Despite the benefits of substance abuse treatment, only a small proportion of drug users enter treatment. Understanding “readiness” is critical for engaging drug users in treatment and for involving them in the recovery process. This paper reports on ethnographic interviews conducted with 35 active drug users as they were entering treatment services, to describe how they perceive readiness for treatment. Drug users expressed readiness for treatment in terms reflective of twelve step programs, a folk model of treatment. A better understanding of drug users' perceptions can help to inform interventions designed to improve readiness for treatment.