Pubdate: Fri, 21 Jul 2000
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260
Fax: (713) 220-3575
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Author: THOM MARSHALL

DETOX DIRECTOR A LIVING EXAMPLE

She runs a public detox unit now, serving people who have no money or
insurance to pay for services.

Just eight beds, but a couple of hundred clients went through it the first
six months of operation, spending between 8 and 14 days each getting clean.

The detox director said many are ex-convicts who are worried about failing
the urinalysis when reporting to their parole officers and are trying to
keep from having their paroles revoked.

Some of these were not drug users when they went to prison, she said. They
got on the stuff while inside.

Others were locked up for breaking laws because they were addicted, she
said. They continued feeding their habits, and so putting them in prison
merely made them better at fighting, lying, cheating, stealing and
manipulating people.

Still others she has met manage to stay off drugs while in prison, where
their lives are structured by others and they don't have the pressures of
earning a living and providing their own food and clothes and housing. But
they lack some of the most basic skills for handling routine requirements
and situations confronted in life outside.

"I've seen some people who didn't know how to use a knife and a fork," the
detox director said.

So they seek relief from their insecurities and feelings of inadequacy by
using drugs. Soon they wind up back in prison.

Never-ending cycle of drugs

One client was in the detox unit three times in six months. The director
said the woman didn't know how to get by on minimum-wage jobs and didn't
know how to improve her earning power legitimately, but did understand how
to make money dealing drugs. When she returned to dealing she returned to
using and soon returned for help in getting clean again.

Three reasons this detox unit director feels qualified for her job are: (1)
She has studied and learned about various substances and their effects. (2)
She likes to help people and previously worked for several years as a
paramedic. (3) As a former drug user herself, she thoroughly understands
what it is to be addicted and convicted.

She said her habit started with a knee operation when she was 15 years old.
She got a shot of pain medicine. She said she remembers thinking, "This is
how I want to feel all the time."

It wasn't that she felt high, she said, but that the drug made her feel
"normal," made her feel better able to deal with the stresses and tensions
that were a part of her everyday teen-age life.

She began to seek out the medication, mostly getting it when she could from
doctors. But when she was old enough to train and start work as a paramedic,
it became much easier. When giving an injured person pain medication, it was
simple to pocket some for her personal use, she said.

But the more she used the more it took to have the effect she depended upon.
So, to get enough, she began using bogus prescriptions and eventually got
caught.

She served 111 days in a county jail. She didn't use drugs while there, but
wasn't long in returning to them after she got out. And she soon got caught
forging prescriptions again.

Behavior modification the key

This time, she said, she was sent to a substance abuse felony punishment
center where inmates worked four or five hours a day and spent the rest of
the time in substance abuse classes. It was a program based upon behavior
modification, she said, and it worked for her. She has stayed off drugs, and
has continued to study and learn about them to help others.

She said the most life-threatening substance addiction she deals with at her
unit is alcohol. The stress of withdrawal can bring on seizures, can cause
body temperatures to go sky high, can stop breathing.

So here is someone who knows both sides of the drug problem. She knows that
merely locking up drug war prisoners and building more pens to hold them all
is not practical or cost-effective. She knows that short-term band-aid
approaches to the problem like her detox unit can't do enough.

She knows that more good treatment programs which enable users to understand
and change the causes of their addictions would work much better.
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