Dear Stanton:
My son was charged with DWI in October (BAC somewhere around .14). He is a freshman away at college. He enrolled in alcohol classes through the college, which he says were a joke (they showed them a movie once a week for five weeks). His trial was dismissed because the arresting
officer did not show up. In January, he moved off campus into a house with four other students. Well, in April, their house was raided by police and they were all charged with possession charges. The police found a small amount of marijuana and cocaine in the house. I knew my son was drinking and had experimented with drugs, which I told him I was totally against, but I know most college students experiment with drugs at one time or another. My son’s attorney suggested that he enroll in a more legitimate treatment program. He did and the counselor told him that he was an alcoholic. She told him he had to attend group counseling four times a week and attend two AA meetings a week for 20 weeks.
He has been very good about attending meetings including roller blading over two miles to the classes because his license was suspended. The problem is my son says that he does not feel that he is an alcoholic. Does he drink and sometimes abuse — yes, but does this mean he is an alcoholic or a typical college student. He had to miss the past 2 1/2 weeks of classes because we were on vacation. I received a phone call yesterday from the counselor (who my son says he has only spoken to three times over the past 2 months). She stated that my son is not making any progress because he admitted that he had drunk three times in the past two weeks. She said this is not acceptable and that she called his attorney and recommended that he postpone my son’s trial and that if he didn’t start doing what was required she was going to put him in an inpatient facility. She also stated that my son is very withdrawn in the group sessions. I told her that he is very, very shy and is extremely uncomfortable opening up in public.
Another thing that really has me upset is that I received their bill that they sent the insurance company and there are charges for drug tests that my son says were never done. They are charging $120.00 every day he goes and he is not even talking to a psychiatrist — it is a group of other patients with a moderator. I also noticed they had billed for sessions with the psychiatrist who my son says he has never seen. In fact, I asked in the very beginning that my son be seen by the psychiatrist because I thought he was depressed about everything that had just happened to him. She told me that was not possible because they could not get an accurate diagnosis if he is drinking. Well yesterday, all of sudden, she has him seeing the psychiatrist. I really think the insurance company may have told them they were not going to continue paying for sessions if he hasn’t been seen by a psychiatrist. I really feel that I and my son are being taken. He is really trying hard to get his life together and is trying to cooperate, but he is finding this process isn’t working for him; what should we do?
Carol
Dear Carol:
This is a typical story. Like it or not, your son’s behavior is not unusual for someone his age. This does not mean he isn’t abusing drugs or alcohol. But his story is a far cry from proving he is an alcoholic. Only, virtually everyone in a treatment program is judged to be an alcoholic (or alcohol or drug dependent). And these programs are rip-offs, where they charge you psychiatric prices for group sessions. But once you get in their clutches, they have you where they want you — they hold the penalties that will be imposed by the court over your head! Do look at our book, Resisting 12-step coercion, where we describe this system.
The easiest thing to do is to conform with the program requirements while he is there to get out from underneath this — otherwise, it can become a permanent part of his life. That is, while he can get over his substance abuse, he can never escape his diagnosis, treatment, labeling, and court supervision. Oh, and, from now on, he better figure out how to stay away from the police.
This story reminds me that many people feel that compelling people to enter treatment will be an improvement over putting them in — or threatening them with — prison. Some of these people say things like, "The penalties for drug use are worse than the consequences of the drug use itself." Your son may be an example of how treatment for drug use (and alcohol use — which is legal) can often be worse than a person’s use of these substances.
Best,
Stanton
intoxicated driver resource center intoxicated drivers intoxicated driving http://www.stgregorycrt.com binge drinking 21st birthday binge drinking alcohol poisoning binge drinking alcoholism binge drinking brain damage binge drinking by college students http://www.stgregoryctr.com/help.php binge drinking among college students binge drinking and alcoholism binge drinking and college students
Stanton Peele has been investigating, thinking, and writing about addiction since 1969. His first bombshell book, “Love and Addiction”, appeared in 1975. Its experiential and environmental approach to addiction revolutionized thinking on the subject by indicating that addiction is not limited to narcotics, or to drugs at all, and that addiction is a pattern of behavior and experience which is best understood by examining an individual’s relationship with his/her world. This is a distinctly nonmedical approach. It views addiction as a general pattern of behavior that nearly everyone experiences in varying degrees at one time or another.
I may be wrong, but I think the place my son is in might not be one of the best. First of all, he’s there by court order so one can only hope for the best. Second, when my wife and I went to see him during visiting hours on Sunday, we were told that his visiting privilege had been cut. If the family unit is that important to recovery, that punishment makes no sense to me. What are your feelings?
three nights in a hospital, but I would chose hospital any day if I had the choice. With that information I believe it more closely resembles a prison than a health care facility.
For the first time in memory, Bill O’Reilly, arch Fox conservative, and Chris Matthews, arch MSNBC liberal, reacted the same to an event — both found that Barack Obama failed entirely to explain his plans for health care reform in his televised press conference.
Channel patients to providers who accept a prix-fixe pay schedule
No one intends to become a drug addict or alcoholic. Our experiences show that the drug addict or alcoholic was usually an intelligent and often creative person with much hope for the future.
The more a person uses drugs or excessive alcohol, the worse the problem becomes. So they continue the “solution” for their problems, more drugs. Soon new problems are created by drug use. The person feels the need to use consistently, and will do anything to get high.
contact us at
In medical terminology, an addiction is a chronic neurobiologic disorder that has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental dimensions and is characterized by one of the following: the continued use of a substance despite its detrimental effects, impaired control over the use of a drug (compulsive behavior), and preocupation with a drug’s use for non-therapeutic purposes (i.e. craving the drug). Addiction is often accompanied the presence of deviant behaviors (for instance stealing money and forging prescriptions) that are used to obtain a drug.
maintain its desired effects. For instance, individuals with severe chronic pain taking opiate medications (like morphine) will need to continually increase the dose in order to maintain the drug’s analgesic (pain-relieving) effects. Physical dependence is also a pharmacologic property and means that if a certain drug is abruptly discontinued, an individual will experience certain characteristic withdrawal signs and symptoms. Many drugs used for therapeutic purposes produce withdrawal symptoms when abruptly stopped, for instance oral steroids, certain antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and opiates.