A Million Little Pieces Historical Context

A Million Little Pieces Historical Context

Treatment for Alcohol and Drug Addiction in the United States

Every day in 2002, about one million people in the United States were receiving treatment for alcohol or drug addiction. By 2003, $133 billion per year was spent treating the long-term and short-term medical consequences of addiction.

In 2002, about 11 percent of addicts in the United States received initial treatments at inpatient facilities like Hazelden (the clinic represented in A Million Little Pieces) or at hospitals, if they could afford it or had insurance that would cover the cost. Beginning in the 1960s, such facilities, based on the so-called Minnesota model of short-term inpatient care, offered addicts the chance to detoxify and move toward sobriety in a controlled environment for several weeks. The term of twenty-eight days was a norm, though some nonhospital residential treatments lasted from a few months to two years. While government support of such treatment in lieu of time in prison or jail ebbed...
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