Help for addicts is hard to come by
Most of us have little habits that help us cope with the inevitable stresses of life. Maybe exercise is our daily fix, or bottomless cups of caffeinated coffee or cans of soda. Even stamp collecting and computer use can become habits with a compulsive ring to them.
"I think it’s a small portion of the population that would have no compulsive tendencies," said Mariella Hogan, a psychologist at Warm Springs Counseling Center in Boise. "When you go to grad school, a lot of times they tell you that you have to have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies to get things done."
Compulsive habits overlap with addictions, but most of them are at the relatively harmless end of a continuum, with meth, cocaine and alcohol at the other, deadly end.
Drug addicts and alcoholics have a disease that changes their physiology and takes over their personalities, making them do things they would not otherwise do, Hogan said.
Detox facility in the works
You may love your addicted spouse or child and try to understand them, but getting help for them will be hard. There will continue to be an extra measure of hard in the Valley until the opening of its first facility where addicts can clear drugs and alcohol out of their bodies under medical supervision.
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms can include headaches, vomiting, even convulsions. And getting drugs and alcohol out of an addict’s body without medical treatment can damage the delicate chemistry of the brain, making it harder for people to recover, said Ted Burgess, manager of the Addiction Recovery Center at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise.
The Boise metro area is one of the largest in the nation lacking a detox facility for people without health insurance. Boise, Ada County, Saint Al’s, St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center and other agencies agreed to each pay a portion of the $2.7 million center. Construction could start this summer, at the earliest. The center could open in summer 2009.
The community detox and crisis center is planned for 1.4 acres that Boise will donate near Intermountain Hospital, a private psychiatric facility near the Ada County Jail.
It will have 20 beds, which is scaled down from plans for 36 beds. Twenty is not really enough for the Valley’s population and virtually guarantees a waiting list. But, Burgess says, "Twenty is a lot better than zero."
The center will provide two kinds of help: for people with mental-health crises and for addicts who need to detoxify. Often, the two go hand in hand. Once drugs safely drain out of the addicts, they can wrestle with their demons in other Valley treatment programs.
People who can afford it and have good health insurance have options in Boise and sometimes choose to go out of state, to programs in Utah, Oregon or elsewhere. But most addicts are stuck here. A few beds are available for detoxification in the Valley, but there is no medical supervision. A few lucky addicts may receive intravenous fluids or other medical help in hospital emergency rooms.
"It is a glaring deficiency in the overall continuum of detox services," Burgess said.
The alcohol demon
The Addiction Recovery Center at Saint Al’s is an outpatient program that can serve about 120 patients, at most. Usually, about 100 patients are in the program, Burgess said.
Patients, insured or uninsured, go three days a week, usually for three or four months. The No. 1 addiction is alcohol. One-third of patients are there because a spouse wanted them there, one-third because a court ordered them into treatment, and the rest because they decided on their own to get help, Burgess said.
In the program, patients meditate, exercise, learn to build intimacy and trust and do behavioral-cognitive therapy, trying to change the way they think, which in turn can make them feel better. The focus is on Alcoholic Anonymous’ 12-step programs, in which addicts learn to forgive, be forgiven and lean on a "higher power" to control the parts of their lives they cannot control themselves.
Addicts walk a rough road
Most of the addicts have a very difficult time ahead of them, said Hogan, who provides counseling for addictions at the Warm Springs Counseling Center, where patients get treatment whether they can pay or not. Distorted thinking is a big problem for addicts, she said. They might tell themselves, " ‘I have to go out with my friends tonight,’ and they will rationalize a reason, even though the real reason is they will have a chance to use," Hogan said.
Other addicts might figure, " ‘Last time I went out, I got arrested and made a public display, but (this time) I will have only one,’ but they can’t stop."
Addicts vary a lot in their ability to stop using, Hogan said. Your son or daughter might be able to do it, maybe even be able to drink moderately at some point in the future, but someone else’s kid might never be able to stop using, no matter what.
Some addicts will do almost anything to get into an altered state. If the only substance available is caffeinated coffee at a treatment center, they’ll use that, Hogan said. A lot of treatment centers serve only decaf, she said.
Some experts believe a portion of people are not treatable, especially if they also have a mental illness such as depression. Burgess doesn’t believe that. "No one who is still breathing is beyond redemption or hope," he said.