[Vision2020] Drunks, drugs, and the empathy factor

[David M. Budge]

Joan, oops, I misread your last post.  (it's that damn dyslexia thing) 
My apologies.  Generally we are in accord on the subject with one caveat. 

The vast majority of clinical programs are built on the 12 step model 
for long term recovery, hence their effectiveness compares directly with 
that model. The AMA and the American Hospital Association both have 
dogmatic views of treatment, charge large fees, and are building an 
industry with poor outcomes.  The vast majority of people who stop 
drinking or taking drugs do so with no clinical help.  Additionally, the 
medical protocol for detox and maintenance is a cocktail of SSRI drugs 
(like Prozac) with a diazepam chaser to ward off the anti-depressant 
jitters.  Accordingly, the medical community is substituting one 
addiction for another, the efficacy of which shows little or no clinical 
promise from an outcome based review of the literature. 

It makes little sense to spend great deals of public funds on 
conventional rehabilitation.  One thing that may make sense on a trial 
basis, is to provide vocational and social rehabilitation within the 
context of drug rehab.  The root causes of addiction usually come from a 
need for a larger sense of self.  Many, although not all, addicts lack 
basic social skills and have few marketable skills.  Thus, addiction 
becomes a vicious cycle of failing then self-medicating to achieve a 
sense of well-being.  As I said in a previous post: most addicts only 
stop when they want to stop.  If there is a potential positive outcome 
it may come in the form of providing an environment for personal 
productivity. 

I don't know if this program would work, but I think that the literature 
provides enough evidence to give it a shot.  Also, I'm not sure if the 
federal government is the answer here.  Like Justice Brandeis hypotheses 
that "each state is a laboratory of democracy" I think a multitude of 
experimentation at the state level would produce positive outcomes faster.

Diverting federal funds from the DEA to the medical industry would 
surely be less costly than the current system.  We need to ensure that 
special interest groups don't co-opt treatment however.  It seems this 
would be throwing good money after bad regardless of the magnitude if we 
don't insist on performance accountability.

My name is Dave, and I'm an addict.  I have 2617 days clean.

ps.  Anyone who wants to talk about anything or anyone regarding this 
issue should feel free to contact me off list.



David M. Budge wrote:

> Joan writes:
>
> "There.  That's it for me.  Mr. Bush's unproven use aside, Dave, are 
> we or are we not in general accord on this issue?  Treatment and not 
> incarceration.  Stop use with the user and not by bombing poppie 
> fields in Afghanistan or coca leaf growers in Columbia?  Stop with the 
> DEA and make with the funding for the REHAB."
>
> I never said we were in general accord (although we're much closer 
> than you seem to think.)  I said you are in general accord with 
> William F. Buckley, Jr, etc., etc.
>
> ...and you are.
>
> db
>
> Joan Opyr wrote:
>
>> Dear Dave and other Visionaries:
>>  
>> About the Bush budget cuts -- it could be that I was thinking not of 
>> Mark Solomon's list but of a piece I read in some left-wing rag 
>> entitled: Bush Budget Kills Drug-Free Schools Program, Maintains 
>> Block Grant.  (Sorry, I didn't copy the URL, but I did print out the 
>> article, so it must have made quite an impression on me as I'm 
>> generally cheap with the toner.  The journal is called Fighting Back, 
>> so that should tell you something about its slant; you're free, if 
>> you like, to go ahead now and dismiss it.  I won't take offense.  
>> Hell, I won't know, will I?)  My understanding of the matter, 
>> however, is that Bush's 2006 Budget calls for $441 million in funding 
>> for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools & Communities Program, a 
>> reduction, though not a draconian one; it calls for "level funding" 
>> of the nearly $2 billion-dollar Substance Abuse Prevention and 
>> Treatment block grant program; and a $270 million decrease in funding 
>> for demand reduction programs.
>>  
>> To quote that damned liberal rag, Fighting Back:
>>
>> "After years of sustained, stratospheric budget increases, funding 
>> for addiction research would come back to earth under Bush's 2006 
>> plan.  The National Institute on Drug Abuse would get a modest $4- 
>> million dollar increase to its $1-billion budget, while the 
>> $438-million National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism would 
>> rise by just $2 million." 
>>  
>> Does this keep pace with inflation?  Does this keep pace with use?  
>> Damned if I know.  I'd need to do a lot more research than I'm 
>> willing to do for the sake of fussing with you, Dave Budge.  (It's 
>> nothing personal; I have a neck-ache.  Poor ergonomics here at my 
>> computer desk.)  I will note however (and I will say a sarcastic 
>> hoorah!) that the Bush administration is expanding funding for the 
>> Access to Recovery program, which allows individuals to choose 
>> faith-based recovery programs like AA, I assume, only with even more 
>> God stuff.  Will this work?  Is it Constitutional?  Will this sort 
>> of rehab get you off of horse and onto the Pauline donkey?  Sorry -- 
>> I'm answering your questions with questions again.  I have a bad 
>> habit of doing that.  I think it's a Jewish trait; Jesus did it all 
>> the time.  Drove his followers crazy.
>>  
>> Now, Dave, you are quite right to point out that I do not have 
>> direct, first-hand, signed affidavit knowledge of George W. Bush's 
>> illegal drug use.  I was way too young to get into the Texas version 
>> of Studio 54 back when Mr. Bush was in his twenties and thirties.  
>> He's acknowledged that he abused alcohol until he was forty (though 
>> he has never admitted to being an alcoholic).  Others -- and who 
>> knows how reliable they are -- have attested to his use of other 
>> substances.  Mr Doug Wead (what a great name) has come forward with 
>> tapes of then-Governor Bush talking implicitly, if not explicitly, 
>> about his marijuana use, and discussing his strategy for dealing with 
>> questions about other drugs that he may or may not have toked upon.  
>> I suppose I could rely on Kitty Kelley . . . but then I would catch 
>> hell, wouldn't I?  The Bushes have neither sued her nor had her 
>> assassinated, so I guess that puts her credibility at about 50/50.  
>> Nope -- I can never be 100% sure that Mr. Bush snorted coke.  I am 
>> forced to rely not, as you suggest, on Democratic imitators of The 
>> Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but on grotesque hearsay, stories put 
>> about by Mr. Bush's old friends and fraternity brothers, Larry 
>> Flynt's Penthouse, and the rumors regarding said drug use that have 
>> swirled about Texas for the past thirty years.  I have to rely on all 
>> of that and my own 
>> unverifiable-but-never-let-me-down-before experience and judgment at 
>> spotting a user.  That's what tells me that Mr. Bush was a 
>> snort-a-roosky.  He had the money, the connections, the time, and the 
>> inclination.  Dismiss that if you must, but I'm going with it.  Call 
>> it woman's intuition.  Or not. 
>>  
>> [BTW, if I were Jennifer McFarland, I'd pull the Presidential limo 
>> and search it with the sniffer dogs the very next time Mr. Bush 
>> drives through Moscow.  You can thank me for the tip later, 
>> Jennifer.  When 60 Minutes interviews you, you can plug my book!]
>>  
>> There.  That's it for me.  Mr. Bush's unproven use aside, Dave, are 
>> we or are we not in general accord on this issue?  Treatment and not 
>> incarceration.  Stop use with the user and not by bombing poppie 
>> fields in Afghanistan or coca leaf growers in Columbia?  Stop with 
>> the DEA and make with the funding for the REHAB.
>>  
>> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>> www.auntie-establishment.com <http://www.auntie-establishment.com>
>>  
>> PS: If you're a glutton for punishment, Google "Bush Budget 2006" and 
>> "drug treatment" and you'll find five thousand sources, opinions, and 
>> commentary on what will happen re: treatment versus incarceration 
>> over the next four years.  If you're not a glutton for punishment, 
>> then please allow me to summarize: it's not good.
>>
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