I have no idea how this is considered one of the best rehab institutions in the country. Most of the staff are stupid to put it nively.
On the phone prior to going in, I was told they have a running track as well as a weight room that you can use anytime you want. AND a city pool half a block away that you can go and use whenever you want. The reality, is they have a 1/4" mile dirt oval that people twist their ankles on because it isn't maintained in the least. It's a 1 foot wide groove of dirt and that's it. The weight room is a conference room with 2 pieces of lifting equipment, and you can only use it when there aren't meetings going on, which is almost all day. There is a city pool nearby, but the terms of its use, are that patients are allowed to go and use it during a very narrow time window twice a week, only when a staff member is going.
Wrongly diagnosed detox status... My drugs of choice are liquor and a naturally occurring opioid called Kratom. I had been admitted to KU Med on a Wednesday, and declared medically stable and finished detoxing before I was discharged the following Tuesday. The staff at Keystone know nothing about Kratom and wrote me off as using it to try and get detox drugs for recreational use. On the other hand, they consider EVERYONE who comes through the doors to be an alcoholic in need of days of close medical monitoring by the hopelessly incompetent nurses and doctor. The fact is I was finished with my alcohol withdrawal 2 days before I left KU Med. This was in my discharge summary that Keystone got a copy of and all my vitals they checked on intake were in totally normal range. That all being said, they kept me on detox status for 4 nights! When you're on detox status, there's a $200 a day out of pocket cost on my plan, so I racked up an $800 tab for nothing.
If the worthless excuse for a track and weight room wasn't enough, you're also not supposed to do ANY physical activity while on detox status. One of my plans while there was to get back in shape, so I made an executive decision that this rule was stupid and did not apply to me and I started running every day under the radar. They finally caught me violating this rule and almost threw me out for it (one of the MANY times) You aren't allowed to have your phone or computer or a whole laundry list of other stuff while there, so most of the patients spend their time chain smoking and sitting on their asses in front of the TV. While they were doing that I was working on physical fitness. This was my way of coping with the opioid withdrawls since they wouldn't give me anything for them.
I'm a diabetic, and before going I made triple sure that they would let me manage my own insulin needs. That's 2 nurses AND the doctor all said yes you can. Something about the Kratom had been keeping my blood sugars down, so as it cleared my system I needed more insulin. Granted this is a VERY rare effect of narcotic type drugs, so they thought I was nuts when I tried to explain this concept. They finally let me adjust it, but then called my doctor and claimed he said I was not supposed to be doing it the way I was. I've been seeing this doctor for 10 years and we have a solid understanding of how my body works, so what they told me was obviously a lie.
Segregation - This place has the men and women more divided than anything I've seen in my entire life. You literally can't go in the cafeteria to use the vending machine while the girls are eating. Nearly got thrown out at least a dozen times for this sort of crap. Also got nearly thrown out 20 or 30 more times for casual chatting on our way into the lecture hall.
I finally said the hell with this because I wasn't getting anything out of it besides having a safe place to detox. I went home after 9 days and will deal with my vices on my own terms. If ANY of what I've discussed sounds unappealing to you, you will HATE this place. All the staff hated me and half the patients hated me, and I hated them back.
The 1 good thing that came from this nightmare was I saw why to never get into hard drugs. 75% of the patients were meth addicts, and good lord those people are stupid. read more