The Hidden Third with Mariana van Zeller

Episode: Body-Brokering Survivor

Guest: Sequoia Thiessen
Date: November 5, 2025

Overview

In this episode of The Hidden Third, host Mariana van Zeller dives into the shadowy world of patient brokering within the U.S. addiction treatment industry. She sits down with Sequoia Thiessen, a survivor of the body brokering scheme, for an unflinching account of how black-market systems exploit vulnerable individuals seeking addiction recovery. Sequoia's journey, from her tumultuous adolescence in Montana to surviving and escaping "the rehab shuffle" in Southern California, exposes the systemic failures and predatory incentives plaguing America's multi-billion-dollar recovery industry. The episode not only dissects the mechanisms of exploitation, but powerfully humanizes those caught in its web—with a deep call for reform, compassion, and accountability.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

I. Sequoia’s Early Life and Descent into Addiction

• Family Background:
  • Sequoia is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, grew up in Montana.
  • Experienced an abusive, unpredictable environment due to her father's recurring imprisonment and alcoholism.
  • "My childhood was...marked by my dad getting in and out of prison. So it was like, abandonment issues."
    — Sequoia Thiessen [02:37]
• Mental Health Struggles:
  • Spent time in psychiatric wards as a teenager due to depression and violent thoughts.
  • Entered voluntarily at 16, seeking refuge from a difficult home life.
  • “I just wanted to go [to the psych ward] because I was so tired of my dad.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [04:19]
• Path to Drug Use:
  • Early exposure to alcohol at age 10, followed by opiates (first tried morphine at 15-16).
  • An older boyfriend, met via Tinder at 16, pressured her into regular opiate use.
  • “He forced me into doing opiates with him...I had family members who had serious issues with opiates.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [09:54]

II. The Shift to Fentanyl and the Need for Help

• Addiction Escalation:
  • Addiction intensified post-COVID, progressing to daily fentanyl use (“the blues”), often unknowingly.
  • Sequoia describes maintaining a double life—working as an educator by day while managing her substance use.
• Seeking Rehabilitation:
  • With dreams of moving to LA, Sequoia actively sought out rehab centers, at first local, then in California—believing in the myth of "celebrity" treatment centers.
  • Encountered stigma and mishandling from local providers, highlighting how early experiences foreshadowed later exploitation.

III. "Rehab Riviera," the Body Brokering Black Market, and the “Rehab Shuffle”

• Introduction to Body Brokering:
  • Definition: When clients are lured to treatment facilities with incentives (cash, clothing, housing, privileges), turning human lives into financial assets for providers.
  • "Body brokering is when you pay a client to come to your facility or you bribe them..."
    — Sequoia Thiessen [18:24]
• Mechanism of Exploitation:
  • Brokers (often former clients or people in recovery) recruit vulnerable individuals, receiving kickbacks based on clients' insurance value.
  • The most lucrative clients are those with premium insurance; care becomes transactional, and patients are moved (“shuffled”) between facilities when insurance runs dry.
  • "If you have really good insurance, they'll give you your own room."
    — Sequoia Thiessen [19:39]
  • The “rehab shuffle” describes the endless cycling of clients between centers, allowing continual insurance billing.

IV. The Reality Behind the Rehab Facade

• Absence of Genuine Treatment:
  • Sequoia recounts farcical “group therapies,” sometimes consisting of playing Juice WRLD songs, or impersonal massive Zoom sessions.
  • “I can’t tell you how many meetings there were, Mariana, where they said, ‘We’re going to listen to a song that reminds you of your recovery.’ And then it was just an hour of listening to Juice WRLD.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [21:05]
  • The appearance of treatment is maintained to justify insurance billing, but meaningful help is rare.
• Manipulation through Incentives and Pressure:
  • Staff manipulate clients by offering privileges or, in egregious cases, actively encouraging or enabling relapse (“liquid gold”—urine positive for drugs on test) to keep the financial pipeline flowing.
  • “There were people who would just give you drugs.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [28:01]
• Insurance and Regulatory Failure:
  • Even the “best” centers prioritize profits. Once insurance won’t pay, patients are abruptly expelled, often ending up homeless and back at risk.
  • Oversight is grossly inadequate—a complaint about serious misconduct could take eight years for investigation ([26:34]).

V. Connection, Exploitation, and the Human Cost

• Cyclical Entrapment:
  • Broker connections often become deeply personal; some brokers see themselves as rescuers, while still participating in the exploitative economy.
  • “My ex really believed that she was helping these people—she would get them off the street... But after a while, I couldn’t witness her doing it anymore.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [32:44]
• Emotional Manipulation:
  • Residents are discouraged from future planning (“If you start talking about school...they start putting things in your head”), creating dependency and hopelessness [24:20].
• Fatal Outcomes:
  • The cycle is deadly; relapse induced by system incentives frequently leads to overdose and death.
  • “Death was normal...almost every week, my ex-girlfriend would say, ‘this person died, this person passed away.’”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [53:13]

VI. Escape, Survival, and Reform

• Breaking Free:
  • With her family's help, particularly her mother, Sequoia escaped the cycle—receiving care and stable housing, enrolling in college, and founding Indigenous Scholars at Santa Monica College.
  • “I was very lucky.” — Sequoia Thiessen [41:00]
• Post-Traumatic Growth & Advocacy:
  • Now deeply involved in advocacy, Sequoia serves on local and state reform task forces, testifies before Congress, and has authored a book: Brokered: A Year Inside the Web of Patient Brokering (launching January 22).
  • “I didn’t even know that post-traumatic growth was a thing...but it means you’ve had a lot of trauma, but it’s made you grow.”
    — Sequoia Thiessen [52:18]
• Urgent Need for Change:
  • Sequoia advocates for:
    • Treating body-brokering as a form of human trafficking under California law so survivors can access resources.
    • Creation of mandatory exit plans for clients, including housing and employment assistance.
    • Universal healthcare to remove insurance incentives from care decisions.
    • “There’s no such thing as a perfect victim...I just want people to understand our human side as people.”
      — Sequoia Thiessen [45:32]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On group therapy’s futility:
  “Literally...these meetings, these groups, they’re just a waste of time.”
  — Sequoia Thiessen [21:19]

• On the moral hazard at the heart of body brokering:
  “Your health is a threat to them, actually...Because if you get better, they’re going to stop making money from you.”
  — Sequoia Thiessen [33:52, 33:56]

• On systemic betrayal:
  “It’s very much...they take you into a mindset of living day by day, and they’ll brainwash you into that too.”
  — Sequoia Thiessen [23:53]

• On the consequences:
  “That’s blood on the hands of many of these providers, in my mind.”
  — Mariana van Zeller [47:57]

• On luck and survivor’s guilt:
  “I've been very lucky...I think about the people lost a lot...I just try to think about what I can do to use my position that I have now to advocate for those people.”
  — Sequoia Thiessen [54:33]

• On hope and personal transformation:
  “Now my life is so different. Even my mindset and stuff like that...sometimes I’m like, how did I get here?...I really just wanted to go to school and I really wasn’t planning on being like a star student or advocate or anything.”
  — Sequoia Thiessen [46:04]

Important Timestamps

• Sequoia’s childhood and first exposure to addiction: [02:02–04:19]
• Descent into opiates, early warning signs: [09:25–11:29]
• Introduction to “body brokering” and the LA rehab black market: [17:45–19:45]
• Exposing the “rehab shuffle”: [24:27–25:19]
• The reality behind group therapy and facility incentives: [21:05–22:39]
• Insurance exploitation and regulatory failure: [26:18–26:40]
• First-hand accounts of being pushed to relapse for profit: [26:54–28:32]
• Complicated role of brokers and the interconnected web: [30:06–32:20]
• Systemic issues, advocacy, and solutions: [34:34–37:33]
• Personal escape, survival, and activist journey: [40:14–43:47]
• Impact of trauma and survivor’s guilt: [52:05–54:33]
• Closing thoughts, hope, and Sequoia’s activism: [55:01–end]

Conclusion

This episode is a piercing look into the predatory underbelly of America’s addiction treatment industry—a market that all too often turns suffering into profit at the expense of the very people it claims to help. Through Sequoia’s raw and insightful testimony, The Hidden Third offers not just exposure of injustice, but a rallying cry for reform, compassion, and re-humanization of those “in the shuffle.” Sequoia’s journey from victim to advocate is both a warning and an inspiration.

Book Mentioned:

• Brokered: A Year Inside the Web of Patient Brokering by Sequoia Thiessen
  • Available for pre-sale on Amazon (Release: Jan 22)

For Further Information:

• Santa Monica College Indigenous Scholars
• California Sober Living and Recovery Task Force

Memorable last words:
"I think this whole journey has taught me...post-traumatic growth."
— Sequoia Thiessen [52:18]