For Staten Islanders Interested In Opioid Crisis’ Evolution, “Shuffle” Must-See Movie Review: Addiction ‘Treatment’ That Puts Patients On Endless Treadmill With No End In Sight: UPDATED

January 16, 2026 Jennifer Taylor 0 Civil Rights, Economy And Finances, Health, Morality and Ethics, Movie Reviews, Staten Islander Exclusive

Readers may remember our discussion of the responsibility for the opioid addiction crisis that can be attributed to lawmakers as much as to prescibers of the deadly and addictive drugs. By going after the prescribers, the lawmakers knew it was possible that they would be responsible for making the crisis far worse than it had to be, in a sense creating a new era of Prohibition, and young people became the unwitting victims. See below for several screen shots from the film that express well many of the concepts explained:

Shuffle Must See Movie Review: Staten Island’s Opioid Addiction Crisis: Fueled, Paid For By Health Insurance Does Not Help Patients On Recovery Merry Go Round

If you’re a Staten Islander, then you undoubtedly know that the opioid addiction crisis hit exceptionally hard here. What you may not know is that much of it was caused or at least exacerbated by health insurance.

How can that be? Well, this film will help you to understand. Basically, when the Affordable Care Act was passed, it began to consider addiction as a health issue, where the treatment would be covered by health insurance. The unintended consequence? Bad actors, rampant fraud, insurers and employers looking the other way while persons suffering from addiction were dying…from the treatment.

Let me explain (though this film will do a much better job of that). Young people who were addicted to substances could get flown across the country for a destination rehab experience. They’d go to Florida or California, go to a detox and then stay at a sober house while they got sober, then step down in the process until they were free from addiction. At least that’s how it was supposed to work.

In practice, however, it was a very different story. They would go to a sober house, where they might join a roof top party with all kinds of drugs and alcohol available. They’d have come to the sober house from an inpatient setting where they would detox. After that, they would return to the sober house where drugs were plentiful and always easy to come by. They would get a drug test every day, and that’s a whole different story. Their insurance might be billed $5,000 for that drug test that was billed as a DNA test or something else exorbitant. And no one minded paying thousands of dollars for something that actually cost less than $100.

An insurance policy was basically like a never ending credit card that continually replenished. And no one was concerned about the addicts who would go through the process again and again: wash, rinse, dry, repeat, [or detox, outpatient, sober house, repeat] over and over again.

A huge part of this issue is the way treatment is required to be done. Everyone must be on Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), which is guaranteed to keep their body in a constant state of needing opioids, as it provides a constant stream of the drug but it won’t make someone get high. Instead it keeps up the physical dependence, permanently, making it more difficult for the other types of therapies, such as vitamin therapy, to have a chance of helping, since their effectiveness is in part determined by a commitment to eliminating the drug. Drugs like suboxone create their own dependence and withdrawal, and the way that NAD (Vitamin B3) therapy is supposed to work is to make the cravings for opioids stop. If a patient takes Suboxone WITH NAD, they are defeating the primary purpose of that treatment, basically trying to go in two opposite directions at the same time. Stopping the cravings while prolonging them at the same time.

And this isn’t even the worst part. Imagine if an addicted person gets out of treatment and stays sober a certain amount of time. Then they get $1,500-3,000, no strings attached. And I’m not kidding. That’s how much profit there is in this industry that they can even kick it back to the patient! Giving that to an addict in treatment so that they stay addicted is just cruel. They don’t need that money right then. And certainly not in those places where the drug dealers are allowed to hover around right outside the sober house gates. The bad treatment centers make it way easier (and no big deal) to just stay in the cycle. Until one ages out of it. Then nobody cares about them anymore. They have no cash flow potential. They can’t be bought and sold and get bonuses for treatment.

There’s so much more than this though, and this film is thought provoking with high levels of empathy and compassion. The filmmaker is himself a recovering addict- to alcohol, so he understands what it’s like. He also went through an effective treatment program rather than one of the many scams that his film’s subjects found themselves in. There are ways provided that one can tell if it’s a real place or a fake place. The two biggest: The owner is involved, whether available to talk to patients or running the meetings. Second, it’s a problem if a patient relapses. There are real consequences, rather than in a fake place it’s all OK as long as you tell them, and then go to detox again (on the insurance company’s highest dime – since detox costs the most and has the highest profit).

This documentary is excellent and a must-see. It’s highly recommended and I would give it five stars.

Opening Friday, January 16, 2026 at DCTV Firehouse Cinema in New York

Additional screenings nationwide throughout the winter

Find a screening near you

Written and Directed by: Benjamin Flaherty

Produced by: Carra Greenberg, Harris Fishman, Scott Paskoff, Benjamin Flaherty

Co-Produced by: Erin Malloy

Consulting Producer: Caroline Libresco

Executive Producers: Justin Benoliel, Erin Malloy, Carra Greenberg, Benjamin Flaherty, Jon Paskoff, Susan Raiten, Rostam Zafari, Emma Ratcliffe, Dylan Mulick

LOG LINE:

Through the lens of his own recovery, a filmmaker’s character-driven look inside the billion

dollar addiction treatment industry where clients are bought and sold for their insurance policies and ushered into a system designed to keep them sick. What begins as an investigation of a street-level scam, explodes to uncover collusion at the highest levels of government.

SYNOPSIS:

In the wake of the opioid epidemic, insurance companies are now required to cover addiction and mental health treatment at the same reimbursement rate as other medical conditions, but without any of the regulations. Shot over the course of three years, Shuffle follows three individuals trapped by the insurance-fueled cycle of treatment fraud spreading across the country, whose futures depend not on getting into treatment, but on getting out alive.

A journey of discovery and transformation, these personal stories provide the framework for a more public investigation with the help of an FBI informant, an insurance analyst, and the former Executive Director of a Philadelphia-based treatment facility shuttered for fraud. Shuffle unravels a web of public policy and private interest preying on – and profiting from – more than 40 million Americans with addiction issues.