THE BEST KEPT SECRET

EAI recently launched its 2009 marketing campaign “The Best Kept Secret”, which focuses on reeducating the public as to the services, personnel and recovery community that exists here.  “The myth that EAI is a halfway house of homeless people couldn’t be farther from the truth,” states CEO & Chief Clinical Officer Keith Liles.  “It is important that people know of the changes over the past 24 months, and that at EAI, there is a vibrant supportive residential treatment program featuring customized care, a staff of high achievers and impassioned care giving, and, a commitment to continuous improvement of campus facilities.”

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Is Christian Treatment Exclusive?

Who, Why and How of Effective Christian ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS OF ABUSE (AODA) Treatment

While at a conference for addictions treatment professionals, I listened to an ex-priest extol the virtues of inclusiveness in treatment while shaming the “exclusivity” of specific faith based treatment modalities.  Just a few months earlier, I was in a meeting of “Christian Counselors” referring to Alcoholics Anonymous as a cult where a “door knob” could be the higher power that helped keep a drunk on the sober path while citing the Humanist Manifestos agenda to replace Christianity with the religion of “mind science.”  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, many psychologists, psychiatrists, and researchers have attempted to blame Western Civilizations organized religions for much of the neurosis and dysfunction found in many families and individuals.  These extreme, myopic, and misinformed views provide the backdrop to a much misunderstood treatment consumer group.  The needs of this group and the effective approaches to meeting those needs will be briefly discussed in this introductory piece.

Special Needs Groups

Mary is a 43 year-old divorced and remarried mother of two sons from her first marriage of six years, and a daughter from her second marriage of nine years.  Mary reports having been hit and “cheated on” by her high-school sweetheart first husband she met in church camp.  Her mother was an alcoholic and Mary states one of her mothers’ boyfriends molested her while “Mom” was passed out drunk.  Mary presents as well mannered and well groomed with a strained smile and apparent dark circles (mask of depression) around her eyes.  Mary describes having lost temporary custody of her first two children, during her first marriage, when following the admonition of her church elders to return to stay with her husband despite his drunkenness and violence.  Her neighbors had called Child Protective Services and local City Police during one particularly loud and violent episode.  Mary and her first husband were ordered to court mandated parenting and anger management classes.  Mary was later referred to a Psychiatrist, placed on Valium and Prozac, and moved to a battered womens shelter and divorced her first husband.  Her church leadership blamed secular counseling and the courts for Marys divorce, she claimed.  Mary changed church denominations and church membership.  Mary met her second husband at a church “divorce recovery” workshop a year after joining the new church body.  Meanwhile, Marys use of Valium had escalated from “5 mg, as needed, not to exceed 10 mg per day,” to “10 mgs.  three times each day and 15 mgs each evening before bed.”  Mary had also started having wine with dinner following her first divorce.  She is now consuming eight to ten “mini-vodka” bottles each day.  Marys husband blames secular psychology for Mary’s increased anxiety and addictions to Valium and alcohol.  Mary and her second husband are looking for an effective “Substance Abuse/Dual-diagnosis” treatment facility.

This brief vignette alludes to many facets of fundamentalist Christians fears of our post-modern secular humanist approaches to lifes vagaries.  Mary has “special needs” as a potential AODA treatment consumer.  Would this client benefit from entering a “typical” AODA or dual-diagnosis treatment facility?  Would she, or her husband, even CONSIDER placing her in such an environment?  If “trust” is the door that opens to bonding with her counselors and peers in a treatment setting, what are MARYS needs in order to establish trust?  While it would be easy for a “new-ager” to sit in judgment of Marys religiosity, is it not this very same kind of judging these new agers profess to oppose?  Would an “enlightened” new-ager suggest a Black adult female client “just give it a chance to work” if she requested being sent to a primarily Black-staffed treatment facility specializing in “African American” acculturation issues IN LIEU of admitting into the local “one size-fits-all” all-Caucasian staffed “New-Age-4-U” local treatment center?

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ADDICTION & THE THIRST FOR WHOLENESS

By Robert Mittiga

(Program Director GATS Counselling & Treatment Services)

At one time or another, most of us feel some degree of emptiness, loneliness, inadequacy, idealism, or spiritual longing.   We recognize the discontent, the desire to escape pain, and the tendency to seek answers in activities, substances, or relationships. This sense of restlessness and the spiritual longing is familiar to many of us. Over the many years of treating addiction and co-dependency I have heard many people talk about a non-specific hunger for something that seems to be missing in their lives.   They describe a gnawing emptiness within that is never filled.   This insistent stirring from within is so intense that it can, at times, be painful.  It seems to originate at one’s very core, and for some of us, it feels even stronger than our sexual drive or our hunger for food.  

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MIDDLE AGED BABY BOOMERS AND ADDICTION

A woman enters my office disheveled, thin, mid forties, with hollow eyes.  It is as if the sparkle in her eyes ceased to exist a very long time ago.  She tells me she has been drinking and is using methamphetamines.  I am not surprised to hear this because lately my practice has been filled with middle aged baby boomers seeking help for their serious addictions.  Whether it is alcohol, cocaine, crack, methamphetamines, pain killers, heroine, or smoking marijuana, many have crossed the line into addiction.  Their lives have become unmanageable and they have lost their ability to control their use.  Some believe they can just cut down, but as addiction specialists, we know it is impossible once you have crossed that invisible line into dependency.   One of their defense mechanisms is "denial" so they can still continue their love affair with drugs or alcohol.  Addiction is the only disease that tells them in the most insidious of ways, "I don't have a problem or disease."  It can be very difficult treating someone who doesn't think they have a problem.  However, on some level this particular woman who landed in my office may already know an issue exists, but can't bare to admit it. 

So what brings this middle aged woman into see me with such desperation on her face?  Her husband has told her if she doesn't stop using, he will leave her and take the children with him.  She tells me she can't imagine not using meth. "It gives me energy to deal with my four kids and keeps my weight down."   I am sure it might be hard to believe that someone in middle age, a soccer mom and a wife feels this way.   It is no longer teenagers or urban minorities taking the lead, although there still is an epidemic of young addicts out there.   These  all American business men, stay at home moms, career women and even the elderly  are filling the treatment centers and therapists offices and some, never make it.   In a recent study, it was revealed that drug deaths from illicit drug over doses had risen 800 per cent since 1980.  One of the fastest growing abuses is pain killers with suburbia filled with these individuals.   It has long been known that there are many reasons for the abuse, but for the middle aged the reasons may be not only the genetic predisposition, but as a buffer to numb the pain of divorce, un-employment, an empty nest, retirement, trauma or illness.  Depression may be one of the biggest culprits to addiction, with it being the highest amongst the ages of 45 to 60.

The "free love" generation of "sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll" has taken a turn; many would have never expected drug addiction to be their legacy.  Often long standing drug abusers find when the marijuana stops working; they often go to stronger drugs.  For some it is losing their children, a job, a spouse, or homelessness that leads them to seek help.

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According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2006, 23.6 million persons aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol abuse problem (9.6 percent of the persons aged 12 or older).  Of these, only 2.5 million—10.8 percent of those who needed treatment—received it at a specialty facility.  These are dire statistics, considering that each year since the early 1980’s, not only has the number of drug and alcohol residential treatment facilities increased dramatically, the internet has provided an ease and accessibility for locating programs designed to provide recovery from substance abuse.  The resources for alcohol treatment especially are now not only plentiful, but also no longer viewed with the same kind of shameful connotation they once were.

Why then are 89.2% of those who struggle with alcohol abuse or chemical dependency not seeking treatment?  No one knows for sure, but experts believe that a lack of private funds, health insurance or public assistance beds, coupled with the obvious cognitive and motivational debilitation that comes with drug and alcohol abuse, prove deadly impediments to entering recovery for those who in fact are in desperate need of it.   For those who are financially capable of funding their own treatment, certainly the opportunities are now abundant.  Health insurance unfortunately has, over the years, increasingly limited benefits for chemical dependency or alcohol treatment.  State or County funded beds in residential programs, even those designed for short term care, are scarce and the waiting lists to secure one of these beds are long.

The fiduciary component of entering drug and alcohol treatment is only compromised more by physical, environmental and social impediments.  Those who are struggling with alcohol or drug addiction are, obviously, often experiencing any number of ancillary problems, either caused by or at least aggravated by their addiction.   Because of their intoxication or abuse, alcohol or drug dependent individuals are often limited in their cognitive or rational functioning.   Many spend a significant time in denial of their disease.  Friends and family may either be unwilling or unable to help.  Often it is not until a “crisis” event or some sort of intervention occurs that help is even sought.

Fortunately, there is hope.  As the number of centers for alcohol treatment and drug addiction recovery grow, so does the awareness of help available.  Internet websites, local and national outreach by drug and alcohol treatment center professionals and media attention increasingly focused on celebrities entering rehab facilities are all easing the sharing of information on addiction treatment resources.  Hopefully the word will grow increasingly stronger and the percentage of those who need help and actually receive it, will as well.

Alcohol treatment centers for women, and female addiction in general, were until very recently, not even a subject which was discussed in “polite company.”  Fortunately, thanks to the courageous honesty of women like Betty Ford, Carrie Fisher and of course, “celebutantes” like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, not only are women finally able to “come clean” about their struggles with drugs and alcohol, but there are finally gender specific resources to help them overcome their addiction and co-occuring problems.
Professionals in addiction recovery absolutely and unanimously support the benefits of gender specific treatment in terms of addiction recovery.  Especially in dual-diagnosis rehabilitation, where the treatment goal is to undercover the co-occurring disorder(s) generating the alcohol or drug use and then reconcile them in a healthy manner,  the differences in the underlying addiction issues between men and women are often extremely disparate.   Both certainly deserve “equal rights.”    Alcohol treatment centers for women , however, have only made their debut, at least in a sophisticated and comprehensive manner, in the very recent past.   Women who have experienced both co-ed and also gender specific recovery treatment have found that their ability to relax and become authentically honest about their real problems is much easier in gender specific, women’s only rehab.   Professionals are not surprised.  Any time you mix genders, whether it is in a social or therapeutic environment, basic animal instinct is going to imbue the room and innate behaviors will undoubtedly skew the integrity of the work to be accomplished.  Thus, many top rehabs , which once boasted a male-heavy population, then evolved into more evenly mixed co-ed programs, are now closely following the incredible success being achieved by newer programs specifically designed for gender specific recovery.  Alcohol treatment centers for women, especially, have been targeted by rehab “business development” pros looking to promote the most optimal recovery solutions possible.

According to communication professionals and commentators in media psychology, there appears to be a vast shift in the manner in which Americans receive information.  Gone are the days of three major network news programs.   News radio has become an information delivery source reserved primarily for the politically-bent or polarized minds.  The future of the information highway, warn savvy pundits of media psych, lies in the ill-informed hands of entertainment-based programs, which rely on celebrity speculation, the rumor mill and rating-driven prognostications to drive how they share the news.  Thus, it is not surprising that programs such as “Entertainment Tonight,” “TMZ,” and “Extra” are where most Americans receive their daily dose of headlines and thus the latest celebutante headed for alcohol rehabilitation is the top story de rigueur.
Recovery experts have discovered the proverbial silver lining in all of the misinformation chaos.  
With so many programs devoted to the latest celebrity scandals – and a pretty healthy chunk of those falling under a seeming pandemic of drug and alcohol problems – there has never been such a “golden age” for rehabs.  Thus, argue experts in the field of alcohol and drug treatment, although actual hard news has taken arguably suffered a tremendous and perhaps unrecoverable blow in terms of how real facts are dispensed, for the purposes of addiction treatment and especially alcohol rehabilitation, things have never been better.  As Americans watch their idols fall into the drowning well of consequences from drug and alcohol abuse , they also begin, perhaps subliminally, to accept and embrace the rehabilitation process as well.  There are none so celebrated as the rehabilitated – as least in the good old U.S. of A.  So as the famous scions of entertainment seek rehab or recovery through alcohol rehabilitation , perhaps those in the more pedestrian world will emulate the healthy choices of their heroes and also seek true recovery.  Or so those in recovery community hope.

When legendary ‘70’s group “The Eagles” released their Grammy-winning record “Hotel California” in 1978, band member Don Henley called it "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles."  Now 30 years later, Henley & Co.’s sardonic tribute to the hedonistic Southern California lifestyle has assumed an entirely different, yet ironically related connotation.  “Drug Rehab California” has become almost a cottage industry for The Golden State, with “Hotel” type luxury rehabs leading the pack.  Seems the “high life” also has a price.  And the price tag can indeed be quite hefty for those who desire to first detox, then learn how to stay that way in one of the many upscale Malibu rehab facilities that have sprung up in recent years.

But are they worth the price?  Critics of these ritzy rehabs complain that too many amenities distract from the real purpose behind the stay:  getting clean and sober.  But pundits of the newly emerging evolution in recovery argue that those accustomed to a “comfortable” lifestyle would never seek admission to one of the more strident recovery clinics available.  Thus, like a fancy automobile or private school, the new Drug Rehab California, has an important market value.

Certainly, the hope is that anyone choosing recovery - which is a good thing – would either investigate (or have an advocate do so on their behalf), with as much due diligence as they would an expensive car or academic institution, the best rehab “fit.”  Although it is certainly true that California drug rehabs are enjoying a tremendous boon in the number of facilities offering treatment for chemical dependency, with that explosion also comes greater choice for the addict or alcoholic seeking treatment.  Gender specific treatment has become the most praised by professionals, in this new wave of California recovery, with many established top drug and alcohol rehabs jettisoning their co-ed structure to offer more specialized treatment for men and women individually.  A top Malibu rehab, Harmony Place, for years established and recognized as one of the best rehabs in the world, was the first of the Malibu rehabs to recognize the importance of gender specific dual-diagnosis treatment.  They launched their Harmony Place Exclusively For Women program in early 2007 to great success.

Whether the cutting edge drug rehab California philosophy will spread, seemingly like all things Californian, to other parts of the nation and world, still remains to be seen.  But one thing is for sure:  at these new “Hotels California,” there may be “mirrors on the ceiling,” but there sure ain’t no “pink champagne on ice.”

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