What is the Florida shuffle?

A pattern where a person in a Florida treatment program has a slip, and instead of being kept in the same program on restriction, they are discharged to detox for a new 30 day admission, then PHP for another month, then IOP, then a halfway house. Insurance is billed for each stage. The person cycles through buildings for years and is set up to fail more than they are helped.

What should I ask if a program tells me I have to start over after a slip?

Ask whether this is restriction and a few days of stabilization, or a new 30 day authorization. Ask how many days insurance is actually authorized for. Ask whether you can go back to the same IOP or the same house this week. Ask whether the program has a financial or referral relationship with the place they are sending you. Ask what they will tell your emergency contact if you say no. Write down the answers.

Is he has to want it a true reason people relapse?

No. Nobody wants to be on fentanyl. Nobody wants to be 23 and on their fourth PHP. That line is how a building hands the failure back to the person. Most people who get sober did not start the work because they wanted it. They started because of guilt and shame over what they were doing to their family, and the work becoming for them came later.

The Florida Shuffle

One slip is not a 90-day sentence. The shuffle makes it one.

This is not here to talk you out of help. Detox still matters. Getting off the substance still matters. This is here because I watched the same loop eat years, especially 18-to-26 on a parent's insurance, and because I lived the version they sold my mother.

If you just slipped and a program is telling you that you have to start over, read this before you sign.

What they call a slip. What they do with it.

Someone has a beer. Or one line. Sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes it's one night after months of showing up.

A program that is actually trying to keep you can do this:

Restriction.
A few days of stabilization.
Back to the IOP or the house where people already know your name.

That is a consequence. It is not a new admission.

What a lot of Florida programs do instead:

They say "just a few days to get stable." Insurance auths thirty. Then PHP for another month. Then, if you're lucky, you "earn" IOP and the same halfway you were already in.

That is not treatment responding to a beer or a line. That is the meter starting over. And it sets people up to fail more than it helps them. Another house or another IOP would have taken that person that week. The door was open. The program in front of them needed the days.

Then you land with nothing

You get back to the house broke. No car. Nobody walked you into the rooms that hold people. AA, NA, CA. The boring Tuesday with a coffee pot and someone who has a job.

You met marketers. You did not meet a sponsor who picks up.

Stuck is what the loop produces. Stuck leads to another slip. Another slip leads to another "few days." Two years. Four. Five. Time is the one thing you cannot buy back.

Down here they call it the Florida shuffle.

The part that would have actually helped

The slip is not the original problem. Landing in the wrong building is.

From my own experience

I believe if I had found the right place the first time, it could have been one and done. That should always be the goal. Instead I did fifty trips to detox, and treatment centers kept telling my mom I just didn't want it.

If I didn't want it I would not have gotten on a plane. I would not have gone back fifty times. I trusted those people. They present well. They are polished. They say the right things.

Remember what a lot of them are: addicts who stopped using. That does not mean they work an honest program. It does not mean they dropped the manipulative behavior. Clean and honest are not the same job.

"He has to want it" and the other lie

When the kid says it was a beer, or a line, and he is not doing ninety days again, the center calls home. Emergency contact was also a consent a lot of people did not understand they signed. The sentence is almost always: he will die if he does not come back.

The parent says, I thought you were going to help him.

The reply is the same every time. He has to want it.

That is the dumbest, most condescending line in this industry. Nobody wants to be on fentanyl. Nobody wants to be 23 and on their fourth PHP. "Want it" is how the building hands the failure back to the kid.

The cousin of that line is: they have to do it for themselves. Also bullshit. I did not think I was capable. I kept getting on the plane because of guilt and shame for what I was doing to my family. That is why I tried. The work becoming "for me" came later, and it was good for them too. That is how it started for most people I know who are actually sober.

The slogan is: it's not for people who need it, it's for people who want it.

No. It's for people who do it.

And "do it" does not mean detox. Detox is the door. Doing it is the work after the door. A life, a program, people who pick up, a building that does not restart the meter because it can bill another thirty.

What to ask in the five minutes after they call

Is this restriction and a few days of stabilize, or a new 30-day auth?
If I go "just for a few days," how many days is insurance actually authorized for? Get the number.
Can I go back to the same IOP or the same house this week?
Do you have a financial or referral relationship with the place you are sending me?
If I say no, are you calling my emergency contact, and what exactly will you tell them?

Write it down. If they get angry that you asked, that is information.

Parents: if the only plan is send him back or he dies, ask the same list. Loving your kid is not the same as signing the next ninety days because a polished voice used the death sentence.

What a place that is not shuffling you sounds like

A slip is handled inside the program when it is safe.
Consequences get bigger slowly. They do not wipe your life and hand you a new roommate.
They will say how many days are authorized.
They will tell you if they get paid when you move to the next building.
Somebody there still knows your name a month after you leave.
They talk about building a life, not just clearing the drug.

I went through more than fifty of these. The missing piece was almost never desire. It was that nobody treated the second half of the First Step, the life that is unmanageable, as the actual job. They cleared the drug. They told my mother I didn't want it. I kept getting on the plane.

If this is your life tonight

Leave a name and a number. Somebody who has been through it calls you back. We are not a treatment center. I am not paid per person, per admission, or per referral. Nobody here earns a commission on what you decide.

Never Use Alone: 800-484-3731 or 877-696-1996. SAMHSA: 1-800-662-4357 or findtreatment.gov. 988 if you are thinking about ending your life.

Have someone call me The ten questions to ask