Pubdate: Thu, 19 Aug 2006
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Copyright: 2006 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Contact: http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/submit.asp
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Thom Forbes
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

MY FAMILY'S DAILY WAR

Parents In Recovery Struggle With Daughter's Fight With Addiction

I am, at the least, a fourth-generation alcoholic. So is my wife, 
Deirdre. Our 22-year-old daughter, Carrick, is a recovering heroin addict.

Most members of our family have been successful professionally - 
Deirdre's father was an attorney and judge; my side brims with 
journalists who kept the proverbial pint flask in their desk drawers.

Most of us got sober, but we've taken different routes to get there. 
I've learned along the way that there is a difference between not 
using a drug and being in recovery, which encompasses the way you 
lead your life, interact with other people and face your mortality.

To greater and lesser degrees, we functioned despite our illnesses, 
as many of you or your loved ones do today. More than 22 million of 
us older than 12 abuse or are dependent on alcohol or illegal drugs, 
according to 2004 government figures, and that's not counting 
prescription drug misuse. Sixty-three percent of Americans say that 
addiction - their own or another's - has had an impact on their lives.

Compelled to drink

I first swore off booze as a 16-year-old who'd stop off in a saloon 
on the way home from high school for a few boilermakers - shots of 
bourbon chased by a beer. That period of sobriety lasted a few weeks; 
relapse is part of this disease.

I had my last drink two decades ago, when I was 32. My bottom came 
when I discovered that the liquor cabinet was dry one evening. With 
my toddler tugging on my leg for attention, I felt physically 
compelled to buy a bottle of vodka, spiritually driven to stop 
letting alcohol control my life and intellectually determined to end 
the cycle of waking up with a hangover, nipping at lunch to feel 
"normal," imbibing in the evening to get blotto and arising again 
with a hangover.

Few of my friends thought I had a problem; most drank as much as I 
did. My best buddy from those days, prone to depression and Seagram's 
7, killed himself 10 years ago, still drinking.

I did not seek treatment or help from a 12-step program like 
Alcoholics Anonymous because I was not comfortable turning over my 
life to a "higher power."

Whenever someone asks me how to get sober, however, my first 
recommendation is to head to the nearest 12-step meeting. Deirdre 
did, and the fellowship she found "in the rooms" was the cornerstone 
of her recovery 19 years ago - and counting.

You're always counting, because sobriety is, as the AA slogan goes, 
"one day at a time." The reality is that I picked up a lot of the 
12-step philosophy by osmosis, and its precepts have helped not only 
the millions who join but countless others who are "sick and tired of 
being sick and tired."

Every treatment philosophy has its zealots, from 12-steppers to 
members of therapeutic communities such as Phoenix House that break 
you down in order to build you up. Any of them might work for you. 
Some will tell you that their way is the only way. That's true only 
to the extent that it's true for them. The bottom line is that many 
people overcome their addiction and flourish, but less than 10% of 
people who need intensive treatment at a substance-abuse facility 
actually receive it in a given year, according to the federal 
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration.

Deirdre and I had our own ideas about what would work for our 
daughter, Carrick, who first drank at 12, smoked marijuana at 13, 
dabbled in other recreational drugs by 15, became a heroin addict at 
17 and met her bottom while speedballing - mixing heroin and cocaine 
- - at 19. By that time, she had been through three emergency rooms, 
seven detoxes, three short-term residential programs, a four-month 
wilderness-therapy program, several 12-step programs and four special 
schools and had prematurely quit a long-term treatment community 
twice. She had talked to dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists, 
social workers, medical doctors and addiction counselors. The deeper 
her addiction took hold, the better she got at telling them all what 
they wanted to hear.

'Stealing money, sleep, sanity'

After she turned 16, Carrick was often away from home. She recently 
recalled that, when she'd visit our suburban New York state home, "I 
would come home with a warm greeting, pillage the house and leave 
with a warm farewell. It was not just stealing money, but time, sleep 
and sanity."

We eventually told Carrick that we would no longer enable her in her 
addiction - including providing shelter and food - while she was 
using drugs, but we would do anything we humanly could to help her in 
her recovery. Some people think that barring our daughter from our 
home was heartless. We knew her life was at risk every day she was on 
the streets of New York City, but she proved time and again that she 
would not confront her recovery as long as we protected her from her 
bottom. Nor was it fair to our son, Duncan, five years younger. Or ourselves.

In the end, Carrick decided, on her own, to try methadone 
maintenance, a controversial treatment that critics contend 
"substitutes one drug for another." It saved our daughter's life. She 
is gradually reducing her dosage with the intention of quitting; 
others might need to stay on methadone all their lives. Many become 
productive members of society, no longer scheming for the next fix.

"You've got to meet addicted individuals on their own terms, rather 
than confront them on yours," says Harris B. Stratyner, clinical 
division director of Addiction Recovery Services for the Mount Sinai 
Medical Center in New York. "The goal is to get people to completely 
stop using, but not to say to them, 'You're using, therefore I'm not 
going to engage you in treatment.' That's not the way you motivate someone."

Stratyner is a leading proponent of a "carefrontation" model of 
treatment, which holds that addicted individuals should not be held 
responsible for having their disease any more than diabetics are but 
that they must take responsibility for their recoveries. So must the 
family and friends who get caught in the vortex of lies and 
manipulations that swirl around an addicted person.

Treatment replacing jail

Some say that it's fruitless to force a person into treatment, 
particularly a teenager who is still enjoying the dopamine-induced 
good feelings that drugs undeniably provide. More than 80% of teens 
relapse within a year of treatment, according to one study.

Carrick will tell you, however, that she took away one powerful idea 
from the programs she attended and prematurely left: When she was 
ready, she could get better. And once she tried, we again did 
everything we could to help.

"Without trying to sound melodramatic, giving me another chance 
probably saved my life," Carrick says. "The line between enabling and 
supporting sometimes requires you to take a risk and hold onto realistic hope."

Call it paternalistic - in my case, it literally was - but addicts 
frequently don't know what's best for them, and interventions might 
be necessary. When Carrick was living on the streets, we prayed that 
she would be arrested and ordered to treatment by a judge. When she 
was finally nabbed for theft, however, she was sentenced to 30 days 
in jail. She celebrated her release by getting high.

Drug courts around the nation are beginning to substitute treatment 
for incarceration for non-violent offenders. About 80% of the more 
than 2 million teens in the juvenile-justice system have drug and 
alcohol problems, according to figures compiled by the Robert Wood 
Johnson Foundation, and a similar percentage have diagnosable mental illnesses.

Depression a factor

Indeed, addicted individuals of all ages who have illnesses such as 
bipolar disorder might use mind-altering drugs to self-medicate. We 
once begged the admitting doctor at a psychiatric hospital to treat 
Carrick's depression. We were devastated when he not only gave us the 
party line that Carrick would first have to abstain from drugs, but 
also expressed his doubt, based on her record, that she'd be able to do so.

She has, though, and is attending college with the intention of 
becoming a fifth-generation journalist. An anti-depressant stabilizes 
her mentally; she says she no longer "gets in a crummy mood for no 
apparent reason."

In 1998, more than 10 years after she got sober, my wife, Deirdre, 
became so deeply depressed and suicidal that I marked her survival 
from hour to hour. She eventually signed herself into New York 
Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, a psychiatric hospital in White 
Plains, N.Y. Her life was saved by electroconvulsive therapy, 
anti-depressants and talk therapy. She has gone on to become 
accomplished in substance-abuse treatment, working as an intake 
coordinator for a unit within Mount Sinai Medical Center. She's a 
happy and productive wife, mother and citizen.

We've been able to afford treatment for her and Carrick over the 
years, but insurance coverage has been erratic and spotty. We've 
broken into retirement accounts and refinanced our mortgage to pay 
medical bills.

What's most unfortunate to many addicts and family members is that 
the war on drugs has become a polarized battle between two camps: 
hardliners whose "zero tolerance" approach relies on interdiction and 
prisons and laissez-faire libertarians who think that supply, demand 
and individual choice should allow the market to reach its natural level.

The market for mind-altering drugs is lucrative. Drugs are 
responsible for the livelihoods, legal and illegal, of millions of 
people worldwide - from drug lords to rapid-detox clinicians, from 
bartenders to prison guards, from bureaucrats to copywriters. A 
recent study by researchers at the University of Connecticut 
supported the idea that the more alcohol ads teens see, the more they drink.

Government money for treatment is harder to come by. The Bush 
administration's $12.7 billon drug-control budget request for 2007 
earmarks 65% for interdiction and law enforcement and barely 35% for 
treatment and prevention. A National Center for Addiction and 
Substance Abuse report found that, of the $277 that each American 
paid on average in state taxes to deal with substance abuse and 
addiction in 1998, only $10 went toward treatment and prevention.

There is obvious common ground: People. If we were to focus our 
efforts on the family members, friends and neighbors whose brain 
chemistry has been altered by drugs and alcohol and treat abuse and 
dependency as the public health scourge that it is, we'll have 
declared a war on addiction.

It's a campaign that can be won, one life at a time. I've seen it happen.

ABOUT THESE ARTICLES

The articles in today's Lifestyle section about addiction are adapted 
from a series "Silent Treatment: Addiction in America." Written by 
professional journalists, the series explores the latest research on 
addiction treatment and recovery.

These pieces have been funded by a non-profit organization, the 
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation, based in Princeton, 
N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to 
improving health and health care. Any sources in the series receiving 
support from the foundation are identified as such. For more 
information on the foundation, visit www.rwjf.org.

The series was conceived, produced and coordinated by Public Access 
Journalism LLC, an independent media company that examines social 
issues for newspaper readers. The company is directed by Jane 
McDonnell, a former Knight Ridder/Tribune managing editor and a 
journalist with 20 years of experience.

The series was edited and distributed by McClatchy-Tribune 
Information Services, which also designed a reprint of the series for 
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and was paid a fee for that 
service by Public Access Journalism.

GETTING HELP

Alcoholics Anonymous, www.alcoholics-anonymous.org; local Web site, 
www.aamilwaukee.com; 24-hour local hotline, (414) 771-9119.

Narcotics Anonymous, www.na.org; local Web site, 
www.wisconsinna.org/MASC.asp; local help line, (866) 913-3837.

Al-Anon/Alateen, www.al-anon.alateen.org; local Web site, 
www.area61afg.org. For family, friends of alcoholics.

 Call 211 in Milwaukee County or (414) 773-0211 to speak 
with a community-resource specialist who can refer you to the appropriate help.

Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator, 
dasis3.samhsa.gov/Default.aspx, a searchable database of treatment providers.

Silent Treatment: Addiction in America, www.silenttreatment.info. 
Comprehensive list of treatment resources throughout the United 
States, and other information.

Thom Forbes is an author, blogger on addiction and recovery, and 
former reporter for the New York Daily News.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom