Addiction: the Financial Problem

One in 100 American citizens was incarcerated at some time last year in either a city, county, state or federal criminal justice facility. It is estimated that over 60 percent of those incarcerated suffer from either a drug or alcohol abuse problem. 

Driving under-the-influence of alcohol is the number one cause of death on our highways. Drug users, including alcohol abusers, whether from overdose or deteriorating health, and diseases like hepatitis, jam up our hospital emergency wards. Yet, their primary problem is actually a treatable disease; Addiction. Alcoholics and Addicts most often drive without insurance and contribute to high claim payouts for insurance companies, greatly affecting the rates you and I pay for our own insurance, eating away at the insuring company's profits. 

Addicts account for over half of the petty theft, and fill up jails behind the charges when apprehended. Petty theft is one of the greatest overhead costs that major retail sellers have... It affects every aspect of life in our country... 

The New American, March 20, 2006:"

In January, construction workers at Leon Sheffield Elementary School in Decatur, Alabama, were stunned to discover that someone had made off with about 60 feet of copper tubing, leaving the school flooded. A few weeks earlier, heavy rains had left a middle school in Portland, Oregon, flooded as well. Repair workers discovered that copper vents, flashing, and trim had been cannibalized from the school's roof." 

Acknowledged as a Disease by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the World Health Organization for decades, we still fail to embrace addressing the problem as a disease! Most States recognize it as a disease and pour millions of dollars into programs inside of their prisons. Sadly, study after study finds these programs to be nearly absolute failures in nearly every case. A study completed in California in 2007 actually stated that inmate participants of in-prison substance abuse treatment programs had a higher recidivism rate than the general population inmates. Of course, as parolees they are monitored more closely than non-drug offenders, thus having more parole violations, returning them to prison. Still, with the major financing direct at the prisons it is self-evident that the drug user has to have moved to the convicted felon status to get treatment. This defies all our beliefs about treatment of disease. All diseases are most effectively dealt with when early intervention takes place, and prevention is the best cure. Why is this? 

It seems our State and Federal governments have chosen to multiply their error rather than admit that they have taken the wrong approach for what has become decades. And, they continue to do this with "our" money, over and over. Why would they continue this course? Well, it is economics gone astray! Ignorance of the disease of Addiction, led to continued incarceration of treatable Addicts for so long that Addiction literally exploded the prison populations. So the States increased the prisons in size as first, but eventually drifted into a boom in building new prisons. Contracts awarded for construction, jobs staffing the prisons, and tremendous Federal subsidies have turned our country's State prison systems into an integral part of their economy. Once again, politics and old outdate theories, this happens to be regarding crime and punishment, have created another economic disaster that is so complicated no one wants to face it. On top of that, in California for example, the Correctional Officers Union is the most powerful Union and lobby group in the State. 

For some reason the "drug problem" has slipped into the background in the Media and on the political stage. The "War on Drugs" was a failure because it was the wrong way to deal with a disease. Actually, it denied the problem as even being a disease, so it was doomed to fail. For some reason, over the last two decades we have chosen to shoot our way out of too many problems. I have not heard one candidate, since the beginning of the primaries, even mention "drugs"! 

The drug problem is not going away as long as we do the same thing over and over expecting a different result. As long as it persists we will continue to pay for it. Though we pay greatly in dollars, other ways we pay are even more distressing. Broken homes, poorly parented children, absent parents and homelessness are part of a broken family structure that may be the single greatest problem that the United States has ever had. Incarceration is not a deterrent to an Addict. It just simply is ineffective, and has proven to be, for a very long time. 

Addiction Treatment in the private sector is a different story. When accepted as a relapsing disorder, as are diabetes and cancer, and multiple episodes of treatment are provided and accepted as necessary, we are getting better and better success rates. Addiction is a chronic, progressive and fatal mental disorder, accompanied by physiological complications. People have had a tendency to want to give up on or throw away the Addict who relapses. Yet, we don't do that with diabetics or cancer victims. Putting a sick person in a cage will not get them well. Addicts do not suffer from a lack of morals and will power. They suffer from a chemically changed brain that can be restored nearly completely to a properly functioning organ. It is just very complicated by the fact that behavioral changes are a side effect that is a second issue that must be addressed. This is because memory reinforced over a long period of time is not easily overcome. It's the "old habits are hard to break" syndrome. It can be done, though. Cognitive Behavioral Therapies have put a whole new face on the treatment of Addiction. It provides a set course of objectives that are measurable in their effectiveness and variations of applied techniques and time frames can produce positive results for a vast number of those being treated. Progression of the disease is predictable and assessable, and provide somewhat of a diagnosis of what stage an addiction is in. As with all diseases, the earlier it is identified, the sooner it can be assessed and a treatment course instituted. There is a third factor beyond the mental and physical that has been identified as a great help to the treatment of "disease" in general that applies even more significantly to the disease of Addiction... Spiritual Growth! 

So, what are going to do? Are we going to continue to treat this vast segment of the population as "lepers", stowing them away in our modern dungeons... throwing them away like broken objects? Or are we going to invest more wisely in a new approach that sees the potential of the human being? It took me a very long time to accept that I wasn't just "a bad person". It was hard to believe that I could overcome the wreckage I had made of my life for such a long time. Most of all, though, it took a lot of Help! I made it though! After nearly 30 years of steady decline into hopelessness, I was brought out of the insanity by caring professionals and belief that something greater would lift me up and carry me when I had not the strength to do things myself! I am not a detriment to society anymore. I no longer thrive on selfish needs. The Veteran's Administration invested in me and as a result not only am I no longer active in my Addiction, but I'm a Drug Counselor, dedicating the rest of my working life to helping others rise out of the depths of deprivation and become productive members of Society!