AHS Views

The state of Alabama will be opening 25 additional drug courts to help non-violent drug offenders get out of the correctional system once and for all. The drug courts will allow offenders to do supervised long-term drug rehab programs along with regular drug testing.

The 25 new drug courts being the total to 41 for Alabama – the goal is at least one drug court in every county, a goal no other state has attained. If the participants stay clean for one year, their charges will be dropped.

The courts are already seeing positive results. In fact, a recent article reported that that the recidivism rate for graduates of the program was only 9%. It also saved the state over $36 million in prison costs.

If drug courts continue to get great results through successful drug rehab programs, it’s quite possible that other states will follow Alabama’s lead.

A large elephant in China became addicted to heroin after being fed the drug by illegal traders. No, I am not kidding. The elephant was picked up, has done a year-long drug rehab and is now clean and sober.

According to the article, illegal traders were feeding the elephant bananas laced with heroin so he would follow them. They were planning to sell him, along with the rest of his herd.

Unfortunately, after the elephant was picked up to be sold, he started going through major drug withdrawal from heroin and was given methadone. He was then withdrawn from the methadone and released into a wildlife park – more than is done for most humans: they’re usually are kept on methadone.

If we could do the same for humans we’d have fewer drug addicts. Hard to believe they can successfully get an elephant off heroin, without replacement drugs, but they can’t do the same for people. Perhaps we need to find out exactly what they did and use this experience as a model for a successful drug rehab program.

When a person goes into drug rehab they’ve often just been through a major problem like a fight with a family member or a divorce. Sometimes these problems are the reasons they turned to alcohol or drugs but, of course, they don’t solve anything. In fact, they make the situations worse. But sometimes a successful drug rehab program can help solve those problems, as it may well do for Lindsay Lohan.

Lohan is in drug rehab for the third time now and, according to a recent article, she’s agreed to see her father as part of the healing process. There’s been a lot of buzz in the media that Lohan’s addiction was caused by her father’s drug and alcohol problems. She hasn’t spoken to him in years.

Maybe meeting with her father will help handle their differences and Lohan can finally get through a drug rehab program successfully.

Surfing is one of the most popular sports in the U.S. and surfers are a tight knit group. In fact, they’ve recently formed a group called Surfers United Recovery Foundation (SURF) to help surfers get off drugs and alcohol, according to a recent article. SURF is a non-profit group that raises money for drug rehab and other resources.
 
This week SURF is holding their second benefit to raise money for scholarships to those in need of sober living arrangements. The benefit will include musical performances, the sale of surf photography, a raffle and an auction.

SURF was started to help surfers and surf industry employees get off drugs and alcohol. If other groups followed SURF’s example, we might see a lot more people in a successful drug rehab program, and it could make a big difference in drug addiction statistics.

For seven years I was addicted to drugs and today I can honestly say I no longer struggle with addiction. But when I speak with clients and family members about the subject, they often find it hard to believe that anyone can really overcome drug addiction. I assure them that there is such a thing as a successful drug rehab program, but there’s a lot of information out there saying drug addiction is a chronic, incurable disease.
 
It’s unfortunate that a number of studies have been done to try to reaffirm this information. The most recent was done by the University of Melbourne. The researchers explain that after someone has been on drugs for two years, parts of their brain are dysfunctional. And, consequently, getting off drugs is difficult and relapse may be uncontrollable.

I know several hundred former addicts, including myself, that will tell you that stopping drugs is a matter of choice and that with successful drug rehab you can get and stay off drugs permanently. If I believed that I suffered from a disease that I could never recover from, I never would have gotten off drugs in the first place.

The more this information is forwarded, the more addicts are negatively affected and reluctant to go to drug rehab. Why go through that when you ‘know’ it’s impossible? Believe me, it’s not. I am living testimony, and I’m not alone.

I look at my life and, really, there’s no problem that wouldn’t absolutely go away 100% if I had a bottomless checkbook. I guess I should consider myself lucky because there seems to be no end to the problems of the rich-and-famous - including alcohol and drug abuse - and money doesn’t seem to be doing an awful lot for them. But they can afford the most expensive, most luxurious treatment facilities – the fees are more per month than most people earn in a year - and yet they continue to live tortured lives, and often die a very ugly death. The pity is that the problems leading to their alcohol or drug addiction may have been resolved had they gone to the right drug rehab program.

The link above goes to pictures of many famous people who died of drug-related causes. Many of them overdosed, and some died from complications from alcohol or drug abuse. One died in an assisted suicide – with morphine. I’ll bet you can’t guess who that was – Sigmund Freud. The father of psychoanalysis: the one field that is supposed to be able to help a person resolve the personal issues that lead to alcoholism and drug addiction and, I would assume, the desire to kill yourself.

If you or someone you care about is looking for a treatment facility, don’t just go to the one down the street, or the one that’s least expensive, or most expensive, check out your options and find one with a good success rate. You might not be rich and famous, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to go down the same torturous path as these celebrities if you don’t find a successful drug rehab program.

Many communities object to having drug rehab centers, halfway houses – anything to do with drug or alcohol treatment, actually – in their neighborhood. In just the last two days I’ve read news articles about public concern over treatment centers in Arizona, Oregon, and California. Three states that are in serious need of drug rehab programs.

I understand the reluctance. The idea of having your kid playing out in the front yard and being approached by an alcoholic or drug addict is a little frightening. And we may be perfectly upstanding law-abiding citizens ourselves who don’t drink very much, don’t take drugs and are contributing members of society and we want to live in communities with people like ourselves.

On the other hand, there’s really no getting away from the drug problem. And, one way or another, it’s going to impact your life. It may not be now, but if it keeps accelerating, it will eventually. And the only way it’s going to stop accelerating is if perfectly upstanding law-abiding citizens who are productive members of society reach out and help.

It may not be by voting for a halfway house to be opened next door, but there might other things you can do to contribute to the establishment of a successful drug rehab program. Get constructive. Get with your city council and see what you can do about solving the problem – you and your family will benefit in the end.

National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month is one of the country’s largest initiatives to address the problems of alcohol and drug addiction. Even those at the top of the political ladder take part in the recovery message. In fact, a proclamation was issued by the President on the devastation caused by drug addiction and the dedication of the current administration to get addicts into drug rehab.

Sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, many private and public organizations participate in drug rehab promotion as well as education and other prevention services. Citizens are also encouraged to help establish drug and alcohol rehab programs across the country.
 
Let’s hope this month’s efforts result in more addicts being admitted to a drug rehab program that can help them get off drugs.

An recent article reported that a former Navy hospital ship, left in port in Baltimore, was auctioned off yesterday for $50,000. The ship was seized by federal marshals in March and auctioned by the US District Court to pay off debts owed by the former owner who had planned to convert the ship into a floating drug rehab center.

A floating drug rehab center? At first that sounds like a strange idea but some of the major problems associated with addicts during treatment would be solved by drug addiction treatment in the middle of the ocean.

Anyone who has had a loved one go through drug rehab knows how hard it can be to get the person to agree to stay in the program once they’ve started. It would be impossible to leave this one.

This would also be very helpful for the drug rehab staff. The ship would leave with a full boat of clients and return a month later, with clients rehabilitated and happy. And just image how secure it would be: there would be no concern about visitors or outsiders trying to bring drugs into the center.

Unfortunately, there was no report on what the new owner plans to do with the ship but I am still hoping that someone will turn it into a unique location for a successful drug rehab program.

Drugs abuse is one of Vietnam’s biggest problems. A recent article reported that the relapse rates are 70 to 80% - bad news for the 288,000 people that have asked for help with their drug addiction. There is also an estimated 138,000 that have not made any attempts at drug rehab.

This problem has prompted The National Committee for AIDS, Drugs and Prostitution Control to meet this week to review detox programs and drug rehab strategy. The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has proposed improvements in the legal system so it can better deal with drug users and drug dealers, and  the establishment of more drug detox centers.

There was no word on when these plans will be implemented but it appears that Vietnam is ready to do something about this ongoing problem. They hope that investing in detox and drug rehab centers will help 100% of the country’s addicts.