Those struggling with addiction face not only an uphill battle to recovery, but also a treatment landscape rife with danger. Evidence-based treatments have become a luxury for the few. Scarcity has spawned a cottage industry of private rehab centers plagued by unproven approaches and predatory business practices.

I became aware of a hidden sector of this booming industry when I stumbled across a program that operated more like a temp agency than a rehab.

Treatment there consisted primarily of sending participants to work full time at chicken processing plants, where they slaughtered chickens and sorted their parts for Walmart, Popeyes and KFC. Work conditions were dangerous, injuries were frequent – and the participants weren’t paid.

The revenue – $2 million in 2017 – went directly to the rehab.

It struck me as a uniquely American approach: punitive and profit-driven. A model that could have emerged only in a nation where rehab programs are often unregulated and underfunded and enforcement of labor laws is lax. Where addiction has been viewed as a moral failing that can be cured by hard work and sacrifice.

I set out with reporter Amy Julia Harris to uncover whether this unpaid rehab workforce was the only one. We found rehab participants working at assisted living facilities, fast food restaurants and oil refineries. At Walmart, Shell and a Coca-Cola bottling plant. And we discovered that thousands of people are caught up in this system each year – desperately seeking an addiction cure within the ranks of a shadow unpaid workforce.

– Shoshana Walter