In this I really can only speak to my own experience. I did not have a drug problem, I had family issues. My mother was fairly crazy and everyone around me knew it including teachers, friends' parents and most of the "professionals" she took me to to be "fixed". One after another, my mother brought me to psychologists, counsellors, and even a local drug treatment centre (a legitimate one). Each one told her I had no problems. On more than one occasion my mother would start off a session reciting a litany of imagined things I'd done wrong, the counsellor would turn to me and applaud me for being so patient and calm through my mother's moments of insanity, send me out of the room and proceed to spend the rest of the session intended for me on trying to help my mother with her issues.
I just recently obtained all of my medical and school records and have now been able to see precisely the scope of what my mother was trying to do. She time after time fabricated complete lies about things I had allegedly done to try to have me "committed" to various psychiatric facilities. Invariably, the professionals involved would compare her stories with what I was saying, my school records, my volunteer and work history, the awards I had received, my IQ and personality tests - and deduce that something was up, but that I was certainly functioning above average and doing pretty bloody well considering the challenges I faced from my mother. Almost all of this happened without my knowledge, I am only learning this now.
In the end, my mother had to resort to a place like AARC. No legitimate treatment facility would ever have attempted to commit me. This is the fault of AARC - they did not question what my mother said, and when it became patently obvious that I didn't have a problem, they kept me anyway. But, this doesn't in any way exonerate my mother.
I don't know what is wrong with her, but it certainly was there before she ever met with AARC. If I ever get the opportunity, I will see her charged with unlawful confinement, slander, psychological abuse, neglect and every other applicable charge. People like her need to realize that they cannot get away with hiring someone else to do their abusing for them. If she locked me in her basement for six months, strip-searched me, withheld food, restricted sleep, hurled verbal abuse at me for hours on end, prevented me from going to school, prohibited me from reading, and sometimes even disallowing me to speak - she would be in jail. It is no different if she hires someone else to do the job. And these are only the things she knew about prior to having me sent there - things like physical and sexual abuse that are not advertised as features of the program are another thing entirely, but they fall under the category of parental negligence. Add to this the fact that now, having full knowledge of everything that did happen to me there, she still refuses to support me saying that it might "put her friendships at risk". She is responsible for everything that happened to me there, as she put me in a position where I could not defend myself or go for help from any authorities.
If a person throws you into a pit full of rabid, starving pitbulls, they are responsible when you inevitably get bit.
