Treating Addictions [Guest Post]

The ABCs of rehab.

[Journalists like me tend to get immersed in the scientific and medical aspects of addiction. Not a bad thing, to be sure—but sometimes a simpler rendition puts a finer point on the matter. Today’s guest post was contributed by Susan White, who writes on the topic of Becoming a Radiologist.  She welcomes your comments at her email id: susan.white33@gmail.com.]

It’s very easy to find fault and assign blame when you’ve never been in the other person’s shoes; how often have we found ourselves judging people for their bad habits? Why can’t he stop that obnoxious habit? Oh, she’s not strong at all, she cannot stop drinking! I would never sink to the drug-induced state he is in, not even if the worst things were to happen to me – it’s easy to say all these things because we don’t know what an addiction feels like and how hard it is for people to quit. They’re just like you and me; they don’t like the way they are, but their substance abuse controls their bodies, minds and everything they do or say.

To understand an addiction, you need to understand that the body goes through changes, both physiological and psychological. If the addiction is to alcohol, drugs or any other chemical substance, the high euphoric feeling is what makes you go back again and again. But as time goes by, the high decreases and you begin to take in more of the abusive substance in your quest for that initial euphoria. It’s a vicious cycle that feeds itself, and if you stop, you feel withdrawal symptoms because your body is so used to its daily or even hourly fix.

It takes a supreme effort to admit that you have a problem and seek help. Rehab centers work because they make the addict quit cold turkey; they are cloistered and controlled environments where addicts have no access to the abusive substance. The sudden withdrawal causes abnormal reactions in your body, and you’re treated with medicines that help soothe your frayed nerves. When the initial craving subsides, you’re put in therapy and other forms of rehabilitation. Your diet is regulated, and your body slowly starts to recover and rejuvenate. 

The hardest part of rehab however comes when you step out of the cocoon of the de-addiction center and enter the real world. You have to face the demon that had its tentacles around you and fight it down, and for some people, this is where they suffer a relapse. Once they are surrounded by temptation, they succumb and are soon back to their decadent and sorry state. Others however, are made of sterner stuff. They know that they cannot afford to lose control again and they are disciplined enough to say no when they come face to face with temptation.

Addiction, be it to a substance, person or thing, is not something to be taken lightly. Unless admitted to and treated at the earliest, it could end up having serious physical and mental consequences. 

Graphics Credit: http://www.nida.nih.gov/

The Changing Face of Addiction Counseling

Most addiction workers are no longer addicts themselves.

For years, addiction therapists and counselors tended to be people who had been addicts themselves. These days, not so much. Drug and alcohol counselors who have experienced addiction firsthand represent a dwindling slice of the addiction therapy community.

But does it matter? A recent study by William L. White for the Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center and the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services suggests strongly that it does not. The study, “Peer-based Addiction Recovery Support” (PDF), concluded that “Studies of addiction counselors in the United States have not found that addiction counselors in recovery are more or less effective than addiction counselors who are not in recovery....”

This is a good thing, if true, since the report also documents that the percentage of counselors in personal recovery within the “addiction workforce” has fallen from a high of almost 70 % in the early 1970s to about 30% as of 2008. It is unclear what is behind this trend, given that “studies of the personalities of recovering men and women working as addiction counselors reveal few differences from counselors without addiction recovery backgrounds.” White suggests that as the “educational levels of people in recovery have increased,” the perceived differences between counselors in recovery and those not in recovery “diminish or disappear completely.”

The bottom line for counselors: “The key determinants of effectiveness do not include recovery status.”

Nonetheless, White argues, attitudes toward workers in addiction treatment continued to be “plagued by misconceptions and stereotypes that are contradicted by most scientific studies. The prevailing view is that the majority of addiction counselors are in recovery; that most recovering counselors do not have college or advanced degrees; and that recovering counselors differ in their attitudes beliefs, knowledge, skills, and effectiveness” from counselors who have never experienced addiction.

Nowadays, as it turns out, none of these views is correct.

White’s paper also reiterated the sad fact that recovering addicts who work in addiction treatment “are paid less than people not in recovery for comparable work, even when their educational credentials are equal.”


Photo Credit: US No Drugs

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