Drug rehabilitation is sometimes part of the criminal justice system. People convicted of minor drug offenses may be sentenced to rehabilitation instead of prison, and those convicted of driving while intoxicated are sometimes required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. There have been lawsuits filed, and won, regarding the requirement of attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step meetings as being inconsistent with the United States’ Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state.
Some psychotherapists question the validity of the “diseased person” model upon which the drug rehabilitation “industry” is based. Instead, they state that the individual person is entirely capable of rejecting previous behaviors. Further, they contend that the use of the disease model of addiction simply perpetuates the addict’s feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, and inevitably causes inner conflicts that would be easily resolved if the addict were to approach addiction as simply behavior that is no longer productive, the same as childhood tantrums. Drug rehabilitation does not utilize any of these ideas, inasmuch as they intrinsically contradict the assumption that the addict is a sick person in need of help.