I meet a lot of drug addicts in my job.
A lot of them.
And I gotta tell ya, I thought I had just about heard it all until a few weeks ago.
I met a man from out of town who had a wee bit of a cocaine problem. And meth problem. And pot problem. And Xanax problem.
But mostly cocaine.
And one day, after he decided he was tired and ready to quit, he went knocking on the door of a de-tox center in his home town. Who turned him away.
One can't get physically addicted to cocaine you see (never mind that the psychological component is devastating) so therefore he didn't qualify for their program. Say you: What you mean, you can't get physically addicted to cocaine?
Say me: I know. I know. Cocaine can wreak havoc on the body in all sorts of luscious ways, but one isn't in medical danger if it's abruptly taken away.
I know this seems counter-intuitive, and internet research indicates that people are all over the map on this one. But I do know this: de-tox in my area only applies to people who are alcoholics (to the point that they drink in the morning just to feel normal--you have to drink a TON of booze to become physically addicted to it), opiate abusers (heroin), barbiturate abusers (phenobarbital), and benzodiazepine abusers (Valium and its ilk).
For the record, "de-tox" is a completely different animal than "treatment". De-tox merely gets a person to the point that their body doesn't need the drug to survive--it requires one to be medically supervised while her system adjusts to not having the substance. Treatment takes care of the psychological component, which is infinitely more complicated. And predictably dicey, as a psychological addiction is much more difficult to overcome than an physical one. Some places, usually but not always these places are connected with a hospital, are just de-tox centers. Some are just treatment facilities that work in tandum with de-tox centers. Some are both.
Onward.
Say you: Whatever. What happened to your guy.
Say me: He "white knuckled it."
Say you: What??
Say me: My thoughts exactly.
When I asked my guy what he did after getting uncerimoniously dumbed on the the streets again, he responded that he "white knuckled it". He went home, pouted for a few days, joined an AA group and hasn't used any drugs since. This was over five years ago. Even more unbelievably, he had never been to a treatment center before that point. Ever. If I get a chronic abuser--one who's been at it for two decades or more, they generally start ticking off treatment attempts like they're talking about concerts: "Oh, there was the time in Atlanta in '86, and then again in '87, and then I was at Yourtown Treatment in '91. Stayed three days and left. And then my girlfriend made me go back about a-year-and-a-half later....
This guy? Did it with the help of those 12 steps that he went to on his own accord (not even court ordered!) and sheer iron will.
Pretty amazing, really.
Although granted he now has a gambling problem, but that's for another day. ->
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tXCM/~3/YOx3Foko8Cg/kicking-cecil-to-curb.html
Posted
10 Aug 2009 2:32 PM
by
Trench Warfare
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