Though the need to focus attention on addiction and recovery is important every day of every month, designating a month as a community to focus on the issues related to recovery gives experts and recovering people all over the nation a platform to talk. This provides an opportunity to educate the public about the disease of addiction, the warning signs of substance abuse or dependence and the realities of treatment and recovery. It is a month to chip away at the deep and pervasive denial and minimization of substance abuse as a national health problem, killing scores of people, young and old, every day. While addiction remains a problem in the U.S. and around the world, treatment providers and society have made significant strides in the recovery movement, transforming the lives of thousands of Americans. We are ahead of where we were 10 years ago…progress, not perfection!

Of course, getting here has not been Easy Street. A brief history of alcohol in America reveals Americans drank between three and four times as much per capita in the Colonial period than today. Since then, alcohol use has ebbed and flowed in the U.S.; a national binge at the turn of the twentieth century led to Prohibition from 1920-1933. Jump to 2008 – the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports more than 23 million people needed treatment for a substance abuse disorder in the U.S. There were 4.4 million ER visits related to the misuse of alcohol and drugs, both illicit and prescription, and except for cocaine, most of those visits involved individuals younger than age 30 (the 35 – 44 group claimed the most ER visits related to cocaine). Alcoholism, illicit and prescription drug abuse, nicotine addiction and food addiction are commonly at the root of the major causes of morbidity in the U.S. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle accidents and firearms are all among the top ten killers each year.

The medical and insurance communities historically have focused resources and time on the symptoms of these diseases while neglecting to acknowledge, address, treat and/or fund treatment for the addictions fueling the medical morbidities. God-willing, as a professional community, we will continue to make progress in this area. We know early and adequate intervention make for the best overall prognosis for people with addictions. I can speak to that personally…getting into recovery as a medical student, at the bottom rung of the medical community, has profoundly changed the course of my life (I’m still alive for starters!) and deeply influenced the trajectory of my career.

Whatever the case, substance abuse and addiction are equal opportunity offenders – affecting the young, old, poor, rich, educated, ignorant, men, women and everything in between. Addiction is a deadly, progressive disease, but it is TREATABLE. No one I’ve treated has planned or asked to have an addiction or eating disorder. Nor did the people I treated as a medical resident ask to have cancer or sickle cell or type I diabetes. And none of them have recovered alone. All have needed and been willing to receive treatment for their diseases. You can’t recover alone, but you can recover. You won’t get your old life back, but the one you will receive in recovery will be infinitely more abundant. The blessing in having alcoholism, substance addiction or food addiction is that through the process of recovery you get the chance to become “weller than the well!” And that requires a community. Developing faith in a loving Higher Power is a critical part of it – a part that cannot be done alone. The help of a sponsor, a home group and for many people, treatment by addiction professionals, are necessary components of healing. To put it simply: ask for help, surrender to the help you find, and live abundantly in recovery a day at a time for the rest of your life. I don’t know that the whole country is ready for the abundant living that recovery offers…I take the resistance to diagnosis and limited funding of treatment for alcoholism and addiction as evidence to the contrary. I am grateful for every single soul who is ready and willing to live abundantly, and the growing communities of those in recovery every day.

As always, I encourage you to email questions you have about eating disorders, substance abuse, recovery or topics you would like me to address in an upcoming column to Dr.Kim@itsallinthejourney.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kimberly Dennis, M.D., is medical director at Chicago-based Timberline Knolls, one of the country’s leading and innovative residential treatment centers helping women and adolescent girls age 12 and older overcome eating disorders, substance abuse, self-injury and co-occurring disorders. Timberline Knolls uses an individualized, strengths-based approach to help create emotionally strong, responsible, radiant women who overcome problems, believe in themselves and have the ability to thrive in the real world.

My job is to entertain and perhaps enlighten the masses with comedic, relevant material and to perform (when invited) for groups of damaged or diseased families, professionals and treatment providers. I LOVE that work! I do it more than three hundred times a year. But it comes with a price: The experience of watching addicted, alcoholic, misinformed families never get the help they need because this disease is costly. It’s financially and physically and emotionally expensive! What’s the solution? How can you and I get more individuals to come to treatment, find sanctuary and receive information that will help save some lives, move families forward and allow the mainstream population to accept us without the stigma of guilt and blame/shame that permeates the culture of “recovery”? The answer is simple:
            STOP COMPETING WITH EACH OTHER!

With all the excellent folks in this industry, with the amount of clients who need help, with the massive amounts of technology available…why can’t we all just get along?! (I actually met Rodney King while he was in treatment. Not a secret since it was ON TV!!)

Seriously, what is wrong with all of you experts that you cannot see this for what it is: a group effort for the group’s efforts?

I refer lots of work to other comedians or keynote speakers who are better suited to appear in certain situations or venues. Lots of them! Not all treatment facilities are equipped to handle all comers in the business of drug/alcohol and mental health care. I dare you to show me ONE place that fixes everything better than another place that fixes something specific. If that confused you, how about this instead? There are excellent specialized facilities in this country. There are Wal-Mart shops too. They ALL work when a client/patient/resident is motivated to make use of the information and treatment available at that location. I double dare you to refer ONE client or family this month to a competing facility or enterprise for treatment. Only the winners in this business have done their homework, studied the landscape and therefore have the confidence, competence and integrity it takes to give away customers because they know that there is no shortage of clientele. There is only a shortage of honesty in this industry. No names of those places will be mentioned here. I do have SOME filter. The incredible places that WILL pass on referrals to other places: The Refuge. Recovery Ranch, Amicus House, Fr. Martin’s Ashley, Azure Acres, Harmony Foundation, Pavilion International, The Retreat. This is obviously not the complete list. But I have been on the premises at each of these when I have personally heard the clinical director, marketing VP, CEO or general manager (Lori J) tell some confused parent or spouse: “I can recommend the best place for you. In your case, it isn’t us. But here is where you go to get phenomenal care…” to get help, relief, grace, treatment.

When does this article get funny? It doesn’t. Not from me. Not this effort, this time. First Thought Wrong: I want to gouge out the eyes of professionals in this business that cannot admit they are wrong, or don’t ask for advice, or haven’t got the spiritual principles to say they can’t do something well or make excuses because the ends justify the means (money). Money can be very mean. There is one guy in the Western United States that wouldn’t know the truth if it crawled up his rear end and built a house! And he’s on my amends list too . I hate it when that happens.

Here is where I take my own advice. If you want or need a humorous pitch on this subject because I did not provide one this trip, please google Alonzo Bodden, Sarge, Kurtis Matthews, Jesse Joyce, Katie Rubin, Liz Grant or Pat Dixon. There! I probably lost a million dollars worth of gigs just now. Then again, there will never be a better chance to provide opportunity to people who will benefit from working together. I love you enough to want the best for all of you…even when it doesn’t include me. I will survive. I will be excellent when called upon. I will experience joy, wealth, satisfaction and laughter. So will my family. That’s the way the world works these days. If you want some, give some. If you get some, give some more. Will your program? Will your clients? Show some faith this month by sharing some faith this month. No one wins if there is only one winner. My current mantra is this:

You are better than those who hurt you,
more important than those you fear,
equal to those you trust
and worthy of those that love you.

Be excellent to yourself. Thanks for continuing to support this magazine, this column, this process.

See you sooner than you think,
Mark L.

DK:  Absolutely!

CG:  And how long have you been in recovery?

DK:  I am sober over 16 years.

CG:  You also served on The California State Health Care Coalition as chairperson for Presidential candidate John McCain in 2008. I take it that you’re a Republican?

DK:  (laughs) I’m a Republican, yes.

CG:  (laughs) I’m starting to become one, the way things are going!

DK:  Well, you know, I’ve had concerns about the way our health care system has been moving for a long time, and I’ve been deeply involved in California and also nationally, in trying to improve access to treatment. But it has to be quality treatment. I don’t want to see us develop a system where everybody has access to care, but the care is such poor quality that it’s not effective.

CG:  Of course.

DK:  One of the problems is the fear that … let’s say you’ve got a six month program and it’s successful. Well, the next thing you know, the insurance companies are saying, ‘Okay, if 6 months is successful, let’s cut it down to 3 months.’ And if that works, they say, “Okay, well let’s cut it down to a month,” then, “Let’s cut it down to a week!” Soon you’ve cut the program so short and so thin that it’s not effective anymore. Then the insurance companies and the government come back and say, “Look, your treatment isn’t even successful, so why should we pay for it at all?”

CG:  Well, that certainly happened with managed healthcare, didn’t it? Before they cut the programs, they used to average 60 to 90 days and they cut them down to 28 days!
 
DK:  Right! That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

CG:  What needs to be done, or should be done now, with the national healthcare reform?

DK:   Well, I think, two things. First, in the private sector, with a private insurance company, they need to be providing a level of care that is going to be adequate for the problem that the patient presents with. Not everybody needs a 90 day program. Not everybody needs a 30 day program.

CG:  I agree.

DK:   But some people do, and ASAM has a patient placement criteria. It’s called the PPC2R, and that helps as a guideline to decide what level of treatment a patient needs. For instance, say, a secretary who hardly ever drinks, goes to a Christmas party and has 2 wine coolers and gets pulled over on the way home and gets a DUI. She’s probably not an alcoholic. She probably doesn’t need to be in a 90 or 180 day treatment program. It might be nice to have her go to an AA meeting or two and then the state might want to put her into a monitoring program just to make sure that the story is really what it is. But, someone coming out of treatment multiple times; being mandated by the court to AA over and over again, someone like that needs to be in a long-term residential treatment program. And 1 to 2 years is not that long.

CG:  No, I agree; some people need a longer period of support to get stabilized and to be able to stand on their own and not fall back on their old habits. If life meets you head on all of a sudden, your normal reaction – because we are addicts — is to get high so we don’t have to deal with it.

DK:  Right! And that’s part of the re-entry program or the phase that puts them back into society. That should be a part of any quality long term program. And let me mention something else. People that work in the field of addiction treatment should be paid adequately. Anywhere else in medicine, the staff — the nursing staff, the physical therapy staff, the radiology technicians, all of these people are paid pretty well. But in the field of addiction treatment, people get paid minimum wage. And we expect them to make careers out of this! If you want people to stick with this profession, to stay with it for the long haul, they’ve got to be paid adequately. They’ve got to have benefits like anybody else would have. Just because they are alcoholics or addicts in recovery doesn’t mean you can treat them poorly.

CG:  And in treatment, the addict or alcoholic in recovery is usually the ones that are the most effective.

DK:  Right! Right! And they have to make a living, too!

CG:  What do you suggest? Do you think there should be a … I don’t know what the word would be … a coalition? Or a union? How do you incorporate
a fair and adequate pay scale for this type of career? Or this title as a counselor or Doctor of Addiction Medicine: because it is in the medical profession?

DK:  Basically, it starts with the insurance company and the government, really. Medicare and Medicaid need to reimburse both inpatient and outpatient treatment and they need to reimburse it at the level that’s adequate to support the treatment needed, whatever that is. You can’t have extremely low levels of reimbursement which is the way it is now, or NO reimbursement, and expect people to be able to provide the care that’s necessary. Let’s say a CAT scan costs $800 dollars to do the test and the reimbursement is $1000 dollars. Ok, fine, so there’s a profit in there of $200 dollars. In inpatient treatment, there are lots of treatment centers where their cost … let’s say it’s a monthly cost of $5,000 just to have the professional care that people need. That might be $5,000 dollars a month and insurance or the
government program will reimburse $1200. How on earth can they stay in business if the reimbursement is $1200? You can’t do that; the reimbursement has to be adequate to provide the care that’s needed.

CG:  Agreed. Now, ASAM. You’re the president elect of ASAM and past president of California’s CSAM. For those that don’t know, what is ASAM, what is it about?

DK:  ASAM is the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and CSAM (which I am currently president of) is the California Society of Addiction Medicine. That’s the California chapter of ASAM. California’s a very dynamic chapter in ASAM.

CG:  Are these counselors, or are these doctors that specialize in addiction?

DK:  They are all either MD’s or CEO’s that specialize in the treatment of addiction disorders — alcoholism or drug addiction. It doesn’t matter if it’s meth or heroin, these are the doctors that specialize in that treatment. Some of the doctors will be involved with behavioral addictions also, like internet addiction or sex addiction. That’s typically not what our focus is. Our focus is on substance addiction.

CG:  And most of these work for treatment centers or private practice?

DK:  Well it’s a combination. Some work for treatment centers, others are a private practice, others work for the government in a variety of roles; like in the prison system for instance. Others work for universities, so it’s a wide variety of backgrounds. People come from different specialties; a lot of them come from family practice or internal medicine, some come from surgery, some from radiology.

CG:  You said when a patient came in, that certain criteria need to be met … does someone looking for help contact ASAM? Is it that kind of a program where you refer them to the correct treatment center, or is this just for doctors to get together and figure out ways to either change public policy or to exchange information?

DK: All of the above. Our focus is on education; educating ourselves and educating other physicians, but also educating the public. Not every member has to be an addiction specialist. We want to try and educate the family doctor to deal with the addiction problems that he may be seeing in his office. We help to support research; we’re involved as an organization with the people that do research. We want to help them in the research and help point them in the right direction. And then, of course, we benefit by it, by being on the cutting edge of dealing with medication. There are things like craving medication and detox medication, and we’re involved in all that. We’re also involved in advocating for public policy and helping to educate our legislators at the national and state level. If they’re not passing the laws that make sense for the patient suffering from alcoholism and addiction, then that’s our fault as physicians. And it’s our fault, quite honestly, as recovering people. ASAM is involved in all of this — education, research, public policy and clinical treatment as well.

CG:  Now as part of ASAM, I know you are trying to get board certification for addiction medicine physicians so it would be a separate kind of … specialty? Is that in place now? I mean you have arthroscopic, you have pediatric…

DK:  Many years ago, CSAM created an exam. At that time it was the CSAM — the California Society of Addiction Medicine certification exam for addiction treatment and addiction medicine. So CSAM, over the years, gave that exam to ASAM — to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and that became our national exam. In order to become certified in addiction medicine, you have to pass that exam — the ASAM certification exam.

CG:  Is it nationally recognized?

DK:    We are nationally recognized, yes. Many states recognize it. Many states require it for certain levels of treatment. And many treatment centers will require that somebody be ASAM-certified. Let me finish, though, for many years we had the ASAM certification exam, but just this past year we created a board exam — ABAM; American Board of Addiction Medicine. ABAM gave the exam to ASAM, so now it’s a board certification exam. The next step for us is to gain recognition in the National Organization of Certification Boards. So we have our own board certification that is now recognized by the national certification board. It’s just a political process.

CG:  What do you think the achievement will mean in the scheme of addiction treatment if it is approved? And particularly for addiction physicians?

DK:  A couple of things. By having the exam, it sets a base line. So if I talk to a doctor in Florida and I know that he’s ASAM-certified, I can talk about this patient on a certain intellectual level and he can understand what I’m talking about. Just like when 2 surgeons talk — you want them to have the same level of knowledge. But, it also means that hopefully this will, in time, improve reimbursement to the field of addiction treatment, as we have standards, otherwise….

CG:  How does that increase reimbursement? In that it’s nationally certified?

DK:  Correct. In the world of recovery we all know how devastating our past can be. You know when you apply for a job or when you apply for school and they find out you’ve got a drug or alcohol history,  you might be exploited completely or put on the lower list of applicants.

CG:    I have a sober house, and the girls get that a lot, and it’s terrible, because they are some of the most talented people you’d ever meet.

DK:  It is terrible; it’s devastating to somebody early in recovery. It also affects those of us that work in the field of addiction treatment. I happen to be in recovery, but it doesn’t matter if you’re in recovery or not. It’s almost as if, because we work with people suffering from addiction, they don’t seem to pay us well. It doesn’t make any sense. My expenses are just the same as any other doctor; I’ve got malpractice, I’ve got staff that needs to be paid, I’ve got rent that needs to be paid, you know? The reimbursement for someone working in the field of addiction treatment is either a half or a third of what it is for a surgeon or intern of any other specialty.

CG:  It’s true, and it’s a shame.

DK:  When they do this, they discourage people from wanting to go into addiction treatment, and right now there’s a huge lack of doctors that are knowledgeable of treating addiction. I’ll give you another example — geriatric medicine is under-reimbursed (doctors that specialize in taking care of senior citizens).

CG:  I believe that.

DK:  And let’s say you go into training in a family practice; you’ll expect a certain level of pay, a certain level of reimbursement. If you specialize in geriatric care your reimbursement goes down. So why would anybody want to do that? Why would it make sense for anyone to want to specialize in the care of older patients if they’re going to get paid less for it? And it’s the same in addiction treatment. Why would you want to specialize in addiction treatment to get paid less? Why would you want to put more years of training in and get paid less for it?

CG:  When the Parity Act was implemented … it acknowledges that addiction is a disease the same as any other disease like cancer or diabetes, but how can the legislation improve access to addiction treatment?

DK: That’s a huge question! When we started working on this about 10 or 15 years ago people said, you’ll never get parity, it’s impossible. It’ll never happen.
CG:  They used to say that about breast cancer and now they have the pink ribbon campaign.

DK:  Right! You can’t beat that. When I started working on it, I started going to Washington by myself, on my own time; talking to legislators, trying to educate them on the need for a level of clarity and reimbursement for treatment. And they finally got it. Is it perfect? No, not by any means, but it’s a start and we need to continue to build on that. Why should we be treated … and it’s almost a civil rights issue, why should people who suffer from addiction be treated any differently than anyone else? If I had diabetes or thyroid disease, they wouldn’t think of disregarding reimbursement.

CG:  I will love to see the day when your doctor asks you, “How’s your recovery?” as easily as he would ask a diabetic, “How’s your blood sugar?”

DK:  And that’s what should be done. The Parity Act for the most part deals with private insurance companies. But the federal government is not doing their share. They need to start with the reimbursement with Medicare and Medicaid. Those two huge reimbursement agencies need to fund addiction treatment on the full level as they do any other medical problems.

CG:  Let me ask you a question: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, what are some of the benefits of this legislation for someone that might be seeking addiction treatment. Is that part of getting Medicare or Medicaid to reimburse correctly?

DK:  The promise has been that addiction treatment will be covered and included in all of that legislation.

CG:  Is this legislation in California only or is it national?

DK:  Oh no, it is national. It is Obama Care.

CG:  This is the national health care policy?

DK:  Yes. Addiction is supposed to be covered, but the reimbursement has to be adequate. It can’t be make-believe.

CG:  I understand that. What do you believe are some of the benefits that this legislation will bring to those seeking addiction treatment?

DK:  My hope is that we can begin to look at addiction and alcoholism as a public health problem and deal with it on a public health level. So that t
reatment is available to everyone no matter what their background or economic status is. Everyone should have access to treatment. So why should society have to pay for that? People will ask that question, why should that be society’s responsibility? So I go back to what I said before, it is a pay-now or pay-later disease. Think if we had adequate addiction treatment thirty years ago or forty years ago, we wouldn’t have 70% of the people who are in prison today. It’s mostly for addiction related problems.

CG:    Right. Terry Gorski expounds on that in almost all of his columns, and it’s majorly non-violent drug-related.

DK:  If we had kept even half of those people out of prison that would be a savings of billions and billions of dollars each year.

CG:  Incredible isn’t it? We are basically warehousing, I think it’s 60% are nonviolent drug offenders, because of not having access to addiction treatment. I am going to use myself as an example before I use you as an example, Don. After I lost my daughter I … dove into alcoholism and addiction. I was hospitalized three times for alcohol-related illnesses. When I got pancreatitis, Tequila was my drink of choice, so I figured, “OK, I’ll switch to Vodka; it’s clear, so it should be better for me.”

DK:  (laughing)

CG:  Then I got colitis, so I switched to beer, but I got colitis again, and I finally thought, this isn’t working; maybe it’s not the liquor! I also did a lot of opiates – 25 to 40 a day, until I finally hit my bottom. When I went into treatment, I thought that no one could understand what I was going through. It is part of the disease; it wants to isolate us. But when I heard other people share, I realized that my pain was not the worst; it’s just a different kind; everyone’s pain is the worst – to them. And I started speaking. So, because of going to treatment, I now employ two people, I bought another house, I have health insurance, I pay taxes — I am contributing to society instead of taking from it. I truly believe that treatment, followed by a sober living house, to help in the transition with the support of others in recovery, works – and pays back society tenfold ….

DK:    I own an Oxford House, if you know what that is.

CG:  It’s a sober house that runs like a co-op.

DK:  Yes. I don’t run it, I just own the building, and I set it up so that they can run it themselves, and it works well.

CG:  Yes, I thought of making Joy’s House an Oxford House, except my Dad had to sign the mortgage for me; so it can’t be a non-profit. It’s funny how you ruin your credit when you are drinking and drugging!

 DK:    (laughs) Yeah, it sure is!

CG:  Now one more question about the certification and then I’m going to the more personal. How much 12-Step knowledge do you think should be
expected for a physician to be successful in the ASAM certification?

DK:  OK, well, they should have a working knowledge of 12-Step recovery. Not every physician is going to go into that. Some of them specialize in methadone treatment and some would specialize in research; nothing to do with real patient care. But, they need to understand 12-Step recovery and they need to have some working knowledge of it. Also, they should have some exposure to it. Now, Marc Gallanter is the chairman of our 12-Step committee. He is not in recovery. He is an addiction psychiatrist. He is the head of addiction psychiatry at NYU’s Bellevue Hospital.. But he has a special interest in spirituality in recovery. So he puts on workshops to help to educate our ASAM doctors about 12-Step recovery and to give them some exposure to it. One of the things that we do is put on 12-Step meetings kind of like in a fish bowl. So there will be a 12-Step meeting going on in the middle of the room, and they will be surrounded by physicians all around the outside, who are observing. Many of them have never seen an AA Meeting.

 CG:    That’s … different. My Art Director had never been to one, so I took him to an AA meeting and he was amazed. He said that everyone should go to one of these and see the bonding and to feel the feeling he had felt there. He really loved it. I would like to turn to your history. I have two outpatient detox centers that I allow to advertise in Journey Magazine which use Suboxone. The increased use of Suboxone maintenance by addiction physicians is controversial. It has been called a miracle and a menace. Like methadone’s nickname, “liquid handcuffs”. What pros and cons do you see in this practice?

DK:  There are two methods; one is to use it for detox and one to use it for maintenance.

CG:  I am opposed to maintenance, but I do think it is a miracle for detox.

DK:  For those of us in recovery it is easy to have that view point, however … I believe that there are some people, for whatever reason, are not ready for 12-Step recovery. But to allow them to be on methadone or Bupranorphine maintenance; it buys time …. It allows them to work and to take care of their families and to be responsible citizens. I don’t think it is the same level of recovery as abstinence-based people. But I think that for some people it is important.

CG:    It actually … especially with methadone, maybe not so much with Bupranorphine, where you can get a seven-day supply with the pill. But with the methadone, I have talked to people who can’t go on family vacations, they can’t leave a certain area because their clinic is there. If they miss the bus to get to the clinic they can’t go to work because they are tied to that clinic.

DK:  That’s true.

CG:  So it definitely has some restrictions to it. So it may be good short-term but over a long-term, years, I don’t think it is positive. You may have a different opinion.

DK:  Well, as a recovery person, the goal for me as a standard is abstinence-based, spiritual-based recovery. As a physician, well, everyone that comes into my office is not willing or ready to do that. To tell them you need to keep on shooting drugs, living on the streets and stealing TV sets — I don’t think that is a good answer. You have to have another answer as a physician. If they can transition through methadone or bupranorphine and begin to see some of the benefits of a more stable life, then I may have the chance to guide them into a more abstinence-based life later on.

CG:  That’s probably the best answer I’ve ever heard for that question.. I would like to go into a little bit of your history; I know you had a history of heroin addiction. I’m going to get a little blunt here, because people in the program know, but newcomers need to know; that ANYONE can become addicted to drugs or alcohol, and that ANYONE can recover from it.

DK:  OK.

Getting ready to go visit my little girl’s grave,
I am filled with thoughts.
With feelings.
“I going to give Joy my nine month chip,” I think, “I going to show her I’m trying so hard to keep my promise.”
“I’m living a life that will make her proud of me, instead of the life I lived after she died.”
Then pushing its way into my head right behind that comes, “Do you remember why she’s there?”
“Did you end her life to stop her suffering, or yours, Charles?”
“It’s going to hurt so bad, why don’t you wait?”
I swipe at the thought.
But I can’t see it.
I can’t touch it.
I can’t stop it from entering my head.
Wanting to go see Joy.                    
Scared to go see Joy.
The eternal, internal, tug-of-war.
What comes out from my hand doesn’t stay in my head, so I write.
And as thoughts of visiting Joy swirl through my head, they come together
 into this;
Visiting Days  
I’ve made my way across a hot scorched prairie;
To this very spot, where I must unbury.
Memories laid to rest, they’d been put into the ground;
What I had fought to untangle, I am now once again bound.
It’s rope drawn so tight, it cuts into my skin;
I might loosen it a little, but I will never win.
My burden’s shouldered, and this I must carry;
As I enter the cemetery.
The memories come, I can’t make them leave;
They are here to make certain I remember to grieve.
Show’s over, curtains drawn, no more acting brave;
As I slowly approach my little girl’s grave.
Now sitting beside her, telling Joy how I feel;
How do I describe it? It’s feeling surreal.
Then I give her my chip, and I tell her I’m trying;
I tell her every thing’s great! But she knows that I’m lying.
So I cry for awhile, the father bereaved:
Then climb to my feet and get ready to leave.
This is what was coming out of my head when I remember.
It just came into my head.
Fighting myself, torn about visiting Joy, I REMEMBER!
I remember the first time I went to visit Joy clean and sober at her grave.
I could never go there without getting completely wasted. I just couldn’t
handle it.
This was going to be the first time visiting her, not taking anything, in 20 years.
The same turmoil. The same fear.
And the God Shot.
The absolutely, unbelievably, AWE inspiring, stop-you-in-your-tracks-and-make-you-look-over-your-shoulder-to-see-if-He’s-standing-there glimpse
of something so much bigger than we can EVER imagine,
God Shot.
I’ve written about everything in my stories.
Everything.
I’ve left nothing out.
But this. I can’t believe I forgot about this!
And now I remember.
Readying to go and visit Joy at her grave; wrestling with myself.
I remember the God Shot.
And the peace it gave me
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Last June I was going to visit Joy’s grave site , for the first time clean and sober, on a Sunday.
Father’s Day.
I was still in Treatment. They wanted me to stay until after my visit
with Joy.
Probably with good reason.
I was clean, sober and just starting to think I might be able to live like this, without numbing myself into oblivion.
I had met myself in group, and while I was still trying to accept the forgiveness I was offered, I found out I didn’t hate me.
But this.
Visiting Joy’s grave. Going to face, head on, with what I had done.
Without a drink, or a pain pill (or 3).
This was a test.
And I honestly didn’t know if I was going to be able to pass it.
Another problem, I still had not found a place to live when I got out.
Then Judy, the Realtor Transitions Treatment Center had hooked me up with, called on Friday to tell me she had a duplex she wanted me to look at the next day.
Saturday. The day before I was going to visit Joy and make amends.
I was not up to it, but I had no choice. My time at Transitions was up, my dogs had been boarded for over 30 days, and I needed to find a place to live.
Judy gave me the address, and told me a Realtor would meet me there.
The next day came and I was not feeling good.
At all.
In fact I was nauseous at the thought of what I had to do tomorrow.
Father’s Day. Why I picked that day, I don’t know. Self-flagellation maybe.
I got to the duplex, and there was no realtor.
I paced out front, thinking of having to face Joy and telling her why I took it upon myself to decide her life should end.
I felt so guilty. I was so scared.
Praying to a God I wasn’t sure of, “I can’t do this. Oh God, what am I going to say to her?”
I wanted a drink and a handful of Percocets so badly, I believe I would have left, and used, if not for what happened next.
A lady, carrying a little girl, came out of the other duplex.
The child was about two years old; the same age as Joy before she got hurt in the recliner chair.
Looking at that beautiful little girl, I thought about what I had to do tomorrow. My throat tightened. My nerves were frazzled. I thought I was going to cry.
“Are you moving in?” She asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m waiting for the Realtor now.”
I looked at them. “What’s her name?” I asked the woman.
“Faith.” She said.
“Really? My daughter’s name was Joy.” I told her.
“Really? My name is Joy!” She said.
A sense of peace, a calmness, washed over me.
I know this sounds stupid, but if I had to describe how I felt at that moment what comes immediately into my head is: It felt like liquid love was poured over me.
I felt God.
I met Faith and Joy the day before going to visit Joy for the first time clean and sober.
I met them when I really needed them.
And then I forgot about it.
And now I remember.
Maybe I’ve gotten too many God Shots.
There have been so many, coming so fast, in the last nine months.
How could I have forgotten about that?
Could God have made me forget, knowing I would need them today?
A thought enters my head, “WHY? Why would God be so good to me?”
I swipe at it, though I can’t see it.
I can’t touch it.
I can’t stop it from entering my head.
I am a recovering alcoholic and addict; these thoughts will come.
And I will continue to swipe at them.
peace
PS – I just got back from giving Joy my nine month sobriety chip.
Two things happened.
I took my dogs,  Teddy Bear and Flop with me. I always do.
And I met a couple. The wife’s mom had died and been buried very close to Joy.
The couple and I started talking. We were talking about Flop and Teddy Bear.
Whenever I go to visit Joy’s grave, once I sit down, they move off about 10 – 15 feet and lay down.
They stay there, giving me, and as if paying their own respect.
I hadn’t thought about it till the couple spoke of it. “They understand,”
the man said.
They had taken a picture of them and me and gave it to me.
As they were leaving, I could see the wife was hurting over her mom.
“I’m glad your mom is near Joy.” I said to her.
She started crying, and then she thanked me.
The husband smiled at me, and they left.
I sat back down with Joy and opened my Bible. I open it at random when I’m there.
It opened to 1 John. Verse 3 starts like this;
How great is the love that has been lavished on us, that we should be called children of God? And that is what we are! The reason that the world does not know us is that it does not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him….
And a page came out. It was a torn out page from the Daily Bread. It was for April 4, 1993.
April 4th is Joy’s birthday.
I must have torn it out and put it in there while I was in prison. 1993 was two years before I was released.
It’s theme for that day was “Lonely, but not alone” It quoted Hebrews 4:15 – We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
Its “Thought for Today?”
“God understands that our journey in life is not an easy one.”
Think about that.
This piece of paper stayed in that Bible for almost 14 years. I don’t remember if I’ve come across it before.
But when I needed it, it was there.
Oh! Just a thought that came into my head; the “Thought for the Day”? Yesterday we decided to name the recovery magazine;
It’s All in the JOURNEY!
I’m not taking a swipe at that.
Peace

Charlie.

THE THREE STAGES OF CRAVING ARE:
STAGE 1: Set-up behaviors: Ways of thinking, managing feelings, and behaving that increase the risk of having a relapse.
STAGE 2: Trigger Events: Events that activate the physiological brain responses associated with craving.
STAGE 3: The Craving Cycle: A series of self-reinforcing thoughts and behaviors that continue to activate and intensify the craving  response.

It is important to note that craving is the last step of a three stage process. It is self-defeating to focus on the end result, without focusing on the factors that cause the craving.

Recovering people unconsciously set themselves to experience cravings. The set-up behaviors lower their resistance. When their resistance is down, they are vulnerable to trigger events that cause the actual feeling of craving to start. Once they feel the urge to use, they start using habitual behaviors that amplify or make the craving worse. This is the craving cycle.

STAGE 1  SET-UP BEHAVIORS:
Set-up behaviors are a combination of physical, psychological, and social factors that lower resistance to craving. There are five common physical set ups for craving.
1. Brain Dysfunction From Cocaine Use: Cocaine damages the brain and leaves recovering addicts physically set up to experience powerful cravings. The result of this physical predisposition to experience craving requires recovering cocaine addicts to do special things. If they fail to take the necessary steps, they will experience craving.
2. Poor Diet: Recovering cocaine addicts are often nutritional disaster areas because they live on junk food and don’t know what a healthy meal is. Many have coexisting eating disorders that lead to binging on junk food and/or starving for days at a time to deal with the result of weight gain.
3. Excessive Use Of Caffeine And Nicotine: Both caffeine and nicotine a re low-grade stimulant drugs and increase the likelihood of having cocaine craving.
4. Lack Of Exercise. Aerobic exercise reduces the intensity of cocaine craving. Regular aerobic exercise is a protective factor, especially in the first six to nine months of recovery. Neglecting aerobic exercise on a regular basis is a set-up behavior.
5. Poor Stress Management: When recovering people don’t manage stress appropriately, they increase their risk of having craving by becoming stress-sensitive. Regular stress management activities such as meditation, relaxation exercises, taking regular breaks and rest periods are all protective factors.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SET-UPS FOR CRAVING:
There are five major psychological traps that recovering cocaine addicts may implement, and set themselves up to experience craving.
1. Euphoric Recall: Cocaine addicts “romance the high” by remembering and exaggerating the
pleasurable experiences of past cocaine use, while blocking out painful and unpleasant aspects of the memory.
2. Awfulizing Abstinence: When addicts awfulize abstinence, they notice all of the negatives and exaggerate them, while blocking out all of the positive aspects of recovery. This leads the recovering cocaine addict to feel deprived in recovery and to believe that being sober is not nearly as good as using cocaine.
3. Magical Thinking About Use: Magical thinking about use leads to believing that using cocaine or other drugs will solve all of their problems. This magical thinking is brought about by the euphoric recall (“Remember how good it was!”), and the awfulizing of sobriety (“Look at how awful it is that I can’t use it.”).
4. Empowering The Compulsion: They exaggerate the power of the compulsion by telling themselves that they can’t stand not having the drug and telling themselves that there is no way to resist the craving.
5. Denial & Evasion: The final psychological set-up is denial and evasion. Addiction is a disease of denial. This denial does not go away simply because they are not using the drug. Many cocaine addicts deny their need for a recovery program to enhance the likelihood of craving. They also deny that they are setting themselves up to crave the drug. Because this denial is an unconscious process, many cocaine addicts believe they are doing the best they can in recovery when, in fact, they are not.

SOCIAL SET-UPS FOR CRAVING:
There are three major social behaviors that cocaine addicts implement to set themselves up to experience craving.
1. Lack of Communication: Cocaine addicts stop talking about their experiences in recovery and, as a result, they get into trouble. They replace rigorous honesty with superficial communication. This isolates them and prevents them from doing a sanity check with recovering peers on their recovery experiences.
2. Social Conflict: Out of isolation and a refusal to communicate comes a tendency to get into arguments and disagreements with other people. This social conflict prompts the recovering cocaine addict to avoid sober social situations and isolate themselves from others, spending more time alone.
3. Socializing With Other Drug-Using Friends: Out of loneliness and a desire to be with people who understand them, many recovering cocaine addicts decide to associate with people who they used to drink and drug with. This puts them in the proximity of the drug and sets them up to have a craving.

STAGE 2  TRIGGER EVENTS FOR COCAINE CRAVING:
There are four primary types of triggers that activate immediate craving. These triggers include thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and situations.
1. Thought Triggers: Thought triggers arise out of addictive thinking or an addictive mind set that creates thoughts about the role that cocaine plays in a person’s life.
2. Feeling Triggers: Feeling triggers come from sensory cues – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, or smelling something that reminds them of cocaine. It also results from experiencing feelings or emotions that were normally medicated by cocaine use.
3. Behavioral Triggers: The behavioral triggers are drug-seeking behaviors and rituals that activate a craving.
4.Situational Triggers: Situational triggers include any stressful relationships or situations that used to be engaged in on a regular basis while
using cocaine. Once these triggers are activated, a powerful cocaine craving emerges.

STAGE 3 THE CRAVING CYCLE:
The third and final stage of craving is the actual craving cycle. This cycle is marked by obsession, compulsion, physical craving, and drug-seeking behavior.
1. Obsession: When the obsession is activated, the person has out-of-control thinking about cocaine use. Intrusive thoughts begin and they can’t turn them off. The obsession quickly turns into a compulsion.
2. Compulsion: When compulsion is activated, the person begins experiencing an overwhelming urge to use the drug even though they consciously know that it is dangerous to do so.
3. Craving: The obsession and compulsion merge into full blown physical craving. Physical craving is marked by a strong desire to use the drug:  rapid heart beat, shortness of breath, perspiration, and at times, the actual sense of tasting, smelling, or feeling the cocaine. Physical craving is extremely powerful.
4. Drug-Seeking Behavior: In an effort to manage the obsession, compulsion, and physical craving, many cocaine addicts activate drug-seeking, ritual behavior. They begin to cruise old neighborhoods, talk with old drug using friends, and go to bars and other places where cocaine is used. This exposes the person to more triggers which intensify the craving cycle. Eventually, the person becomes overwhelmed with a compulsion that they cannot control and they return to drug use.

PREVENTING COCAINE CRAVING:
Cocaine craving can be prevented by following a number of simple guidelines.
1. Recovery Program: Develop a structured recovery program that puts you in continuous daily contact with other recovering people.
2. Know Your Triggers: Identify the things that activate the craving and learn how to cope with those triggers.
3. Know and Avoid Set-up Behaviors: Know your set-up behaviors and
learn how to avoid or cope with them. If you don’t set yourself up for
craving, when you do have one, it will be less severe and last for a shorter length of time.
4. Dismantle Euphoric Recall: Carefully examine past pleasant memories about cocaine use and search for the hidden negatives in the experience. Most people find that they had no purely positive experiences while using cocaine. There were always hidden negatives.
5. Stop Magical Thinking: It is also important to stop magical thinking about future use and to stop awfulizing your current sobriety. This will allow you to deal with the physical set-ups and let you know what to do to stop a craving.

INTERVENING ON AN EPISODE OF CRAVING:
Since craving is a normal and natural symptom of cocaine addiction that follows the addict into recovery, it is important for cocaine addicts to learn how to deal with craving in recovery. This is done by learning and practicing a number of steps.
1. Recognize Craving: Addicts must learn how to recognize a craving while it is happening. Many addicts fail to identify mild cravings as problematic and wait until they are in a full blown, severe craving before taking action.
2. Accept Craving As Normal: Many people experience a craving,  and then panic. They believe there is something wrong with their recovery, or that they are condemned to return to cocaine use. This is not true.
3. Go Somewhere Else: The craving was probably activated by an environmental trigger, so the recovering person should get out of the setting and get into an environment that supports sobriety.
4. Talk It Through: If the recovering addict talks it through, they don’t have to act it out. Cocaine addicts need to talk about their cravings as soon as they occur to discharge the urge to use.
5. Aerobic Exercise: Exercise will stimulate brain chemistry and both reduce and interrupt the physiology of craving.
6. Eat A Healthy Meal: Healthy and nutritious food will nourish the brain. Nutritionists recommend consuming lean fish or meat for protein, and eating whole wheat bread or baked potatoes or brown rice for complex carbohydrates. Also taking vitamins and amino acids to replace the deficiencies that drug use caused will help stabilize brain chemistry imbalances.
7. Meditation And Relaxation: Cravings are worse when a person is under high stress. The more a person can relax, the lower the intensity of the craving.
8. Distraction: The person can divert attention from the craving by engaging in other activities that productively distract from the craving feelings.
9. Remember Cravings Are Time-limited: The ninth step is to remember that most cravings are time limited to two or three hours. If the person can use the previous eight steps to get fatigued enough to fall asleep, most people wake up and the craving is gone.

It is possible to understand cocaine craving and to learn how to manage cocaine craving without returning to cocaine use. A model that allows people to identify set-up behaviors, trigger events, and the cycle of cocaine craving itself, and intervening upon this process, has proven effective in reducing relapse among cocaine addicts.

Managing Cocaine Craving and Cocaine Craving and Relapse are available through Herald House Independence Press, 1-800-767-8181. Home study courses are also available through CENAPS, please contact the CENAPS office at 352-596-8000 or visit www.cenaps.com for more information

Daniel, my second child, was the boy who was always being ridiculed by the other kids. It broke my heart, and because I felt the need to protect him, I continuously enrolled him in activity after activity, hoping to find something that caught his interest. I went to the School Board on three different occasions to transfer him to yet another High School. This contributed to Daniel’s lack of independence and our codependent relationship.

Daniel was all about extremes. He swung from obsession with excessive body building in Middle School, to devoting himself to Christianity in High School. His devout Bible-toting days – a period of peace in his life — culminated in depression as kids who belonged to the youth group started to find him “weird” and exclude him. He decided he no longer believed in God and abandoned the one place that had initially accepted him.

Over the years I began to lose myself as “Barbara.” I became a part of Daniel, and was known as “Daniel’s Mom” — the master enabler. Whether I was trying to get my other children to bring him along with their friends, or begging principals, teachers, school office attendees, or anyone who would listen, my goal was to save Daniel.

I longed for him to be included, to feel normal, and to be a part of something. Whenever he had a meltdown, he would always say to me, “Mom, I just want to be normal.”

As Daniel descended into the world of addiction, I grew fragile from the barrage of phone calls, the hospital visits, the police appearing at my front door, and life spiraling out of control. I had to give up my career, and focus all my time on what I thought was helping Daniel. I was scared, emotionally devastated and always on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the very time when every member of my family needed me. But there I was, concentrating all my attention on Daniel and letting my other children fend for themselves.

It took all my strength to cope with and parent Daniel. I was at the lowest point in my life, and for the first time I began taking anti-depressants. I don’t know exactly where I lost control of Daniel and myself. The blur of time from protecting my son’s outlandish behavior to watching him destroy his life by getting high on exorbitant amounts of pills is very painful to revisit. Daniel would test me – and himself – for several more years. His growing drug habit landed him in the hospital’s ICU three times. The last time, the doctors told me to prepare for him to die.

Once more I was spurred into action. I decided if I had to move heaven and earth my goal would be to have him arrested and save him from dying in the streets. I sat in court for weeks, sent letters, made endless phone calls and set court dates. I wouldn’t accept “no” from anyone, regardless of their position or power. Nothing could stop me from protecting my son – and I prevailed. He was sentenced to a Juvenile Correctional Facility where he has spent the last three months as I write this story, and will spend at least the next six months there. This outcome was the best of the worst choices I had. I visit him weekly and pray for him daily as he is forced to remain sober and reflect on the past two years.

Now it’s up to Daniel. Sadly he was forced to learn life lessons the hard way, as he deals with the many challenges of incarceration. But as the fog slowly clears away and his mind is restored Daniel is talking about being drug-free and appreciating the value of freedom in his life. He’s beginning to understand his own value and slowly developing a sense of self-esteem which has been missing for so long. He’s taking two college correspondence classes and looking ahead toward the future. While he will always be “different” in some ways, he is learning that should not define or limit him. For the first time in years Daniel is beginning to believe what I have always told him, that he is very, very important to me, his family, himself and the world. He is a brilliant writer with much to offer.

As for me, I guess it was about time to find Barbara and bring her back from all this craziness. What could a lifelong enabler do to rescue her own soul? Extend a hand to other women in need. And that’s what I did. I am the founder of the Addict’s Mom, Mommy Mentors and the Co-Founder of Women Helping Women Mastermind.

While I am still a student in life, I have learned on my journey that we all have issues to work on. Although I wish I had found my path earlier, there is always hope for those willing to change. I pray that Daniel as well as my other children will join me in this path of self-awareness and personal discovery. While my arms are always open to Daniel as well as all my children. I will never again be the master enabler.

“The Addict’s Mom”is a group focusing on the mothers of addicted children. The relationship between the mother and addicted child is unique; that does not diminish the experiences of other family members.
Being the mother of an addicted child is a painful journey that covers a wide range of emotions. This blog will contain true stories/poems of extraordinary moms who share their personal stories of the difficulties and challenges they face every day, plus resources and information.

Barbara Theodosiou
barbara@mommymentors.com
http://www.theaddictsmom.com/

Several years ago I had 2 friends who went to treatment. They needed treatment and went of their own volition. They did well while they were there. One relapsed on his flight home, the other within the first 3 days. I thought that if they’d have had someone with them, someone strong in recovery to guide them through their first few days outside of the structured treatment setting, that they would have stood a much better chance of remaining clean & sober. My initial idea was to meet clients at discharge, whatever facility they were at, fly home with them, get them to their 1st meeting that same day, help them clean out their home, office, car, etc. Help them implement their recommended discharge plan and spend a few days with them, getting them plugged into recovery in their own area. Sober Escorts evolved quickly from the initial concept. Today, we get numerous clients to treatment, door to door, to detox, detox to primary, primary to extended care and to transitional living. We also do quite a bit of interim work. Anything that the clinical staff of a treatment center would deem important enough for a client to leave treatment, such as a death in the family, a court date that can’t be postponed, a wedding, graduation, or bar mitzvah, we will go with the client, get them through it, and get them back to treatment safe and sound. We are available for sober companion assignments ranging from a few hours up to several months. We do whatever it take and we will always go the extra mile. We’ve closed down apartments, arranged storage, boarded pets, transported vehicles. I once babysat a parrot for 60 days to get a client to agree to go to treatment. We work with treatment centers, admissions personnel, discharge planners, case managers, doctors, therapists, interventionists, families, significant others, attorneys, agents…anyone and everyone concerned with a client’s recovery and well being.

Now I need to tell you about the staff at Sober Escorts, Inc. The 42 men & women on our roster are the best. In our 6 year history, we’ve had more than 3000 people call, email, and write, wanting to work for us as sober companions, sober escorts, or sober coaches. Roughly half of these applicants did not meet our minimum requirements for employment. Another good percentage had read one article or another, thought they’d make $1500 a day and live the lifestyle of the rich & famous. These applicants did not make the cut either. Our people exemplify our motto, “We Care, We’ve Been There”. They are not couch potatoes. We believe recovery is an ACTION word. The staff of Sober Escorts, Inc.are all ACTIVE recovery and average 14 years clean & sober. Several have been referred to us by people I know & respect in the recovery industry. They are well traveled, well read, intelligent, and caring individuals. Many are degreed, licensed and/or certified professionals in the recovery field. We have Master’s level Certified Addiction Professionals, LMHC’s, LCSW’s, BRI’s, RN’s & LPN’s. As I stated earlier, all are in recovery, and several have first hand knowledge of addictions and disorders other than chemical dependency, i.e.; eating disorders, sex & love, gambling, process, etc. We have also worked successfully with many dually-diagnosed clients. We are available short term, long term, worldwide, and at a moments notice.

I’d like to conclude by thanking everyone who’s been instrumental in my sobriety and in the success of Sober Escorts, Inc. It would not be possible to have the latter without the former. Unfortunately, Charlie & Journey have not allotted enough space to do this properly and mention everyone by name. Suffice it to say that I am both proud & humbled by the friendships I’ve made, the company I keep, and the support that has been given. That’s what this thing is all about, isn’t it? The enrichment of our lives and those we come in contact with? Thank you all so very, very much. God Bless. Rich Parrish. www.soberescorts.com

That’s what my Uncle Pinto said to my mom about my brother and me back when I was 14 years old. I think we had just dosed him with psilocybin mushrooms…but that is another story…

That’s kind of what my life was like, growing up, with one exception of three years when my brother and I were in a boys orphanage, it was all hippy all the time. So, it is peculiar to me that I ended up as the CEO of an addiction treatment program. As the song says, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

In a way, my uncle Pinto was right, and he knew what he was talking about, at least as far as reaping a whirlwind. He was kind of a self-made redneck who owned and operated the first topless bar in Brevard County, Florida. He lost it all, and nearly lost his life, to alcoholism through drunken gun fights and car crashes. But then he got sober in AA, and helped many people during the last 17 years of his life.

The hippie world I grew up in was full of drugs, drug dealers, and a lot of people spouting cosmic debris while getting loaded. “I’m going to get a little higher and see if I can hot-wire reality.” was the predominant theme. In recovery, I have found the reality of “all we need is love” and “we can change the world”.

So, I knew all about addiction from growing up in it and I also succumbed to the family disease. I saw family members die, and go to prison, but I also have seen many of them find recovery. I have seen them go to treatment and 12 step programs, get clean, and be transformed through the grace of God into happy people who are committed to serving others.

My journey in the profession of addiction treatment began shortly after the beginning of my journey in recovery. When I was 21 years old and fresh out of the Army I attended an AA Intergroup gratitude dinner. I met a woman there who suggested I come and check out volunteering or working at the local public treatment center, and the next day I did. Before I left, I was hired as a detoxification technician and my 30 year journey in the addiction treatment field began.

I met a man named Peter Fairclough at that treatment center, and some of the things he said had a profound impact on me and those truths continue to guide me today. Pete got sober from skid row and started the Comprehensive Alcoholism Rehabilitation Program (CARP) in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1968. He used to tell all of the staff that, “We have got to love the alcoholics back to health.”, and that “If we work real hard and do the right thing, The Lord will not let us fail.”

It seems to me, looking back, that those two saying incorporated all of the good truth that I learned from “Hippie Dom” without all of the drugs and booze and self-serving crap of that whole era. Those truths are Faith, Hope, and Love. I find guidance for all of my life, both personal and professional by finding and exercising faith in God, Who is love, which gives me the hope to carry on no matter what the obstacle or reward. Also, these truths keep me humble in the face of any success I may enjoy, because I must attribute it all to that loving God. This truth has rescued me many times from my overblown ego and pride when times were good in business or personally and I started down a path that would wreck it.

I was a patient at a treatment center once, and while there, an old man who volunteered to take us to AA meetings asked me if I had taken the third step. I really did not know how to answer him. He said that we alcoholics and addicts needed a new in-house manager for our lives and I was desperate enough to try anything. So, I prayed with him and asked God to take over the management of my life. Somewhere and somehow, I began a relationship with my Lord, Jesus, and started the difficult process of giving up control of my life to One who runs my life infinitely better than I ever could.

I have been working in the addiction treatment field from 1980 until today. I have worked as a detox tech, a crisis counselor, an interventionist, a nurse, and in admissions and now administration. I have started and failed in the treatment business. In 1998 I began working with a group of people who were starting an addiction treatment business that became The Watershed Addiction and Treatment Programs. I became the CEO at the end of 2004 and I have tried to guide our treatment programs by those same simple truths. God is in loving control, and I am more confident than ever that any addict or alcoholic or

treatment center that “works real hard and does the right thing…The Lord will never let us fail.

Choosing the right treatment program has never been an easy task. Some chemically dependent individuals are so desperate for help that they check into any available facility without evaluating their options or understanding the differences in approach. As a result, these individuals do not receive the comprehensive treatment they need to achieve life-long sobriety. Evidence suggests that conventional approach offers a certain degree of hope, but fails to address the root cause of drug and alcohol abuse. Even after achieving sobriety, eighty percent of the time patients slip back into the grip of chemical dependency.

So, why do some individuals enjoy long-term recovery and others continue to relapse? What is the “missing link” to total healing? “The standard approach to substance abuse is missing one essential component – biochemical restoration which stabilizes and reverses the symptoms that fuel addiction,” says Joe Eisele, a clinical director and founder of InnerBalance Health Center, located in Loveland, Colorado. “This approach has emerged as a more powerful and holistic alternative to traditional models. Alternative clinics that offer natural means of treatment and combine both physiological and psychological approaches, boast sobriety rates as high as 85%.” Research shows that the urge for drugs or alcohol can be triggered by biochemical imbalances occurring in the body. Therefore, full-and long-term recovery is impossible without undergoing the process of biochemical repair.

According to Mr. Eisele, alcohol and drug dependency can be fueled by a variety of factors, including nutritional deficiency, poor diet, allergies, environmental stressors, genetic predispositions, or social pressure. In addition, we need to look at biochemical imbalances in the body that can cause depression, anxiety, mood swings and sleep disturbances. Some of these include hypoglycemia, thyroid disorder, adrenal fatigue, high or low histamine levels, kryptopyroluria, neurotransmitter
imbalances, low lithium levels, genetic abnormalities and methylation issues. Many individuals develop addiction in response to metal toxicity, such as elevated aluminum, lead or mercury.

Multiple neurotransmitter systems may also play a role in the development of drug and alcohol dependence. Hormone deficiencies and low levels of neurotransmitters (such as serotonin, dopamine, histamine, glutamine or GABA) tend to facilitate substance-related disorders. Quite often, neurotransmitter deficiency elevates anxiety or boosts depression, which often results in cravings. The goal of the biochemical intervention is to re-establish balance to the neurotransmitters and restore brain equilibrium.

The first step to recovery using the holistic approach is to determine whether a patient has biochemical imbalances. At InnerBalance Health Center, patients
undergo a series of medically-supervised lab tests, using blood, urine, and saliva samples. One of these tests measures the level of amino acids in the body. Certain conditions, such as gastrointestinal disorder or inflammatory bowel disease, can limit the body’s absorption of amino acids and lead to the depletion of key neurotransmitters.

Another way to conclude whether a person suffers from deficient brain chemistry is to evaluate and analyze the symptoms. Elevated histamine levels in the brain cause reckless risk taking; insomnia, unusually high sex drive, and racing thoughts are some of the typical symptoms of high histamine. If histamine levels are not
lowered, the addicted person will continue to use alcohol and drugs to relieve the above symptoms.

Poor diet, deficient in essential nutrients, precludes the body from adequately producing important neurotransmitters. That’s what precipitates the onset of anxiety and increases the urge to self-medicate.

In order to build a healthy balance, replenish amino acids and ensure that they are properly absorbed by the body, Joe Eisele recommends Intravenous Vitamin
Therapy. It is a safe and effective way to address underlying nutritional imbalances. During IV therapy, vital nutrients are being administered into the body. Sometimes natural GABA itself is administered through IV drips or capsules.

Healthy diet, which tends to be overlooked by many traditional programs, is one of the most crucial aspects of holistic recovery. Studies show that improper nutrition perpetuates the cycle of addiction. What’s more, chemical dependency combined with poor diet can wreak havoc on the immune system and lead to emotional
turmoil. In order to restore healthy brain function, it is imperative that harmful junk foods, sugar, caffeine and starches be removed from the person’s diet.

Most chemically dependent individuals do not get enough protein and have a hard time processing sugar and carbohydrates. Therefore, a customized dietary regime containing the right amount of protein and carbohydrates is essential for recovery. “During nutritional counseling, every patient needs to abstain from sugar, caffeine, white flour, starches and other unhealthy elements, destroying their health,” adds Joe Eisele. “Patients who commit to holistic healing, take supplements that
include vitamins; minerals and essential fatty acids that curb anxiety and dramatically reduce cravings for mind-altering chemicals.”

Biochemical intervention is a new and fresh approach to treating alcohol and drug addictions and can restore a person’s quality of life. A growing number of
experts readily agree on the fact that it has the power to heal the root symptoms of chemical dependency (depression, anxiety, sleep problems, mood swings, etc). There is plenty of evidence that biochemical repair leads to dramatic drop in patient symptoms and diminishes the likelihood of relapse, which is common among
recipients of traditional treatment.

InnerBalance Health Center is an alcohol and drug treatment center located in Loveland Colorado. It provides holistic approach, consisting of Biochemical Restoration, Nutritional Counseling, Talk Therapy and Emotional Lifestyle. To learn more about the
center, please go to www.innerbalancehealthcenter.com or call 877-900-7848