Could it Have Been You?
planet in drug rehabilitation programs and 12-Step meeting rooms.
We ask, “What about moral accountability?”
The number of people addicted to, both illicit, and prescribed drugs is staggering. We know this to be true, and have known it for decades. California prisons have an 80% rate of recidivism on 1st terms, and “coincidentally” 80% of the inmates are there on drug charges. Draw your own conclusion on that one! Socially our problem is that we need for these people to be productive members of society; not the financial burden that they now are, using prison as a solution. We can focus on their moral failure and punish them, but that return rate tells us that it doesn’t work. That is not, by any means, productive use of our resources and effort. We know that we can change the brain state. If we truly want to achieve positive results, only by focusing on what we “know” works, and changes that “can” be made, will we be able to provide Treatment Treatment that will help people survive their addiction, and return to a full productive life in society.
People have a tendency to view the mind as some mystical thing existing outside of, but in some way attached to the body of humans. Our mind is the brain, a physical part of the human being! When drugs change your mood or perceptions it is done by changing your mind. That is the brain! People like to modify their brain state… There are two ways that we commonly change our brains. One is with drugs. The other, is through behavior… behavioral treatment therapies change the brain, through learning and support. Various behavioral therapies have been compared with use of anti-depressant drugs, and they both can cause the same kinds of changes in the brain. Brain change is brain change. There is no existing difference between biologically produced brain changes and behaviorally produced brain changes.
Will an Addicts brain go back to normal?
In many cases yes, but in those other cases, the individual has to learn to compensate, often through spiritual strength, sometimes by increased knowledge of the disease and/or knowing their own selves as individuals. This can be done either biologically or behaviorally or by a combination of the two.
Treatment of a mental disorder is usually accepted as a life-long
process. We do not expect a schizophrenic to take pills for a couple of months, and then everything is all better. Most of us know that that would be a ridiculous expectation. More commonly understood, now, is the area of depression. It is widely accepted that drug intervention is fairly successful, but that it quite often needs to be accompanied by some form of counseling, often a “group” process overseen by a qualified counselor. People who suffer from depression very seldom have only one episode of it. They cycle and become depressed over and over again. The goal is usually to increase the intervals between the episodes. Though it has physical aspects, addiction is a mental disorder. We are trying to achieve the same results with it as with depression. People are often very critical of treatment for addicts, stating that they are often back using in “no time at all.” We don’t give up on people if they have a crisis with diabetes (often caused by eating something they shouldn’t). We just encourage and support them in their effort to abide by certain dietary limitations and to take their medicine properly. We don’t condemn or write them off, as failures. These crises usually take place throughout many years of surviving that disease. Addiction is also a chronic-relapsing disease, and most often total abstinence for the rest of life, is not achieved through the first episode of treatment. High expectations, situations that initiate craving, and other pressures often trigger the same things that supported the original addiction. The craving returns and once again drive the addict back to the old people, places, and things! This is why we must recognize extended treatment as a necessary factor in success rates. They did not become an addict overnight and they are not going to recovery their lives overnight, either! We have to decide if we care about this huge segment of our citizens, or if we want to just write them off. Prisons do not help Addiction problems. Is punishment a proper solution, considering what I’ve just said? If it was your brother or daughter, or what if it was your father? Are we going to start locking up people who are overweight? Most often this is another type of Addiction! If you acknowledge the disease concept of Addiction then it must be treated as other diseases art treated. Is the day coming when we will reinstate the “Leper Colony” concept. That is… sort of what sending people with Addictions to big buildings with tall fences and locked gates, away from everyone else,