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THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO REHAB IN BALI
- Holistic Recovery Bali
- 3 days ago
- 22 min read
Recovery, Community, Culture & Spiritual Healing on the Island of the Gods
Bali is not just a destination. For thousands of people who have walked through its temples, sat in its meeting rooms, cried in its rice fields, and found themselves again on its shores, it is something far more significant than that. It is a place of transformation.
Every year, people arrive in Bali from Australia, the UK, the United States, Europe, and across Asia, looking for what they couldn't find at home: the space, the stillness, and the support to get clean, get honest, and start building a life worth living. Some come with a suitcase and a phone number. Others arrive at the end of their rope, not quite sure what they're looking for, only knowing that what they were doing wasn't working.
What they find is an island that seems almost designed for healing. Not just in the clinical sense, though, Bali has a growing and impressive network of professional rehabilitation centres, but in a much deeper, harder-to-explain way. The culture, the community, the landscape, and the spiritual atmosphere of Bali combine to create an environment where recovery doesn't just happen inside a therapy room. It happens on a morning walk past offerings and incense smoke. It happens at a meeting in Seminyak where fifty people in recovery are laughing together on a Tuesday afternoon. It happens in a water temple ceremony in Ubud, standing barefoot in a sacred spring, and feeling, for the first time in years, something that might just be peace.
This guide is the most comprehensive resource available on recovery in Bali. It covers everything: the professional rehabilitation options, the twelve-step fellowship, the growing sober community, the spiritual healing traditions of the Balinese people, and why this island in particular has become one of the most powerful places in the world to begin a new life.
Whether you are considering rehab in Bali for yourself, looking into options for a loved one, or already in Bali and wanting to connect with the recovery community, this guide is for you.
WHY BALI? UNDERSTANDING THE ISLAND'S HEALING POWER
Before we explore the practical landscape of recovery resources in Bali, it's worth asking a deeper question: why does this island work so well for healing?
The answer is not simple, and it isn't only about the warm weather and cheap cost of living, though both help. It runs deeper than that. Bali is the only Hindu-majority island in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, and its culture has been shaped by thousands of years of spiritual practice, communal living, and a philosophy that views human wellbeing as fundamentally connected to harmony with other people, with nature, and with the divine.
That philosophy called Tri Hita Karana, which translates literally as the Three Causes of Wellbeing, will come up again and again in this guide, because it maps almost perfectly onto what recovery from addiction requires. Addiction isolates. It breaks the connection. It cuts people off from themselves, from the people around them, and from any sense of meaning or purpose beyond the next hit. Tri Hita Karana is, at its core, a philosophy about restoring those exact connections.
The Three Causes of Wellbeing: Tri Hita Karana
The three elements of Tri Hita Karana are:
Parahyangan harmony between humans and the divine. This is the spiritual dimension: the rituals, offerings, prayers, and ceremonies that fill every corner of Balinese life from sunrise to sunset. It is an acknowledgement that we are not the centre of the universe, that something greater than us exists, and that gratitude and reverence matter.
Pawongan harmony between humans and their community. This is the social dimension: the tight-knit village structure, the banjar system of communal cooperation, the Indonesian principle of gotong royong, which means working together for the benefit of all. In Bali, nobody heals alone. Community isn't an add-on, it's the foundation.
Palemahan harmony between humans and the natural world. This is the environmental dimension: the rice fields, the volcanoes, the sacred springs, the ocean. The Balinese people treat their natural environment not as a resource to be used, but as a living system deserving of respect and care.
For anyone in recovery, these three dimensions will sound familiar. They are essentially the spiritual, social, and physical pillars of a sober life the same foundations described in twelve-step literature, in holistic therapy, and in virtually every evidence-based approach to long-term recovery.
Living in Bali doesn't automatically heal anyone. But it places you inside a culture that models a healthy connection constantly. You see it in the small canang sari offerings left on the street each morning. You feel it in the ease with which strangers become friends. You breathe it in at a temple ceremony, surrounded by hundreds of people dressed in white, moving in a collective ritual. It creates a background frequency that supports healing in ways that are hard to quantify but impossible to ignore.
Distance, Anonymity and a Fresh Start
There's another dimension worth naming honestly: geography. For many people, the hardest part of getting sober is doing it in the same environment where they got sick. The same streets, the same people, the same pubs, the same dealers. The same version of yourself staring back from every mirror.
Coming to Bali breaks that pattern. It removes you from triggers, from social circles built around using, from the weight of your reputation and history in your home city. It gives you the gift of anonymity, the chance to show up somewhere new as the person you want to become, rather than the person you've been.
This isn't running away. Recovery is sometimes misunderstood as needing to 'face your demons at home'. But the clinical evidence strongly supports geographic change as part of early recovery for many people. The first ninety days of sobriety are fragile. Creating distance from the environment where addiction was maintained gives the brain and the nervous system a chance to reset without constant reactivation of old neural pathways.
Bali does this brilliantly. It is close enough to be accessible by a short flight from Australia, a manageable journey from Europe, but different enough to feel like a genuine break from everything familiar.
PROFESSIONAL REHABILITATION IN BALI
Bali has developed into one of the most significant rehabilitation hubs in the Asia-Pacific region. The combination of lower operating costs than Western countries, a large pool of internationally trained clinical staff, many of them in recovery themselves and a healing environment that supports therapeutic work has drawn world-class practitioners to the island.
Understanding the different types of professional rehabilitation available in Bali is important because recovery is not one-size-fits-all.
Residential Rehabilitation
Residential rehabilitation is the most intensive level of care, involving staying at a treatment facility for a set period, typically anywhere from 28 days to six months, depending on the individual's needs. This is the appropriate starting point for most people dealing with moderate to severe addiction, particularly those with a history of relapse, co-occurring mental health conditions, or who need medical support during detox.
Quality residential rehabilitation in Bali typically includes medically supervised detoxification where needed, individual therapy sessions with qualified addiction counsellors, group therapy and psychoeducation, twelve-step meeting attendance and step work, holistic therapies such as yoga, meditation, breathwork, and bodywork, nutritional support and physical health care, and family therapy and communication sessions.
At Holistic Recovery Bali, we take a different approach to most residential programs. Rather than operating as a large group facility, we work with one client or couple at a time. This means your program is entirely individualised built around your specific history, your mental and emotional needs, your preferences, and your goals. There is no group you have to fit into. No program is designed for the average client. Your 28-60 day journey is co-created with you from the beginning.
We tailor programs that integrate evidence-based clinical work CBT, trauma-informed therapy, EMDR with holistic practices that address the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. The result is a program that works at depth, not just at the surface.
One of the practical realities worth mentioning is that Bali-based residential rehabilitation is often significantly more affordable than equivalent care in Australia, the UK, or the United States, without any reduction in clinical quality. For Australian citizens, we can also assist with accessing superannuation to fund treatment, a pathway that opens doors for people who assumed quality care was financially out of reach.
Short-Term Retreats and Intensives
Not everyone who comes to Bali for recovery needs a long residential program. For some people, particularly those in the earlier stages of problematic use, those dealing primarily with burnout and mental health challenges rather than full physical dependency, or those returning to Bali for a booster after a period of sobriety, shorter intensive retreat experiences may be appropriate.
Three to fourteen-day retreat programs can include daily therapy sessions, immersive holistic work, and the full benefit of Bali's healing environment without requiring an extended leave from work or family. These programs work best for motivated individuals with good support systems at home and a clear sense of what they need to work on.
It's important to be honest about the limitations of short stays. For someone with entrenched physical dependence, significant trauma history, or multiple previous relapses, a short retreat is unlikely to produce lasting change on its own. That said, a well-designed short intensive can be a powerful entry point into a longer recovery journey, and it can provide clarity and momentum that inspires deeper work.
Outpatient and Aftercare Programs
For those who have completed a residential program and are now living in Bali, or for those who have the stability and support to continue working while in treatment, outpatient programs provide ongoing structured care without full residential living.
A quality outpatient program in Bali might include weekly individual therapy sessions, regular group therapy or psychoeducation, relapse-prevention planning, and connection to the fellowship community. Some programs offer four-week structured outpatient packages designed to follow residential care, helping clients solidify their recovery foundations as they begin to integrate back into daily life.
MEETINGS, FELLOWSHIP AND THE 12-STEP COMMUNITY IN BALI
If you had walked into Bali looking for a twelve-step meeting in the early 1990s, you would have struggled to find one. The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on the island was held in 1992. By the mid-2000s, the NA fellowship had taken root. Today, Bali has one of the most vibrant and accessible recovery fellowship communities in Southeast Asia, with meetings running every single day of the week across multiple areas of the island.
This is not a small thing. For anyone in recovery, the fellowship is not optional; it is the infrastructure of sustained sobriety. Meetings provide accountability, human connection, shared wisdom, and the lived experience of people who have been exactly where you are and found a way through. The fact that Bali has this community, real, established, and growing, is one of the most important reasons it works for recovery.
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in Bali
AA Bali has been running continuously since 1992 and now holds at least four meetings every day of the week. All listed meetings are conducted in English, making them immediately accessible to the expat and visiting recovery community. Meetings in Indonesian are available by contacting the local AA helpline.
Meeting locations are spread across the island's main areas: Seminyak, Canggu, Kerobokan, Sanur, Ubud, and Kuta, meaning that wherever you're staying, there is almost certainly a meeting within reach. A women's-only meeting runs every Monday at 5:30 pm for those who prefer a women-focused space.
For those travelling to Bali, AA makes it explicitly welcoming, the fellowship acknowledges the consistent attendance of out-of-town visitors and sees the global recovery community as one connected whole. If you are planning a trip to Bali and want to attend meetings, you can contact the local AA helpline at +62 812 3630 3976 for English speakers.
Bali also hosts the annual AA International Round-Up, which brings together AA members and their families from across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. The event draws hundreds of participants and celebrates the recovery community at its most expansive and joyful.
Narcotics Anonymous (NA) in Bali
The NA fellowship in Bali is equally well-established and arguably even more diverse. With meetings held across Canggu, Seminyak, Kerobokan, Ubud, Sanur, and Denpasar, the NA community runs meetings in English, Russian, Bahasa Indonesia, and multiple languages, a reflection of the genuinely international community that has gathered in Bali.
The "Just for Today" Building on Jl. Drupadi in Seminyak has become a kind of home base for the NA community, hosting multiple meetings throughout the week. There are also meetings specifically designed for newcomers, women, men, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, meaning that everyone can find a space where they feel seen and belong.
NA Bali describes itself as having "some of the best access to tropical recovery in Asia" a characteristically understated way of saying that the fellowship here is special. The community that has formed around these meetings goes far beyond the hour spent in a room. It becomes a social network, a support system, and in many cases, a genuine family.
The formation of a Regional Service Body for Narcotics Anonymous Indonesia represents a significant milestone for the fellowship. NA in Indonesia is now formally organised at a national level, which supports the long-term development and sustainability of meetings across the archipelago, including in Bali.
Bali also hosts the annual NA Convention, now in its 22nd year, a three-day event that brings together recovering addicts from across Southeast Asia and beyond for speaker meetings, workshops, and fellowship. The convention is one of the highlights of the recovery calendar in the region.
Other Fellowships
Beyond AA and NA, Bali has meetings for a wide range of twelve-step and related programs, including Al-Anon and Nar-Anon for family members of people with addiction, Co-Dependents Anonymous (CoDA), Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), and others. This breadth reflects the maturity of the recovery community here; it has grown beyond the basics and now supports people dealing with the full spectrum of compulsive and addictive behaviours.
For family members who are supporting a loved one in treatment or who are carrying their own wounds from a family member's addiction, the Al-Anon and Nar-Anon communities in Bali provide essential support. Bali is a place where whole families can begin to heal, not just the individual identified as having the problem.
THE SOBER COMMUNITY: LIFE BEYOND THE MEETING ROOM
One of the things that separates Bali from many other rehab destinations is that the recovery community here doesn't stop at the door of the meeting room. There is a genuine sober culture emerging across the island, a community of people in recovery who surf together, eat together, do yoga together, start businesses together, and build friendships that last well beyond their time on the island.
This matters enormously. The research on long-term recovery consistently shows that the quality of someone's social connections and daily life in sobriety is one of the strongest predictors of sustained wellbeing. When recovery becomes not just the absence of substances but the presence of a rich, connected, meaningful life, that is when it becomes sustainable.
A Growing Expat Recovery Network
Bali has seen a significant growth in the expat recovery community over the past decade. The areas of Canggu, Seminyak, and Kerobokan in particular have developed dense pockets of people in long-term recovery, many of whom came to Bali for treatment, fell in love with the island, and chose to stay. They are now the backbone of the informal recovery network: the people who pick newcomers up from the airport, show them where the meetings are, take them for their first coconut, and demonstrate through their own lives that a full and joyful existence in sobriety is not just possible, it's available.
Sanur, on the east coast, has a quieter and longer-established recovery community, with AA meetings that have been running there for decades. For those who prefer a slower pace of life and a more settled community atmosphere, Sanur offers a different flavour of recovery living. Ubud, up in the hills, attracts those drawn to spiritual practice, yoga, and the deep Balinese cultural experience, and its own recovery meetings in a cafe above the soccer field have a character entirely their own.
Sober Living in Bali
For those completing residential rehabilitation and not yet ready to return home, Bali offers structured sober living options, homes where people in early recovery live together in a substance-free environment, attend meetings, continue therapy, and begin building the daily rhythms of a sober life.
Sober living is the bridge between the cocoon of residential care and the full independence of life at home. It provides accountability without the full intensity of a treatment program, and community without the isolation that can accompany returning home too quickly. The structured sober living options in Bali recognise that recovery in the first ninety days after residential treatment is particularly vulnerable. The statistics on relapse during this window are sobering, and they provide a supported environment for people to build strength and stability before making the transition.
Recovery is not just about staying sober. It is about building a life finding purpose, connection, and self-discovery. Bali gives people the space and the environment to do exactly that.
Surfing, Yoga, Movement and the Body in Recovery
One of the gifts Bali offers to people in recovery is its extraordinary range of physical and recreational activities, and their therapeutic value should not be underestimated. Addiction is a whole-body illness. The nervous system, the gut, the muscular system, and the brain all carry the marks of active addiction. Physical healing is not separate from emotional and psychological healing; it is part of the same process.
Surfing has become almost synonymous with recovery culture in Bali. There is something about the discipline required to learn to sur,f the patience, the humility, the willingness to fall and get back up that mirrors the recovery process itself. And something about the ocean: its vastness, its indifference, the way it demands total presence and cannot be controlled or manipulated, that provides a particular kind of grounding for people whose minds have spent years running from reality.
Yoga is embedded into the fabric of Bali, and specifically into the recovery community. Daily yoga classes are accessible everywhere from Canggu to Ubud, and many people in recovery find that a consistent yoga practice becomes an anchor, a way of developing the body awareness, breath regulation, and mindfulness that support emotional stability and relapse prevention.
Beyond surfing and yoga, Bali offers hiking through the island's dramatic volcanic interior, swimming in sacred waterfalls, cycling through rice terraces, cooking classes, art workshops, and more. The island encourages engagement with life, with the body, and with beauty, all of which feed recovery in important ways.
No guide to recovery in Bali would be complete without a genuine engagement with the spiritual culture of the island and that means going deeper than incense and Instagram sunsets. Balinese spirituality is not an aesthetic. It is a living, daily practice rooted in thousands of years of tradition, and its relevance to the healing journey is profound.
The Sacred Everywhere
Bali has been called the Island of the Gods for good reason. There are estimated to be over 20,000 temples on the island, more temples than houses in some villages. Ceremonies of one kind or another happen every single day, from small offerings placed on shop doorsteps at dawn to elaborate village-wide celebrations that fill the streets with music, colour, and collective devotion.
For someone arriving from a secular Western background, the density of the sacred can feel disorienting at first. And then it begins to work on you. The sight of a woman in traditional dress placing a tiny offering of flowers and incense on the ground each morning, not because anyone is watching, not because it is Sunday, not because the occasion is special, but simply as a daily act of gratitude and connection challenges assumptions about what spiritual life looks like.
Recovery programs talk a great deal about spiritual practice, but in most Western contexts, that language can feel vague or awkward. In Bali, it becomes concrete and visible. Spirituality here is not a private, interior thing reserved for meditation retreats. It is communal, physical, daily, and entirely natural. Being surrounded by it permits people to engage with their own spiritual lives in ways they might never have accessed at home.
Water, Purification and the Healing of the Body-Soul
Water holds a central place in Balinese healing traditions. The island's most sacred sites are water temples places where mountain springs and rivers are considered blessed, where the water itself is understood to carry purifying and healing properties. Tirta Empul temple in Tampaksiring, where devotees move through a series of sacred spring-fed pools in a ritual of purification and prayer, is one of the most significant spiritual sites in Bali and one of the most viscerally powerful healing experiences available on the island.
The act of water purification standing in a sacred spring, submerging the body, bringing water to the head, and consciously releasing what you are carrying is not magic. But it is not nothing, either. The combination of cold water immersion, ritual intention, collective sacred space, and the powerful symbolism of washing away the past creates an experience that touches something deep in the nervous system and the psyche. Many people in recovery describe ceremonies at Tirta Empul or other water temples as genuinely transformative moments not because a supernatural force intervened, but because the ceremony provided a container for something they had never been able to do alone: intentionally, ritually, and communally release the past and choose a new beginning.
Water is central to Balinese spirituality and to the experience of many people in recovery in Bali. It represents both purification and renewal; both washing away the past and stepping into something new. For many clients, a visit to a sacred water temple is one of the most meaningful experiences of their time on the island.
Healers, Balians and the Tradition of Sacred Medicine
Bali has a long tradition of traditional healers known as balians who work with the body, spirit, and energy field of a person to identify and address the root causes of illness and imbalance. These healers are not folk superstition. They are respected figures within their communities, trained in a tradition passed down through families across generations, and their work is sought by Balinese people as a first point of contact for many forms of illness and distress.
For those in recovery who are exploring spiritual dimensions of healing, a session with a respected balian can be a meaningful experience. It is important to approach these experiences with respect, cultural humility, and appropriate expectations. They are not a substitute for clinical care, and not everyone will find them relevant to their recovery. But for those who feel drawn to explore traditional healing modalities, Bali offers an authenticity and depth that wellness tourism in other parts of the world often lacks.
The work of a balian typically involves prayer, massage, herbal medicine, and the identification of spiritual or energetic imbalances. The framework is different from Western medicine, but the fundamental intention to restore the person to wholeness and balance maps directly onto what recovery asks of us.
Ceremony, Ritual and the Power of Collective Healing
Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of Bali's healing power is the role of collective ceremony and ritual. In Balinese culture, healing is not a private affair between a patient and a clinician. It is a community event. When someone in a village is unwell, the community gathers. Ceremonies are performed. Offerings are made. The entire social fabric participates in the healing.
This stands in stark contrast to the individualism that shapes most Western approaches to addiction treatment: the private therapy session, the anonymous meeting, the personal journey. These things have value. But they miss something that Balinese culture understands deeply: that human beings are social creatures, and that healing happens most powerfully when it happens in the presence of others.
The recovery meetings in Bali, at their best, carry something of this communal energy. And for those who engage with the broader cultural life of the island, attending temple ceremonies, learning from Balinese friends and neighbours, participating in the rhythm of community life, the healing that happens is not just personal. It is relational, communal, and in some sense, collective.
Many people who spend significant time in Bali in recovery report a sense of being held not just by their therapist or their sponsor or their group, but by the island itself. By the culture. By the beauty. By the daily evidence, everywhere you look, human life can be oriented around gratitude, community, and the sacred.
THE BALINESE CULTURE AS A TEMPLATE FOR RECOVERY
We have talked about Tri Hita Karana the Three Causes of Wellbeing as a philosophical framework. But it is worth dwelling on how concretely this philosophy manifests in daily Balinese life, and how profoundly relevant each element is to the recovery journey.
Parahyangan: Reconnecting with the Spiritual
Addiction erodes the spiritual dimension of life. It replaces meaning with compulsion, purpose with the next fix, and wonder with numbness. One of the deepest wounds of addiction is the severance from any sense of the sacred from the feeling that life has meaning, that something greater than the individual exists, that suffering can be understood within a larger framework.
Being in Bali immerses you in a culture where the spiritual dimension of life is simply assumed. You don't have to believe in the specific theology of Balinese Hinduism to be affected by the daily practice of gratitude, offering, and reverence that surrounds you. The culture gives permission indeed, it provides a constant invitation to reconnect with whatever version of the spiritual makes sense to you.
For those who find the explicitly religious language of twelve-step programs difficult, Bali often provides an alternative route to the same destination. The experience of sitting quietly at a temple as the sun sets over a rice field and feeling something like awe something like gratitude for being alive, for being here, for having made it this far is a spiritual experience, regardless of what language you use to describe it.
Pawongan: The Deep Healing of Community
Of all the gifts that Bali offers to people in recovery, community may be the most important and the most underestimated. The Balinese principle of gotong royong communal cooperation, the understanding that we are responsible for and to each other is not just a cultural value. It is a practice lived out every day in the banjar system that organises village life, in the collective preparation of ceremonies, in the way neighbours show up for neighbours without being asked.
The recovery community in Bali has absorbed something of this spirit. The meetings, the sober social gatherings, the informal networks of people in recovery they reflect an understanding that nobody gets sober alone, and that the quality of the community we build in sobriety is the quality of our lives in sobriety.
For many people, the friendships formed during time in Bali in treatment, in meetings, in the informal spaces of recovery life become the most important relationships of their sober lives. They are formed under conditions of unusual honesty and mutual vulnerability. They are maintained across time zones and across years. They are, in the truest sense, a fellowship.
Palemahan: Healing Through Nature
The natural environment of Bali is extraordinary. The island sits on a volcanic arc that rises dramatically from the sea, creating a landscape of towering peaks, lush tropical forest, rice terraces that cascade down hillsides in mathematical perfection, sacred rivers and springs, and beaches that face both the calm Bali Sea to the north and the powerful Indian Ocean swell to the south.
For people in recovery, time in nature is not a luxury. It is a clinical intervention. The research on the healing effects of natural environments on the nervous system, on mood regulation, on anxiety and depression, is robust and growing. But beyond the science, there is something more fundamental: nature is honest. It is real. It cannot be manipulated or escaped. The ocean doesn't care about your ego, your history, or your drug of choice. The sunrise happens whether you're watching or not. This quality of reality the simple, undeniable thereness of the natural world is grounding for people whose minds have spent years running from reality.
Bali's natural environment also provides constant beauty, which matters more than it might seem. Active addiction dulls the capacity for pleasure and beauty the anhedonia that accompanies heavy substance use means that people lose access to the simple joys of being alive. Recovery involves, in part, the slow restoration of that capacity. Bali, with its extraordinary visual richness and natural splendour, supports that restoration powerfully.
WHAT TO EXPECT: YOUR RECOVERY JOURNEY IN BALI
Understanding what a recovery journey in Bali actually looks like, day to day, may help you or a loved one make an informed decision about whether it's the right path.
The Early Days
The first days in Bali, particularly if you're arriving in acute distress or coming directly off substances can be disorienting. The climate is tropical and warm. The time zone is different. The sensory environment is rich and unfamiliar. This disorientation, while sometimes uncomfortable, is also part of the point: it interrupts habitual patterns and opens up space for something new.
In a quality residential program, the early days will be structured and supported. Medical care will be available where needed. The pace will be calibrated to where you are physically and emotionally. Not every day will be a breakthrough. Some days will be hard. That is the nature of recovery, and Bali is honest about it.
The Middle Phase
As the weeks progress, something begins to shift. The physical healing consolidates. The therapeutic work deepens. You start attending meetings and meeting people in recovery. You begin to engage with the island, the food, the culture, the natural environment. You may begin a yoga practice, find yourself drawn to the ocean, start exploring the spiritual dimensions of your experience.
The middle phase of a recovery stay in Bali is often described by people who have been through it as a time of profound opening. Old defences soften. New possibilities appear. The combination of therapy, fellowship, and cultural immersion creates conditions for insight and change that are difficult to access in the usual pressures of everyday life.
Building for What Comes After
The most important work done in Bali is the work of preparing for what comes after. A month in paradise means nothing if the person who returns home has no plan, no support, and no new tools for living. Quality programs spend significant time on aftercare planning, identifying twelve-step meetings near home, connecting with therapists, preparing for triggers and challenges, and strengthening family relationships.
For some people, the answer to "what comes after" is to stay in Bali to join the growing community of long-term sober expats who have built meaningful lives on the island. For others, the recovery gained in Bali becomes the foundation for a transformed life at home. Both are valid. What matters is that the work done in Bali is not an end in itself, but a beginning.
Recovery is not a destination. It is a daily practice of choosing life, connection, and honesty. Bali can give you the beginning of that practice. What you do with it is up to you.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION FOR THOSE CONSIDERING BALI
Getting Here
Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar connects directly with major Australian cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, with flight times of three to five hours. Direct connections also exist from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, and other Asian hubs, making Bali accessible from virtually anywhere in the world with one or at most two flights.
Visas
Australian, UK, US, European, and most other Western passport holders can enter Indonesia either visa-free for 30 days or on a Visa on Arrival (available at the airport) for up to 30 days, extendable for a further 30 days. For longer stays, social or visit visas can be arranged. A quality rehab program will be able to advise you on visa options relevant to the length and structure of your treatment.
Cost and Funding
The cost of rehabilitation in Bali varies significantly depending on the level of care, the duration of stay, and the structure of the program. High-quality residential rehabilitation in Bali is typically a fraction of the equivalent cost in Australia, the UK, or the United States.
For Australian citizens, we can assist with exploring the use of superannuation to fund treatment a legitimate and increasingly utilised pathway for accessing quality care when it would otherwise be out of financial reach. The process involves engaging a financial adviser and making an application to your superannuation fund on compassionate grounds, and our team can guide you through the steps involved.
Safety and Practicalities
Bali is a safe and well-developed destination for international visitors. Medical facilities, including hospitals with international standards, are available in Denpasar and across the south of the island. English is widely spoken in the areas where recovery programs are based. The cost of living is low relative to Western countries, meaning that everyday expenses during a stay in Bali are manageable even for those on modest budgets.
It is worth noting that while Bali has a lively nightlife scene in areas like Kuta and parts of Seminyak, the recovery community has established its own geography on the island in the quieter streets of Kerobokan, the beachside villages of Canggu, the peaceful lanes of Sanur, and the spiritual heartland of Ubud. The island is large enough that the two worlds coexist without needing to intersect, and a quality program will structure your environment to support your recovery.
TAKING THE FIRST STEP
Every person who has ever gotten sober will tell you that the hardest step was the first one. The decision to ask for help. The admission that something had to change. The willingness, even amid fear and shame and doubt, to reach out.
If you are reading this, something in you is already moving toward that step. Perhaps you are not there yet perhaps you are still weighing it up, still hoping things will change on their own, still telling yourself you can manage it. That is human, and it is understandable, and it is part of the process.
But if some part of you knows that it's time if the thought of a month in Bali, surrounded by people who understand, supported by professionals who care, and immersed in an environment that actively supports healing, sounds like something that might save your life then we'd like to talk with you.
Holistic Recovery Bali exists for one reason: to help people find their way back to themselves. We offer individualised, private, luxury rehabilitation programs tailored to your specific needs, integrated with the extraordinary healing resources that Bali offers the fellowship, the culture, the nature, the spiritual traditions, and the growing community of people in long-term recovery who call this island home.
The next chapter of your life is possible. It might just begin in Bali.
Contact Holistic Recovery Bali
Australia Toll Free: 1800 329 014
WhatsApp: +62 811 388 04006
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