Has Anyone Else From America Noticed This? Rehab

[Leftöver Crack]

swim was reading accounts of rehabs experiences on DF and noticed how rehabs in other countries sound INFINITELY better than the US's in every way.

this pisses swim off. not that other countries have GOOD rehabs, swim am happy for everyone else that their country is CIVILIZED and gets decent treatment.

anyone?

Reputation Comments on this post:

good thread topic, draws sorely needed attn to this issue

[yulamada]

Not having been privy to rehab in a country other than the good ole US of A, my badgers opinion is a little biased and based on 2nd hand information. That said, he would have to agree with his oxymoron named friend (Leftover Crack). There certainly are countries that have worse 'prisons' for those seeking freedom from the substances that occupy too many of their thought cycles (and ATM withdrawals) than is necessary. However, as the self proclaimed 'Land of the Free', my badger believes the USA's substance abuse rehabilitation system leaves much to be desired.

My badgers take on his rehab history, along with stories from some of the critter's friends, is that the vast majority of US rehab clinics that are within reach of the common animal's wallet, are minutely focused on getting the patient off of substance(s). Thereby ignoring and not addressing the underlying psychological reasons for the badger's self-medicating in the first place. Often this leaves a badger raw and still searching, like standing next to a lever that says "Don't Pull This Lever'....for many, like my badger, they are born lever pullers - always searching for something unknown to fill in the hole, and maybe that lever will provide such resolution. (Apologies for the bad "Yellow Submarine" reference, all rights reserved by their current copyright holders of course)

An additional point, for some, is that the release from rehab leaves the badger feeling compelled to tell those that have helped them through the experience, that the badger's life is back on track, is much better, and their mind is clearer. Perhaps this could be called a lie of omission (be it conscious or not), as the underlying psychological disorder remains. Over time, the root of the problem resumes it's dastardly psychological hole digging, as the 'How to deal with life as a normal person' rheteric fades into faint memory. This rediscovered void may either lead to relapse with the original self-medication, replacement with the next untried cure, or, heaven forbid, self termination due to the emptiness by the expanding hole in their psyche.

Obviously the above is not the true for every case, but as observed by my badger's 10+ years of interaction with similarly afflicted fauna, he rarely encounters another critter who did not have some sort of past event(s) or cognitive dysfunction that led to their self medicating behaviour.

A plethora of questions may be raised by this rant (which admittedly drifted off-topic), but the nature/nurture debate comes foremost to mind. How many would not be in a rehab situation AGAIN, had previous rehabilitation experiences focused on the deeper psychological structures & given at least the same investigation, attention, and treatment, as the obvious surface presentations of addiction. Genetic predisposition to addiction? My badger believes in it, but also believes that is not a 100% guaranteed sentence of addiction. The argument remains.

Popular rehab mantras such as 'I use substances because I can't cope with X.' - 'I can't cope with X because I have an addictive personality and am inherently a drug addict.' - 'Addiction runs in my family.' These examples may be true, but often are the more easily identified two-dimensional lay of the addicted psyche. To reference a previous example above, a look at a hole from a distance will acknowledge it's existence, but without standing above it, never will be known what it contains, or where that three-dimensional psychological tunnel leads within a badgers overall consciousness and cognition of themselves, and the 'reality' they perceive.

Back full circle.....has SWIY had rehabilitation experiences in non-American affiliated clinics that address issues such as outlined above? Even better, has SWIY had a truly individualized, root-thought rehab experience within the US? My badger would surely love to know, and is quite curious what other furry beasts think of his brain dump. This is murely one perception, so praise or condem as SWIY may, more viewpoints bring more permutations of treatment.

PS - My badger had a good friend whose favorite saying was "Too much of everything is just enough", often through riotous laughter. He has since passed his energy back to the universe, but not before running a gammut of US rehab facilities, all with similar & ultimately unsuccessful results. My badger knew him very well and is certain the rationale detailed above was inline with his situation, and often wonders had the system been of different design, would his friend still be laughing today....along with several other of this one badger's buried brothers.

Reputation Comments on this post:

excellent point on the psychological aspects

[oxynomo]

Swim thinks it comes down to one thing Money.Rehabs in US are for profit companies.Why would they want to fix you right the first time?If they did they wouldn't have any repeat business.Whereas seems like some other countries that have state run rehabs would rather not have you back and therefore they would do things right the first time.Just an opinion,true or false??Don't know.o

[yulamada]

An organization that should be inherently designed to help people, for PROFIT? In the US?! Surely you are joking....



You are correct, they would rather keep people on the done and collect their daily cash. Than investigate other causes or alternative therapies (ie - iboga).

There are good clinics, but even the bad facilities are prohibitively expensive for in-patient treatment. My badger isnt sure what the procedure is in other states, but the methadone clinics in the US southwest require visitation every day (except Sundays), to get your shot of dirty ashtray flavored liquid. This type of treatment is supposed to breed discipline & responsibility, but for many addicts it creates opportunities to fail, and is humiliating in my badger's opinion. He has friends that have gone everyday for years. Many people hoard supplies in case they can not make the trip down some day. Which is of course against the rules.

Is this common methadone dispensing practice nationwide? How about other countries?

[oxynomo]

Plain and simple;Healthcare in US needs fixing.Example;Swims back is bothering him so he goes to family Doc $110.00 office visit.Sends swim to get MRI $1,000.00 see a specialist $225.00 office visit.Spec. says no surgery at this time so go see an associate for injections $175.00 office visitSwim gets 3 rounds of injections $1,400.00 each.7 months later he is back at specialist $225.00 office visit Doc recomends surgery this time.Surgery and hospital stay $14,000.00.Follow up office visit no charge,but Doc says this process may have to be repeated in 10 years or so.And lets not forget the $675.00 a month for pain meds that probably fucked swim up for life.Sure am glad swim just happened to have an extra 20 or 30 grand just lying around.Can't wait to do this again!o

[Leftöver Crack]

if something isn't profitable in america, it doesn't exist.

swiys all know how our healthcare system is. we're the only industrialized nation on the planet that doesn't have socialized healthcare. it's a fucking abomination when you consider yourself a world leader, yet use the most basic human need for profit.

swim won't stop typing if he keeps going.

[Sib]

Originally Posted by oxynomo

Plain and simple;Healthcare in US needs fixing.Example;Swims back is bothering him so he goes to family Doc $110.00 office visit.Sends swim to get MRI $1,000.00 see a specialist $225.00 office visit.Spec. says no surgery at this time so go see an associate for injections $175.00 office visitSwim gets 3 rounds of injections $1,400.00 each.7 months later he is back at specialist $225.00 office visit Doc recomends surgery this time.Surgery and hospital stay $14,000.00.Follow up office visit no charge,but Doc says this process may have to be repeated in 10 years or so.And lets not forget the $675.00 a month for pain meds that probably fucked swim up for life.Sure am glad swim just happened to have an extra 20 or 30 grand just lying around.Can't wait to do this again!o

That is truly shocking I'm glad SWIM is in the UK, I seen a TV show once were an American was using her Canadian friend to get free health care in Canada, if SWIM was SWIY SWIM would be checking that out fer sure.

Sib added 1 Minutes and 41 Seconds later...

Originally Posted by Leftöver Crack

if something isn't profitable in america, it doesn't exist.

swiys all know how our healthcare system is. we're the only industrialized nation on the planet that doesn't have socialized healthcare. it's a fucking abomination when you consider yourself a world leader, yet use the most basic human need for profit.

swim won't stop typing if he keeps going.

Good post, is Obama not going to change things? "yes we can" and all that malarky?

[MaryWarner]

I read this thread and did discuss it with my cat (he being a lever-puller and hole-fixer himself) He thought that the whole discussion is not about money but about systems. where my cat lives, in germany, a little underdevloped country in central europe, they have a federal health care system, means ANYone is given the really necessary help. at least theoretically.even unemployed are members of our federal health insurance system. there are private insurances as well but my cat wanted to tell about the federal system.
e.g.: SWIM has problem because of addiction to, lets say opiates/opioids. he can't afford to buy gear in the street. in germany everySWIM has the possibility to go to his doctor, tell him about his situation and get addresses of medic or centers which treat people by substituting them on methadone, subuxone et al.
people with good social background have the opportunity to get their "take-home" prescription, they don't have to go to daily drinking their meta or getting their subutex, they get one weeks supply.
SWIM wants to go for a holiday? no big problem, you can even get a holiday prescription for 30 days a year. other countries? no problem, in european union SWIM can take his 30 day supply with him. and even for those who do not get the take-home- prescription there is the possibiliti to have your holiday near a town where there is an institution dealing with that treatment.
SWIM thinks thats all just a case of organization.
but-
and this is the american problem:
is the average citizen willing to pay for this?
no, SWIM and even my cat says.
as long as there is no health care system each and every citizen is a member of, you cannot have the bounty of it...
My cat thinks it is a mere problem of (what was the word) yes he looked it up :
do-gooder-dom.
(SWIM hopes the americans among you can do with home-made nouns of a german cat....)

and this is only the one side

if my cat wants to kick opioids- there are rehabs, paid for by -
federal health care system.
SWIM has been two times on rehab, first time in'99 and again in'01.
And SWIM can tell SWIY they DID go to the roots.
group settings, discussions, one-to-one talks with they psycologists both times together for eight months
And it WENT to the Roots.
SWIM was so "rooty" he had to hear from his psych: why do you dig in your cellar when your roffs on fire.
and she was right.
the problem is not SWIMs drug-oriented mind or his addictive personality, the real problem is to have that sort of personality and HATING it.
why, nobody can tell SWIM he is worth less than a non-drug-addicted.
Since SWIM has accepted his personality as-it-is the biggest problem is gone.
what SWIM and my cat want to say is loving SWIMs self, as-is, is the key to the problem.
amen, good nite, god bless you,

better still, bless your self so may help you god (or whatever you wynt to believe in or worship)

[Ilsa]

^^ thanks for your input, and you are right about americans in a sense....those of us who can afford the clinics will pay....but there are many of us who can't and who also refuse to submit to the 'disease' model paradigm. and our clinics tend to drug test regularly, have patients come in for doses daily at first, although eventually one can build enough trust with some doc's to get a week or perhaps even motnh supply, but this is rare. the former is more often the case...swim's best firendis on suboxone and he must pay every month, every visit...at the end of a visit one month he asked his doc if she would write a prescription for his asthma inhaler. she said sure, but you have to pay for another appointment.

the purpose of big pharma here is money, and as long as the goal is making money, the impetus for getting addicts clean isn't very significant. when, and only when, we start worrying about the welfare of our fellow humans and our society as a whole, will we be able to develop a system that addresses the fundamental causes (psychological, phyysiological, social, etc) of addiction and thus SOLVES the problem while treating the symptoms. as it stands currently, treating symptoms is simply more profitable than treating root causes. case in point: iboga is just as illegal as lsd here, despite it's proven benefits to chronic drugs addicts. why? because the pharma companies can't patent it and make money off of it.

**totally interesting but unrelated side note: there was also talk of one company attempting to patent vitamin c. that's right, vitamin fucking C.

[MaryWarner]

Originally Posted by Ilsa

iboga is just as illegal as lsd here, despite it's proven benefits to chronic drugs addicts. why? because the pharma companies can't patent it and make money off of it.

**totally interesting but unrelated side note: there was also talk of one company attempting to patent vitamin c. that's right, vitamin fucking C.

just wait a little time, they will have genetically manipulated iboga patented and sold for some tons of money...and you can believe that manipulated iboga will not be illegalized.
for the benefit of the capitalist system. My cat reminded SWIM not to think about capitalism itself..

SWIMs poor old heart.........

Reputation Comments on this post:

valid point

[yulamada]

It could be said that all humans are endorphin addicts. Its the ones of us whose personal endorphin stashes are lower than baseline that are compelled to go outside the body to attain levels of the average human. Having a specific gene mutation, enzyme dysfunction, endemic protein deficiencies, etc, could be other descriptions for 'addict'.

Eh, maybe its just semantics....

[drug-bot]

the main problem with rehabs here in the u.s has to do with the insurance companys, around 15yrs ago one could expect their insurance to pay automatically for a 30 day rehab stay and sometimes longer; today ones average stay is 5-10 days (unless one has the money to pay for a long stay out-of-pocket or they have a incredibly rare special union insurance, note most unions have shitty insurance). so one is expected to get the life skills to over-come years of addiction in a week/ give or take a few days, in many cases people leave the facility while not even completly detoxed.
in swims opinion america needs universal socialized insurance/medicine like many other western nations have, that has guarrented addcition services benefits.

thats swims 2cents.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good point re: insurance then vs now

[Ilsa]

whoa there....this is about treatment in the states vs elsewhere, so let's get back to that.

my cat's two cents: teh NA/AA, disease model-based system here IS for profit, and that's a problem in that there is an INHERENT conflict of interest: lose the patient base (and therefore the money), by actually addressing the root isssues uderlying addiction or maintain the patient base by treating symptoms with expensive meds and monthly office visits?

the other big problem she has with this basis in the disease model is that it can only get one to the point where they are a 'recovering addict' forever living with a chronic 'disease' and who is 'not in control' of their use/abuse.

this is just my cat's opinion, but she strongly believes that it is possible to get to the point of addressing emotional issues that affect self-discipline, self-worth and decision-making processes, but one must accept responsibility for one's decisions and accept that every day is a choice, and that one can choose to stay addicted by choosing to continue using, OR one can choose to leave that life behind and not go back to addiction.

[xxdan123xx]

How do we get the best and the brightest to do something. Offer the best compensation for said work. While rehabs are for profit in USA this is not somthing that people are getting rich off of. Well for a feild to advance funds must comefrom somewere. Either the government of private individuals. The fact is private individuals who are concerned with addiction and care of addicts are not the most wealthy(mostly because these people are addicts/exaddicts) and the government doesn't care about us because in there eyes we are the "scurge" of society (when in actuality if these drugs were legal no one would steal or commit crimes to get money for drugs because they would be 100x cheaper but i digress) we live in the throws of a crisis. We are ultimatly on our own with our problems and noone in this world gives a F**K about us. Is it any shock that an addict wont think twice about stealing from the system that treats them like animals. It has gotten so bad that we on this site refer to ourselves as animals. We are people and even though we may have some problems it is no excusse for the fascist ass holes in politics who are waging a war on drugs which is really just a code for a war on the counter culture, the sick and the hurt. Friends we have lost just for the fact that they don't associate with "dope heads" are no better. Our country is so full of arrogent duche bags who have their heads so far up their ass holes they cant even see the fact that we are still people and it hurts when friends/ family/ the government / our rehab counselors look at us like criminals and care more about getting their hands on our money than the drug dealers. Who by the way are actually genuinally better allaround people than most of the ass holes out there. Sorry for the rant all. Really i am. Swim is not well today.

Reputation Comments on this post:

pure and naked truth in short clear words

[Ilsa]

there is much truth in this....addicts are stigmatized, often to the point that their deaths are regarded with utter flippancy by others.

stigmatization is one reason why it's so easy for doctors to treat addicts with total nonchalance, which is utterly sad.

[electrolingus]

Many good points so far. The US state that SWIM lives in has one of the highest IV drug use rates in the country. Due to this fact, SWIM feels that the level of treatment provided in said state is more than adequate now that so many people need help. There are state run addiction referral services that will honestly help someone get the best possible treatment for little or no money. Many of your so called up-scale inpatient rehabs that can cost $35,000/28days and up will give away a certain amount of beds to the state each month on what is known as a scholarship program.

The level of treatment provided also differs from rehab to rehab. Some places just detox with no follow up sessions. Other programs go the full route, from detox, to inpatient programs that last 28 days or more, aftercare services, and family counseling. All without spending a single dime.

As far as rehab success rates in the US, SWIM feels this has a lot to do with insurance based programs. The majority of patients in these types of programs have several different agendas for being there. Such as, to save a job or to pacify a family member. One will find that the long term success rate of some 'intensive' rehabs, where the majority of the patients have received placement help from the state, have a higher success rate than most 'insurance only' rehabs. One privately funded state assisted program actually claims to have a success rate that is 3 times the national average. Granted, the program is for 6 months to 1 year.

In closing, The US does have an insurance crisis, now more than ever due to the high unemployment rate. Not to get off topic, but prescription and medical assistance is the BIG problem in America. Drug abuse treatment can be found here if one really looks for it, but state aid with prescriptions or hospitalization is nearly impossible to find. So, just don't get really sick and end up needing Rx medication. Then one will wish they only had a drug problem to deal with. (only kidding)

[Ilsa]

^^ necessity is the mother of invention, right? here all that's readilly available is 'hillbilly heroin' or oxycodone, but plenty of people are still sick or dying on it.

great point on the insurance: again, with good insurance, one has the means to access better care--doctors can bill the hell out of insurance companies. for those of us without it ( or with shitty grad student insurance), though, better get some cash, have a plan, or face the wd's cold-turkey.

[electrolingus]

SWIM just wanted to add that every state in America is different. The state in which SWIM lives has a major drug abuse and AIDS epidemic. This state receives a large amount of money from the federal government and from private citizens who have experienced the ravages of drug addiction second hand. Honestly, the US is more like 50 different countries rather than one nation. Every state has different issues.

[Ilsa]

Originally Posted by electrolingus

SWIM just wanted to add that every state in America is different. The state in which SWIM lives has a major drug abuse and AIDS epidemic. This state receives a large amount of money from the federal government and from private citizens who have experienced the ravages of drug addiction second hand. Honestly, the US is more like 50 different countries rather than one nation. Every state has different issues.

yes, states' rights are just those: the rights of each individual state, decided by that state (this is grossly over-simplified, but serves the purpose in this context). moving from florida to tennessee was a even a bit of a culture shock, especially given the religious overtones that abound.