#CHAPTER 7 WE WERE HERE TOGETHER LADDER SERIES#

Original score, mix and sound design: Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda Production and mix assistance: Najib Aminy, Amy Mostafa, Katharine Mieszkowski and Claire Mullen Reporting team: Shoshana Walter, Laura Starecheski and Ike SriskandarajahĬhapter 6 reporting and production: Laura Starecheski and Shoshana Walter

Learn: American Rehab resources Credits.

Read: Reveal’s reporting on All Work, No Pay.

#CHAPTER 7 WE WERE HERE TOGETHER LADDER SERIES#

Listen: The American Rehab podcast series.

Ultimately, after 18 months of unpaid labor, Koon was asked to leave and had to face recovery on his own. Sarah Wakeman, who specializes in addiction treatment, to find out. So do the punishments and what Cenikor calls “work therapy” actually help? We talked to Dr. He worked such long hours that Cenikor counselors could barely find time for sessions. The counseling Koon was promised was hard to come by. When he was injured, Koon says Cenikor persuaded him to go back to work instead of getting an MRI. He did dangerous work like climbing scaffolding high in the air and moving metal beams that weighed hundreds of pounds.

After an orientation, he was loaded into a van and sent out to work. But when he walked through the doors of the treatment facility in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Koon found himself in a strange world of elaborate rules and humiliating punishments. Koon chose Cenikor as an alternative to jail and a way to deal with his addiction to heroin. But can it help Chris Koon put his addiction behind him? One man’s journey into Cenikor leads to punishments and almost two years of backbreaking labor.

Chapter 7 we were here together ladder