, in my perspective, and again, this is just my perspective, is that this is really just a safe place at the core of it, it's just a safe place for people to get their minds back, to get their choice back. And so what do they choose to do afterwards, if they're just gonna fall right back into that hole, or they're like, oh my gosh, I have to go start doing some things differently and actually start working towards what I'll term as just recovery, and having that recovery mindset where we're starting to really dive into. To why are we using drugs? And how do we prevent ourselves from using drugs and fall back into that hole, which is a lot more of the mental health aspect and keeping ourselves mentally healthy, which means that we have to start doing things differently, sustainably, but our lives have to change our mindsets. Most importantly, our mindsets have to change and shift. And that does not happen overnight. It just doesn't and so one thing I really want to just kind of approach is that because of the core of what I think the inpatient is really good for. The expense doesn't particularly matter. Now that being said, I want to also say that, yes, rehabs are a business. They just are. They are putting people away, and they are basically, they're putting people up with therapy and mental health, and some, and some of them have, like, psychiatric help, and they have therapists involved, all of that. Frankly, it's a business, and it does cost money. I mean, you can't go and stay in a hotel for free for a month, even, like hotels and stuff, you can, it can get really expensive. And then, of course, you're adding all these other things. You know, they, they they're feeding you, they're they're having these programs, they have staff. They have a bit of overhead. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't necessarily pay for rehab if that is something that is within the budget, and sometimes it's just not. Sometimes, you know, depending on insurance, depending on the financial situation, depending on whatever it's not really in the budget to pay for rehab, and that's where there are plenty of rehabs out there that will scholarship people, or their whole design is to attract people that can't afford rehab, that may need help. There are those places, and those places, frankly, are just as good as they're really, really expensive. You know, you go there for 30 days that it costs$100,000 right? Like, I'm not gonna sit here and say that there's not a difference in the two. There absolutely is. But remember what our core purpose is for those 30 days. So there is a huge spectrum of the financial responsibility. I also lean in, and this is, this is a little bit, maybe a little bit of a hot take, maybe not. But I also lean into allowing your loved one to work within their means of what they can afford. Just because you can afford a really expensive rehab doesn't mean that they can afford a really expensive rehab, right? And so when we allow them the opportunity to get the help that they need and make the phone calls and work within their means, one of the good things about that is they start building the muscles, the internal muscles, the practicing these skills that I'm talking about in order to get themselves out of trouble and to actually figure out what do they need to do in order to help themselves. So it really starts helping them lift off they are then responsible for their stay. So it's like they're not obligated by you, and so they're going to take it a little bit more seriously when they find their own way through it. Now, sometimes their mindset is so far gone that they just really can't do that. And a lot of times, you know, you they get backed into a corner, and the only option that they have left is, oh, well, I guess I'll just do this so that I have a place to stay for 30 days. But I'm not ready to get clean, and that is where it can be really costly, and expensive, especially for the families, because, and I'm going to use a little bit of business terms, because it it this is like a contract, and we have to think about it a little bit like that, where you want to see as a family member, as a parent that pays and invests in their loved one. You want to see. A return on an investment. You want to you want to have an ROI. You don't want to just go out and just dump a whole bunch of money into rehab after rehab, and not ever see anything that really changes. You want to be able to invest and so when we're thinking about rehab, if we're not making a financially investment decision and we're making a desperate, fear based decision, then the results are probably not ever going to be what we want them to be. So the willingness in which someone is willing to go into rehab is what I look for if you're going to invest a whole bunch of money. Now, I'm not saying don't pay for for rehab necessarily. I'm saying, if you're going to do it, make sure that that person is ready and willing to go do that. Now the outcome, we can't really know, because it's such a long journey. Of you know, maybe they're good for the 30 days, maybe they're good for a year or two. We can't really know what's going to happen afterwards, but at least if someone is willing and wanting to go to rehab because they feel like they're ready to change their lives, you're going to get a much higher ROI than you would with someone who is not Who you feel like you're really just throwing it in there, and that's just wasting a whole bunch of time and money. If that's the place that they're at where it's like, I have nowhere to go, and they're saying they're all desperate and they don't really want to go into inpatient, but that's the only place that they would go. Then this is where I would say, let's work within their means, and not your means, and let's work within them getting the help, because there's plenty of places that will scholarship, that will find that. And so sometimes just the act of having them go through that experience, of them finding the place them, you know, becoming willing and finding the the the low cost or free places that will sometimes also help shift their mindset in their willingness to get the help that they need. So that's just something to consider. Um, if you have more questions about this, because I could go on all the time, and I want to move on and get to some other things. But if you have more questions about this, always feel free to just reach out to me. The best place to do that is probably on my website. You can go to the recovering family.org There is a place where you can schedule free calls, and I'm always happy to take a call if you just have questions. So please, please come and schedule a call if you want to talk even more. It would help me to understand, you know what your love where your loved one is at, where you're at, what has been helpful in the past, what hasn't been helpful, what you've done? There's a lot of things to consider here, and I can't go through all of that stuff right now. I can only give you a general, brief overview. So please always feel free to reach out if you have any questions about, anything about, you know, rehabs, or anything that you're experiencing. And then again, that's the recovering family.org so I want to move on. I want to talk about, like PHP and IOP and the differences of that. So PHP is a partial hospitalization, so it's it's outpatient, but it's very intense. So PHP is a very intense option, but they get to go home at night. And sometimes just getting to go home at night can also be very challenging because, you know, they're at home. And so sometimes, you know, they can spend all day somewhere getting mental health care, and then they can still want to, you know, go, go use so that can also be very challenging, but it can also be really good, because they do get to go home. The cost is a little bit less because they're not being hospitalized. They're not like food and stuff is not really being provided. Some some of them may provide lunch or breakfast or depending on, you know, the type of place and stuff. So that's, that's a good option, if they just can't go into inpatient and or they're not willing to go into inpatient, but they're willing to do something outpatient, so they can still feel like they have a life. They also have the weekends too. So it's usually five, maybe six days, but they they may have a full day off where they get to kind of feel like they have a life, but they're being highly supported, highly structured stuff. So this can be a good option any this. I also say that there's pros and cons to every single one of these treatments, right there just is. There's pros and cons to every single one, and so just as much as you can look on the pro side, there's also, like some downfalls to each of these. There's no perfect treatment that is going to, for sure, help your loved one. It is going to be up to your loved one what they choose to get out of this. So I just want to say that now let's talk about IOP. IOP is intensive, outpatient. It is intense, but it's not like PHP. PHP is like five, six days a week. A lot of programming. They're there all day. They don't have a whole lot of time to themselves. IOP is something that is a little bit less intense than PHP. It's, it's, it's like maybe three, four days a week. It's maybe partial days. They have a lot more time so they could actually have a part time job around their schedule, because the schedule is set for like IOPS. The schedule set so they can actually go and get a part time job. Some people have to have either some sort of work financially, they need to have that maybe they already have a job, and they can have their job work within their schedule of IOP a little bit less than, or a little bit more than, like PHP, and so they get to maintain a little bit more of their life. So that can be a really good option. If you know there, if your loved one is just not into inpatient or PHP, they're like, I gotta figure out how to live my life, and then so we're gonna move on into sober living, right? Sober livings are structured environments that they're not intense. There's not really a whole lot of requirements sober some sober livings are structured a little bit differently in terms of, you know, if they have to do, like, 12 step meetings, maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe there are some programming involved in some sober livings, some things like, when you're looking at places like an Oxford house, a lot of times sober livings, though, and this is the one thing I'll caution, is they don't. They're not set up for the initial treatment. So it's not that someone is getting high one day and then they go into a sober living. A sober living, traditionally, is something that is part of the transition out of care. So out of something like an inpatient is the most common, but it can also be in conjunction with PHP and sober living, so someone could be getting high one day, and then they enter into a PHP program. And while they're in the PHP program, they also are in a sober living and so they, instead of going home, they go from their PHP or their IOP, and then they go home into their safe, sober living environment. So it's almost like you could do an inpatient without having to do inpatient if you want to work with a sober living. But a sober living is not just you're getting high one day and then you go right into a sober living. They traditionally want some sort of care or transition into that. So you have all sorts of different types of sober livings within that I can go more deeper again, this is a place where I could spend a whole lot of time going into all the differences of the sober living. But if this is something that is you have a lot more questions about sober livings and using PHPs and how to find them and all of those things. Please feel free to reach out to me at the recovering family.org Okay, so now is when I want to kind of talk now that we have that kind of background in what all of these different treatments are, how do you go about selecting and finding the right fit for your loved one? A lot of times when families enter into this, I have to go find the. Place that is going to save my loved one, that can be a detrimental place to be. So I kind of want to go into now. I go around and I do vet a lot of rehab facilities, people's programs, so, but I can only go so far. And there are, I mean, countless across the United States. There are countless, and I help and work with people all over the United States. I even work with people outside of the country sometimes. And so I can't go around and vet every single rehab, every single place that is out there, but I have gotten pretty good at going to people's websites and kind of figuring out how to narrow down the search and then helping direct people into hey this these are good places to start with, and that kind of brings the overwhelm down for families a little bit. And so I kind of want to go through how I think about websites, how I look through things to see if they're going to be a good place to that that fits what, what I feel like people need when it comes to treatments, right? So that also means I need to go into how I determine that, how I got there. And I kind of have a little bit of, I don't know if it's a framework, but I have these four non negotiables that someone needs in order to sustain long term recovery, right? And so I'm going to go into those four non negotiables really quickly. But again, if you have questions and you want to dive deeper into that discussion, feel free to reach out. So the first non negotiable that I want to talk about, and none of these are in a particular order, so I have to start somewhere. There has to be a first one that I talk about, but it does not make it the most important. These are all just as equally important. So it's, I mean, if we're looking at force, right, each of these is 25% of the equation, and they're all 25% like one isn't 30% and the other is 20% these are all equal pieces of the pie that are just as important. So I want you to keep that in mind. So the first one that I am going to talk about, though, is what I call mentorship, so in like 12 steps that a lot of times that's called, like a sponsor, but I'm not here to promote 12 step base recovery, because there's a lot of other recovery programs that are out there that are really good, and I think that support the same things. And what I have found, though, is that each of these have this, these same core principles, because it's what sets people up for long term. So if it's not 12 Steps, it can be Celebrate Recovery. It can be smart recovery. There's, I mean, there's just it can be Dharma recovery. It can be all of these other different recoveries. So again, I'm not here to necessarily promote one recovery program over the other, but they have each of these have elements of these four non negotiables. So mentorship, aka sponsorship, is it's basically like one person, and it does not have to remain one person the entire way through it. Actually, it really doesn't. It's just a person that is there to deliver for that period of time, whether it's a short term or long term, that person is the person that you go to to ask questions, to figure out who can teach you how to live life without using drugs, right? And again, that person may change, and inevitably will change over time, but it is important to have some a person to go through that is kind of a guide into both the recovery program and life, right? And picking that person is a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day. But it doesn't mean that it's not incredibly important to have that person that acts as a guide. This does not need to be. I want to say this very clearly. This is not a family member, this is not a mother, this is not a father, this is not a sibling. This is someone that is outside of the family. This is not either this is not a friend either. It does not mean that you don't become friendly and you don't create a strong relationship. But it is a mentor relationship. It is not necessarily a friendship. And again, this is not a family member. So the second non negotiable is there's got to be a program of recovery in some way. And again, in the 12 Steps. That program of recovery is 12 Steps. That is the program of recovery. I'm not promoting 12 Steps. I'm just saying that that is what that is. But there's in other programs of recovery. There are other ways of doing things that elicit the same information and self awareness that a person needs and support and helping change mindsets. That is what a program of recovery, ultimately, at its core, is doing is helping a person change their mindsets, having mindsets and having a better understanding of themselves, and why, maybe they want to escape from reality, which is really what it is. I mean, that's an oversimplification, but that is what is going on, is escaping reality. And so we want to uncover those reasons, and this is something that takes the rest of our lives. I have almost 19 years at the recording of this podcast, and I am still working on figuring my shit out. I'm not gonna lie about that I've got some things figured out, and there's a whole lot of other things about myself that I still have yet to discover, and will be spending the rest of my life in discovery mode and continuing to grow and change. Because as long as I'm continuing to grow and change and staying in that recovery mindset, it means I'm able to continue moving forward. Because if I'm not moving forward, and sometimes my forward movements in life are a lot smaller steps than they are in others, like sometimes I get propelled forward from some sort of huge epiphany, and then sometimes that that moving forward is at a snail's pace of moving forward, and that can spin. I can spend a year or two at a snail's pace moving forward, but I am moving forward either way, and that's the important thing to understand, is that if we're not moving forward, we're moving backward. And so I have to continue to move forward in my recovery, within myself, my my my inner peace, all of that spirituality, all of those things, is very important for me, because, again, if I'm not moving forward, I'm moving backwards. And when I start moving backwards, that's when the intrusive thoughts of of not even it doesn't even have to start with using thoughts. It can start with self deprecation. It can start with insecurities. It can start with, I'm not good enough. It can start with like, I'm not okay. My mental health starts taking a dive. And when I get low enough in my mental health, and I don't have, you know, the resources anymore within myself, and I'm out of practice of taking care of my mental health, that's when, you know, thinking about using drugs and wanting to change the way that I feel starts creeping in, and that's when that starts seeming like a good idea. So that's why I keep moving forward. And so a program of recovery helps us maintain that forward momentum. Because I don't care how long you have in recovery and away from using drugs, anyone at any time can start moving backwards and can start thinking. And I've seen it time and time again. I've seen people with long term recovery that end up backsliding, and they they stop doing the things that they're supposed to do, and they end up using and it's a really sad thing to see. And so we got to keep moving forward, and a lot of times. Some of what's missing in people's journeys. It's why you know you you go through year two, two year cycles of they do really well for a little while, you think everything is okay, and then, boom, it's not okay anymore. They have relapse, and now you're stuck going, oh my gosh, I I got so comfortable, and I don't know how to do this again. I'm so tired. And then, you know, that's a whole again. All of those feelings are a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day. I'm gonna keep moving forward on this, though, to non negotiable number three, which is hugely, hugely important, and that is community in 12 Steps. It's also the meetings. That's that's what the meeting, the 12 step meetings are based around. Is that community. That being said, I want to put a note in here that addresses the issue that that community, whereas we can relate to each other so well, and it makes us feel like we belong, it can also do the opposite, depending on who we hang out with, right? Because not everyone in a meeting is there for all of the right reasons, or they're not, maybe on the same page. And a lot of times, when we first enter into these communities, we attract the people that we have the most similarities with and the people that we have the most similarities with in the beginning are people that are also in the beginning of their journeys, that haven't learned shit about recovery and how to do it, and then it's like the blind leading the Blind, right? So there is a whole way in which community, and picking the community, and not necessarily hanging out with everybody in said community, is really important again, whole nother conversation for a whole nother day. I just wanted to make that note, because that's a big complaint that I hear is, oh, they're hanging out with a bunch of drug addicts. Well, they're hanging out with people that can teach them how to live this life in a sustainable way. Now, if people aren't choosing the people that can help them that way, then that means their picker is broken. Because at the end of the day, yeah, we are all we don't all come in in a very healthy mindset, right? And sometimes those mindsets take a long time to change. It's not there's no benchmark for certain things to change again. We spend the rest of our lives getting better, and so sometimes even people with some time can still be kind of mentally ill. In some areas, we call that sick. We just say, Oh, those people are sick, right? And that's a hard place to be when you don't know how to pick it. So there is a trick to picking the community, but this is what I want to say, community is essential, and anyone that is trying to deny finding a community is not going to be able to sustain their journey of recovery indefinitely. They can do it for a little while, but they're not going to be able to do it indefinitely. That community does not necessarily have to be again around 12 Steps, right? It's just important that people have other people in their lives that can help them be healthy. And this is where it's like, yes, you can find a church community. You can find a hobby community. Maybe you're really into running, maybe a person is really into other hiking, other hobbies, bicycling, whatever. And those communities are hugely value as well, like they have a lot of value to having a person feeling like they belong. And if those other communities, though, don't know how to address the mental health and substance abuse issues and how to teach someone how to live their life without that, it can actually have an adverse effect. Sometimes. Times on the way someone feels about themselves, when they feel like something is just wrong with me, I'm not like these people, these people over here can go out after a long hike and drink a beer. Why can't I do that? I should be able to do that. And then that's when the train starts thinking. So this is where having a community that truly understands the mental health and that basically is like, yeah, I get what you're going through. Suck it up buttercup. We're going to help you through this. And this is the way that we did it, and we have some suggestions to help you through getting through this, this way of life, this is why community is incredibly important. All right, the final non negotiable is, and this is simple, and it sounds like a very duh thing, but let me go into it a little bit. Don't use no matter what. We don't use substances no matter what. Now that sounds, again, like a duh thing, but when a person is really, really, really struggling and they start thinking to themselves, listen, I don't want to keep going back to what I was doing like I don't want to use every day, but right now, I just need something to get me through the day. Don't do it. Don't use no matter what I and I mean, no matter what that means, if a person really close to someone passes away, it's the most brutal feelings ever, no matter what don't use. That is a lot easier said than done. There's a lot, a lot, a lot that goes into not using, no matter what you need, all of these other three things that I had, the other three non negotiables, you need to have those in place in order to achieve the don't use no matter what. We have to learn how to deal with our feelings. We have to learn how to go through them. It does not mean like when people, when people have long term clean time. That does not equate to them having an easy journey of recovery over those that have harder journeys of journeys of recovery, a person that has long term recovery has dealt with a lot of challenges in their recovery, and They have worked through and have gotten through the other sides of those feelings. And it's getting through those feelings, it's like going to the gym and maxing out. You go and you add weights as your body allows you to, but if you don't ever add weights, then you just kind of become stagnant. So in order to get stronger, sometimes we go through things in our lives that make us stronger, and we learn that we get through them. And when we learn that we get through these feelings, our confidence in being able to deal with life grows, and when we are confident in dealing with life, we start gaining confidence in ourselves. But the minute that we take any substance, even if it's one time, it takes away that confidence. It also gives us permission, because, like, okay, so we use one time, and nothing significantly bad often happens with a one time use. And then that, in and of itself, is like, well, nothing significantly bad happened that one time. So then now I can use this other time, and nothing significantly will that will happen. And then before we know it that train has left the station and we are off running and now we're getting high every day again because, quote, nothing significantly bad has happened until it starts happening again, right? That's why don't use no matter what. But it also that part doesn't exist. If we don't have the other three, it just doesn't. So now you're asking yourself, What have what does this have to do with treatment? Right? Because that's what this podcast is about. This is the way that I will. Through some of these websites. How much do these websites address these four non negotiables because a rehab center that doesn't address the fact that they are not the cure. They are only a very, very small part in someone's journey is I think that's one, I think it's negligent. And two, I think it's also missing the fact that this is only the start of a person's recovery journey. It is not the end. And so I make sure, when I'm looking through websites, that yes, all of their programming, all of their therapy, all of that sounds really great. Are they talking about what happens after the journey. This is the other thing that I I think this might be a hot take, but I want to know if I call a place, if I'm going to get a hotline number, or or if I'm going to get a person that works at the rehab that can be very different. So I kind of, I, I hesitate, because I feel like I'm going to get a lot of flack for this. I hesitate to work with people that have a lot of other rehabs as a network, and you're calling an 800 number, I feel like 800 numbers immediately make family members feel daunted and like they're just a number. They're just, they don't really they're not, they're not really important as much as it's just, how many people can we get to fill these beds? Kind of feeling, that's my take. Sorry if you're a rehab that's listening to this and you have an 800 number on your hotline or on your website, I personally, generally push past those. I'm not saying they're not good rehabs. I That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that a lot of times, you're going to get a lot more of a run around, and it's going to be a little bit harder to get someone helping in an 800 number. It's going to take a little bit more time. And frankly, time is of the essence. When you have someone that says I'm ready to go, you got to get them in there within the next 24 hours. And that's just the way that it is. Otherwise people are going to change their minds. And so I want to create, if I can't create a relationship with a rehab, me, personally, like as an organization, if I don't feel like I can create a relationship with a rehab, I'm gonna kind of look past it. Now, I'm not saying I create relationships with every rehab. I'm just saying, If I can't, then I have a hard time. I have a hard time with that. The other thing that I look for in rehabs is and this. This does not mean that the rehab itself isn't isn't good. It just means that their audience is a little bit different. But if you're a family member and you're sitting down and you're looking for treatment for your loved one, that means that you as a family is involved. Not every family is involved in every treatment. So remember that when I'm saying this as well, and this is where you know things are a little bit different when the family is involved, I want to look for me, personally, I look for rehabs that have some sort of family programming involved. The intensity is, you know, some are more intense than others in terms of the family involvement. But if, if you're looking as a family member for a treatment, then that treatment should have a family component. Now, if they don't, I mean, this is again, this is where I fill the gaps of that right? Or not even fill the gaps, but I can work in that long term way, because, believe it or not, families as as long of a journey as your loved one has for themselves in their recovery journey. It's the same for the families they have their own journey. And so rehabs aren't set up. Treatment centers aren't set up. No program is really set up for that long term you. Um, family component that families also need, because there's a lot of mindsets that, frankly, families also can use in shifting and education and understanding and all those things. And that's where, that's, frankly, the work that I do. That's what I do in my organization, which, by the way, if you haven't gone to the website, the recovering family.org It is a nonprofit organization, and we do all donation based services so that anyone can afford it. I highly recommend that you check that out. But we work with families for as long as the families are willing to call us, period. If the family is willing to continue to call and seek out and ask help, we will work with them for as long. I don't care if it's if it's one simple phone call and they and you just have questions, or if it's we're working together for and I have people that I've worked with for going on two, three years. So, you know, I highly recommend that, but when you're looking at treatments, it's also good for them to have the family component to help bridge that, that gap. And so that's something that I do look for as well, that also helps me really narrow down treatments for people like when I when I go in and I start looking and and trying to help families who are just completely overwhelmed and they just can't really figure that out how to navigate that world. That's that's what I do. That's what I sit down and look through. So anyway, so that's really what I wanted to kind of go over. So if you're a family member that's out there and you're trying to figure out the right treatments, I hope this was helpful. I know this was kind of a flyover, and you may have a lot more questions. And again, that's when I would highly recommend that you just schedule an appointment on my website with me, and just say, I have a couple questions, and that's okay, I can help guide you through that. So anyway, I hope that again, I hope this was really helpful, and always remember that there is always hope, even when things seem the most hopeless and.