What If My Child Isn’t Motivated to Get Treatment for Addiction?
Suggesting Treatment to a Loved One
Intervention – a Starting Point
Drug Use, Stigma, and the Proactive Contagions to Reduce Both
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Will lost almost everything: jobs, his driver's license, his car, his marriage and his home. He found enough temporary work to pay rent on a room, ate at soup kitchens, and stole and resold goods for cash.
"Feeding that addiction," he says. "Feeding that monster."
We're only using Will's first name because future landlords or employers might not take him based on his record.
The game changer
One morning almost three years ago, with no heroin and no money to buy any, Will went into withdrawal. This former basketball player, once in top shape, dragged himself down the street searching for a deal. He had some crack that he could sell. The buyer was an undercover cop.
"That was the game changer," Will says. Instead of prison, Will was sent to a daily probation program in Massachusetts called Community Corrections.
(Dalgarno Institute comment: We speak in pejorative terms of the ‘War Against Drugs’, (BTW – one which Australia never fought) and this meme has conjured disempowering caricatures that have been harnessed wonderfully by an ever emboldened pro-drug and other anarchist groups to peddle their notions of cultural reform.
However, any ‘war’ against all community and individual destroying behaviours is never a futile one (thought at times it may appear a losing one – especially when constantly sabotaged from within). When it comes to other such destructive elements; we don’t stop fighting assault, rape, road toll, theft, vandalism, etc, just because we haven’t eliminated or made limited in-roads into stopping these behaviours. No, we continue, but not in a mindless repetition of one misused, and consequently, struggling tactic.
Ernest Hemmingway was right when he said, “Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.”
Overcoming a society, community, family and individual destroying ‘enemy’ requires creative diligence, not just belligerence. There are many tactics in a war that can subdue an enemy. It is important to restate that in the War for the brains our youth, the health of our families and the safety or our community, the prohibitive law, can and must be used as a Judicial Educator, not a punitive incarcerator. One does not have to weaken statutes or penalties – in fact this will only give greater strength to this scourge. However, diversionary strategies that empower and equip options for change and the facilitated exit from drug use, is one of the best weapons in the legislative arsenal.
Whilst one may agree that a doubling down on a ‘one hand tied behind the back’ and non-restorative mechanism may continue to bear only little fruit, ‘cutting that arm’ off, rather than re-tasking the law and harnessing it with drug use recovery; supply, and most importantly, demand reduction mechanisms, is the better way forward for all our communities.)
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The Dubbo region will benefit from a $31.5 million investment in drug rehabilitation and access to justice.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro today announced the NSW Government will invest $27.9 million over the coming four financial years to expand the NSW Drug Court to Dubbo, on top of the recent $3.6 million upgrade to the city’s courthouse.
“The Drug Court is a tried and tested silver bullet to help address the abuse of highly addictive and dangerous illicit drugs that continue to cripple our communities.” For compete story Drug Court expands to Dubbo | Mirage News
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CBC News – June 2021
"I was hanging around some older kids, and I got into a drug called ecstasy and I was addicted to that," she said, explaining she began experimenting with drugs in high school in an effort to fit in.
But things changed when one of the older guys she hung out with offered her crystal meth, a much cheaper alternative to the drugs she had been buying.
"From there, I never touched another drug. It had a hold on me for the first time I used it."
It was the beginning of a long descent… She lost her job, got kicked out of school and eventually wound up in jail multiple times.
"That was always my detox — going to jail," she said. "When I'd get out I always had these good intentions to stay clean. But I just didn't know how to."
Drug court answers prayers - Her prayers were answered in the form of drug treatment court in Regina, which mandated that she live in an approved residence called Kate's Place.
"Thank God I did, because my family, I can manipulate. My friends, I can manipulate. If I were to live by myself, I could have used and no one would know," she said, adding that she needed long-term treatment, not just a 30-day stay in a facility.
"So, Kate's Place and drug court, they were perfect for me."
Meagan Jasper graduated from drug court in Regina after 13 months.
She hasn't used since she was arrested on Sept. 7, 2017. She has also gone back to school to get a business certificate and has found a job with the John Howard Society of Saskatchewan
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On the other side, the 12‑step‑oriented model of addiction treatment needs to add medication as a fully respected, long-term option for patients with opioid use disorder. That is a huge step for them to take. Not all OUD patients will choose MAT, but having it available to them is in the patients' interests.
The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is pioneering this new hybrid approach. When people go into the HBF program, if they have problems with opioids, they are actively encouraged to use medications as part of this 12-step recovery-oriented system of care.
My goal is to help our two treatment camps to stop fighting with each other and to work together in mutual respect. Reach out your hand to the other folks and bring them in with you – into what you're doing. We are dealing with one disease involving many different drugs. Millions of addicted people need help. There is no one right way. There are many different paths to sustained recovery that need to work together to achieve the goals that none alone can achieve.
(“M.A.T. can be a helpful ‘circuit breaker’ in some contexts, but can never be an end in themselves, as long-term use of any toxin only aids and abets harms. ‘Sunset Clauses’ on M.A.T use can really only work with a drug use exiting therapeutic tool, such as 12 Step Programs simultaneously in play.” – Dalgarno Institute_
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Background: Alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems confer a global, prodigious burden of disease, disability, and premature mortality. Even so, little is known regarding how, and by what means, individuals successfully resolve AOD problems. Greater knowledge would inform policy and guide service provision.
Method: Probability-based survey of US adult population estimating: 1) AOD problem resolution prevalence; 2) lifetime use of “assisted” (i.e., treatment/medication, recovery services/mutual help) vs. “unassisted” resolution pathways; 3) correlates of assisted pathway use. Participants (response = 63.4% of 39,809) responding “yes” to, “Did you use to have a problem with alcohol or drugs but no longer do?” assessed on substance use, clinical histories, problem resolution.
Conclusions: Tens of millions of Americans have successfully resolved an AOD problem using a variety of traditional and non-traditional means. Findings suggest a need for a broadening of the menu of self-change and community-based options that can facilitate and support long-term AOD problem resolution.
Recovery Research: “People can and do recover from drug addiction, and what’s more go on to do good things!”
- Cannabis Use, Opioid M.A.T. and Suicidal Ideation – Not a good combination.
- Methadone users ‘actively discouraged’ from becoming drug-free
- Reasons to be cheerful: Personal, civic, and economic achievements after resolving an alcohol or drug problem in the United States population.
- I Was Wrong — SO Wrong — About Alcoholics Anonymous