Does Drug Rehab Have To Be So Maudlin

I was reading some of the blogs created by treatment facilities that employ the disease model of addiction, meaning that they believe that addiction is a chronic and progressive disease, which means that it goes on forever (once an addict, always an addict) and it gets worse, even if you quit using. In other words, these centers believe that there are NO cures for this "disease".

I tried to put myself in the shoes of a suffering addict and I could see that a message of this kind would make me want to escape confronting my "chronic disease" rather than go to treatment and find support groups that can help me stay clean while my disease progresses and is getting worse every day. I thought how depressing and maudlin are the attitudes of treatment facilities that use this clinical approached. Wouldn't it be better to let people know that anything is possible if you believe it to be so and when your intentions are clearly targeted to make something different happen in your lives, it happens. How about all of the "miracle" stories of people that have cured incurable cancer? If those are real, can't addicted persons also find support that doesn't diagnosis them sicker than they knew themselves to be? I have yet to find an addict that believes that he has a addictive disease unless he has been previously indoctrinated into the disease concept. In my review of over 150 treatment centers over 20 years of time, I found that all but a handful of centers subscribe to this disease model. I also found that those centers that believe in the disease model have the lowest outcomes. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and when the staff is faced with frustrating resistance from their clients, they will often say that the "disease in that person is really bad" or something of that type of resignation.

The poor outcomes from residential alcohol and drug treatment has led the public into apathy about seeking treatment for their loved ones since they feel that they are throwing more good money after bad, and who can blame them?

I feel that a program that did nothing other than convince an addict that he is in total control and is totally responsible for all of the conditions in his life would have a higher success than a program based on the idea that this addiction can only be arrested and only in a few of those who try.

Most families that I talk to about treatment are very reluctant to invest in something that has proven to be unsuccessful in the past and if they don't have person experience with the failures of treatment, they usually have heard the same from others.

HERE COMES THE ALCOHOL, DRUGS AND POLITICS SEGMENT:

Part of the strategy of those who are wanting to legalize drugs is to support treatment for all on demand, with the idea that once society has invested in treatment and it is shown that it is only about 10% successful, that they will have a public that will give up on the idea of treatment chose to quit wasting money on the hopes that an addict will rehabilitate, so therefore, the public can look to legalization as a cost, and life savings answer. With the financial crisis that we are facing for the next few years, at least, the ideas that we can make tax money on legalized drugs and save money on stopping the support of a rehabilitation process that is so flawed that its own leaders state that addiction is a "disease of relapse", you can see where this is headed.

Think about it.. I have massive amount of data showing people can overcome addiction and live happy successful lives without believing that they could relapse at any minute. Find out more data about the different types of drug and alcohol treatment from www.drug-rehab-colorado.com or www.rehab-drug.net

Is the sky really falling?

I, like everyone else, am a little (mildly put) overrun on the subject of how bad things are.  If this is the foreplay that we, the public, need before we are willing to devalue our dollars and give huge bailouts to companies that none of us ever like anyway, then I say... ENOUGH!  Give them their money, because I know that they are going to get it anyway and let's get on with something more exciting and inspiring in our daily dialog than how the bad guys have gotten all the dough and they even get more when they least deserve any.  

As a professional, I was raised on "drug war" propaganda.  I was one of 50 state directors of substance abuse during Reagan's examination of the drug problem in American and the subsequent "answers" to the drug problem.  It started by enlisting consensus building around the US of the dire consequences of drugs on society and, in particular, in the work place.  From these "consensus" building conferences, called the White House Conferences on Substance Abuse, that were held in five different regions of the US and collimated in the final conference in DC; we learned that we had to spend millions more on the drug problem, we had to enact more laws to punish users and pushers and we had to protect our greatest resources... the children.  ( I am always cynical when I hear that the US likes to claim that children are our greatest natural resources... When I think of the US and natural resources, I think of strip mining and not investment in our children.)

I sat at the final conference and heard neoconservatives pushing for life-sentences for drug users and the death penalty for pushers.  I knew that wouldn't happen, but the spirit of anger and revenge was fueling a blazing furnace of future spending.  

Many of my colleagues were excited about the new interest of the government in addiction and felt that they would finally get the opportunity really help their fellow addicted citizens.  

Today we have 90% of all of the treatment centers in the US having outcomes of under 20% and I am being very generous since most centers will say that one-in-ten will get well, and the reality is even less.  We have the highest incarceration rates of any industrialized country and 80% of those in our prisons are being punished for drug-related offenses.  

Most people are in apathy about doing anything related to drug prevention and even less believe "once-an-addict, always and addict", so there is little support of treatment.  Here we are, 20+ years later and things are no better than they were when Nancy Reagan told us to "just say no".  (if you want to lear more about addiction and treatment, go to www.rehab-drug.net or www.drug-rehab-colorado.com.)

I really didn't want my log to be another depressing missive on how society can't win, but I do want to draw attention to the facts about what happens when we depend on the government to "bail us out".  I hope along with every other sane citizen, that we will all prosper again and that through this process we will become a more mature society that will invet in our futures by supporting sustainable industries and ending our dependence on companies and activities that will hurt us at the end of the day.  We need to be watchful of what outcomes we are getting from all of this future money that we are spending on systems that none of us understand. (Do we really understand what ASI does, other than gives huge bonuses to the least deserving? Do we really understand why Citi Bank needs such a huge piece of the pie while other banks are left to fold?)

During the "drug war" I was faced with the same vagueness and lack of knowingness about where we were going and what the money was actually going to produce.   This should all make sense and we shouldn't be overly involved in witch hunts for the bad guys, but we should be putting our efforts in creating a new vision of America that will bring the best of its past together with the lessons learned from over-consumption.  What piece of the pie is going to change the greedy culture of Wall Street and start focusing on taking care of the spirit of our country.  

I fear that we will go back to business as usual except that we will have a huge debt to confront and we won't be able to be the leader in the world that can continue to support the "American Way".  

We didn't even scratch the surface of what we could have done with the $15 Trillion spent on the drug war in the last 20 years.  

Be aware that when it comes to Washington and big government campaigns, things are never as they seem.  The truth of the motives and objectives of these campaigns is usually well hidden.  I hope that the new Administration isn't doing business as usual... Let's not allow that to be!  

Alcohol and Drug Information

The purpose of this blog is to provide basic, and sometimes, advanced information on the abuse and addiction to alcohol and other drugs.  It will contain pages on all major drugs of abuse so that the reader will be better informed in this area.  

In the days to come, pages will be added to this information, so please check back regularly.  I will also be giving educational data on interventions and rehab leading to helping the public or the non-professional better help their loved ones who need help related to alcohol and other drug abuse, addiction and rehabilitation. 

This was the original mission of the blog, but I soon realized that there were other areas of concern and that most of my professional contacts are interested in my experience in the political arena and my insight into the funding and administration of treatment.  

At request, I will provide more information about specific drugs and counseling techniques or help loved ones do interventions, etc.