Deborah Becker

Yeah.

How long have you been here?

Almost seven months now.

Yeah.

Now, this is Michael, a 20-year-old man who was taking a break from his work in the dining hall when I met him.

He asked that we refer to him by Michael, which is his middle name, because of the stigma associated with substance use.

He had been struggling for a few years, and his dad heard about San Patrignano and urged him to apply.

Well, he told me he had been to various programs in the U.S., but he said he needed something like Sanpa, as they call it, that would give him structure for a longer period of time.

In the U.S., the model is very different.

It tends to revolve around what insurance is willing to pay for.

And generally, for someone who needs inpatient residential help, most often insurers will pay for only about 28 days.

Right.

Right.

If someone qualifies for residential treatment paid for by health insurance, they typically have a significant addiction.

So first they would go to detox to get through withdrawal and then about 28 days of residential treatment.

That typically involves psychotherapy and 12-step meetings.

Some research suggests that people's brains need much longer than that to rewire.

I spoke with John Kelly, who's the founder and director of the Recovery Research Institute at Mass General Hospital in Boston, about this.

And he says recovery from substance use really takes a while.

So Aisha, when many people leave after the 28 days, they go back to their lives and there is a high rate of relapse.