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Can I Attend a Private Treatment Center Instead of Court-Mandated Substance Abuse Classes?

Can I attend a private treatment center instead of court-mandated substance abuse classes? The answer to this question is maybe, but it’s doubtful. The problem with allowing an addiction to develop and persist to the point of being arrested is that now you must deal with the court system. This means that many of the choices you may have had before your arrest will no longer be available to you. After an arrest, the court or the judge will need to approve any kind of diversion treatment like substance abuse classes. Although many courts and many states are amenable to drug treatment in lieu of jail time and even encourage it, they still usually maintain a list of approved facilities that you will be obligated to attend, unless you want to go to jail instead. The reason courts do this is because they need to know what the program involves and if it’s suitable for their use.

Drug Diversion

For example, the court will expect you to invest a considerable amount of your time, effort and even money into a drug diversion program. Since you’re avoiding jail time, the court will expect you to appreciate the chance to avoid incarceration and be willing to follow whatever requirements the court cares to make. The program must be comprehensive enough to satisfy the court’s requirements and will always include random drug testing and regular reports to the court. Not only do all drug treatment centers fail to meet the court’s requirements in some way, not all drug treatment rehabs want to be involved with the court system anyway. The court is not going to let you attend a private treatment center that requires only a few hours of your time and lacks a proven track record and prior relationship with court-mandated drug diversion.

You can be sure that no court will just let you decide which rehab you want to attend. You cannot tell the judge what to do or what to recommend. On top of that, courts are busy places with little time for any deviation from the normal routine. While you might be able to request the judge to approve a private treatment center of your choice, it’s not likely to happen unless the facility is already approved by the court. You can always ask, but don’t expect to be successful.

If you do decide to ask if you can attend another kind of private treatment center, you will need to be able to explain why. The court still may not listen because it really doesn’t care to make an exception for you. If it allows an exception for you without a truly compelling reason, it will be obligated to start doing that for others, too. This is not how the criminal court system works. It can be capricious and totally unreasonable at times, but once you’ve been arrested you are subject to its rules. The best way to deal with the criminal court system is to never become part of it in the first place.

What Happens if you’re Arrested for Drugs?

If you’re abusing drugs and have not yet been arrested, this is your wake-up call. If you get help and stop now, you can avoid an arrest that could result in fines, jail time or community service, where you will work for free for hundreds of hours at whichever place the court tells you to. Attorney fees can cost a small fortune. An arrest can jeopardize your future and forever bar you from many wonderful careers. If you’ve been arrested, especially for a felony, you can’t ever be an attorney, a teacher, a fire fighter, a nurse, a CPA, a medical professional in general, a pharmacist, an optician or even a real estate agent. You need a state license for every one of these careers. To get that, you need to submit to a fingerprint background check through the FBI. This is where all arrest records are stored and there is no way they’re not going to know about a prior arrest.

When you get arrested, you have effectively forfeited your right to choose your life’s path in many ways, even such a small one as choosing your own drug rehab to attend. A court will never be required to comply with your wishes, but you can be sure that you will be required to comply with theirs. If you don’t, there will be serious consequences.

Call us for Help

If you’re concerned about getting arrested as a result of your drug use, get help now while you still have a clean record. Just call us at 833-364-0736, and our group of trained counselors will help you find the help you need before you become part of the court system.