A Brief Note On Drug And Alcohol Addiction - 1668 Words

I know a girl named Katie. She is not a drug addict. She is a wife, a mother, a positive part of our community. But before she was happily married, before she was lovingly called Mommy, she was addicted to heroin. Her friends were all addicts and many died. She stopped breathing once too, when she was 21 years old. Her boyfriend gave her CPR. She was even arrested; court mandated outpatient counseling, once a week for three months, NA meetings, one year probation. It did nothing for her. She drank the whole time. The traditional treatments used to treat drug and alcohol addiction was not effective then, nor is it effective now, for the new generation of drug addicts. Heroin and every other drug is readily available in Erie†¦show more content†¦Author of the book, Inside Rehab, Anne Fletcher states, â€Å"Only 1 out of 10 people go for any sort of help each year. There are all kinds of reasons why the other 9 don t get help, but it s my impression that they don t get help because they are not happy with the treatment options† (Szalavitz). Outpatient counselors in some states can often be undereducated or often too overloaded to give the proper individualized treatment. While inpatient Chelsea Pappas Page 2 centers often consist of 8 hours each day of group therapy sessions or watching videos, attending lectures. These are often 12 step based, which can also be attended through AA and NA meetings. 12 step programs say one must acknowledge that they have a disease in which they are powerless against. The â€Å"once an addict, always an addict† motto stigmatizes people to refer to themselves negatively. What positive psychological reinforcement is achieved by telling an addict that they have a permanent disease that they are powerless against? It can not only lower motivation, but can also be used as an excuse. A self-fulfilling prophecy. 12 step members must pray and be ready for God to remove all â€Å"defects of Character†, remove all shortcomings. This can immediately set one up for failure. When God doe not remove their defects, where does that leave the addict? Spirituality is a