Co-founder of The New Face of Recovery™ uses personal experience to challenge the idea that addiction is an incurable brain disease.
Clearwater, FL (PRWEB) December 31, 2009 — In the 1950’s alcoholism was voted on as being a disease by the American Medical Association (AMA) and has since been promoted as such, citing there are common characteristics with other diseases. Even today, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) classifies alcoholism as a brain disease and claims it cannot be cured.
However, more than 50 years have passed and even with the most advanced clinical testing there is still no solid proof that addiction is an incurable disease. Brain scans can’t take a sober person who was once labeled as an alcoholic and tell that he has a disease, and there is no blood test to identify someone either. The same holds true with many other mental disorders.
“I was a classic alcoholic with major depression and social anxiety,” explains Lucas A Catton, CCDC, co-founder of the advocacy group The New Face of Recovery ™, “However, it’s been more than a decade since I have displayed any of those symptoms and I will personally give $1,000 to any doctor, psychiatrist, government official or pharmaceutical company that can prove that I have an incurable brain disease.”
Catton says what helped him beat his addiction was a non-traditional program that was long-term and drug-free, which is the type of programs his group supports now as being the most effective. The advocacy group points out that results should be what matters most in addiction recovery, looking at all areas of life including happiness at home, employment and productivity at work, activity in groups, churches and other social settings in addition to measuring sobriety.
The New Face of Recovery movement also says that the use of certain prescription drugs should be a part of this measurement, especially any mind-altering substances, as many of the drugs prescribed in today’s treatment centers still leave people dependent on drugs in their daily lives. In addition, drug and alcohol rehabs that tell their clients they have an incurable disease and give them replacement drugs typically have higher relapse rates.
More addiction treatment centers lately have been using the holistic buzzword and not following the disease theory of addiction, although there are several different types of rehabilitation methods even in the non-traditional category. To find out more information about successful drug rehab centers visit www.newfaceofrecovery.org.
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From: http://www.prweb.com/releases/addiction/recovery/prweb3391314.htm
Advocacy group says putting drug abusers on more drugs is not a real solution for rehabilitation.
Alcoholism and drug addiction are not new, but a few decades ago they were labeled as diseases, and now there are millions of Americans being prescribed drugs that have abuse potential, heavy mental and physical side effects and may even be fatal.
The scary, inbred connection with the pharmaceutical industry and doctors has led to the current disastrous epidemic of prescription drug addiction, with legal drugs killing more people in many states than illicit substances. Despite this undisputable evidence of carnage, the majority of doctors and addiction treatment centers continue to prescribe more drugs to addicts instead of helping them end the problem permanently.
One of the most common examples includes opioid replacement therapy for people who are addicted to drugs like heroin and oxycodone. These drugs often include buprenorphine or methadone, yet each are variations of synthetic opiates themselves and if taken over any substantial length of time require treatment just to get off them. There is also the fact that many states are seeing a significant rise in methadone and other opiate-related deaths.
Another commonly accepted practice includes an array of psychotropic drugs like anti-anxiety medication, antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics. However, sedatives such as benzodiazepines to cope with anxiety have an extremely high potential for abuse in themselves, antidepressants have been proven to cause erratic behavior and antipsychotics have been linked to causing diabetes, among other side effects.
“People seeking rehabilitation help for alcohol and other drug addictions are feeling lost and betrayed,” comments New Face of Recovery™ founding member Lucas A Catton, “They pay money to go to these treatment centers
with the hope of getting better, but many of the end up worse because of the drugs they are given there.”
Catton says he has personally spoken with thousands of people throughout the country in recent years who share this sentiment and who are seeking a more effective form of rehabilitation program. This continuing pattern is what led to the formation of the New Face of Recovery as a patient advocacy group seeking to improve conditions in the addiction treatment field.
Tags: addiction treatment centers, drug replacement therapy, prescription drug addiction
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November 22nd, 2009
Like with other fields in health care, drug rehab and addiction treatment centers ultimately have to make money somehow to keep operating. Most of these facilities are non-profits, so they don’t make a lot of money, but for those that are for-profit and even some that receive government funding, it can be a major source of revenue. It usually depends on how they view addiction and whether or not they believe that permanent recovery is possible.
High-priced for-profit centers can charge 40K per month and offer a nice place to live and some counseling with plenty of activities and a private chef. Those places are often more like a month-long vacations for relaxation to get away for a bit than true recovery centers that get results.
At the lower end of the spectrum are treatment facilities and counseling programs that accept state and federal money to provide services for people who can’t afford to pay. While this is a much-needed gap to fill, most of these programs actually spend more time on filing the paperwork to keep their contracts than making sure clients remain sober – and it’s totally acceptable since the government thinks addition is an incurable disease – how ridiculous!
Somewhere in between it all, there are successful drug and alcohol rehabs that are able to demonstrate that addiction can be cured and that permanent recovery is possible. These are the programs that we support.
Tags: addiction recovery, addiction treatment, drug rehabs, treatment facilities
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November 6th, 2009
In its latest Treatment Episode Data set (TEDS) report, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that the criminal justice system was the largest single source of referrals to substance abuse treatment, accounting for 37 percent of all admissions (approximately 671,000 of the 1.8 million admissions).
Five primary substances of abuse accounted for 96 percent of all substance abuse treatments admissions in 2007: alcohol, opiates (including heroin and prescription painkillers), marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Criminal justice system referrals were more likely than all other referral admissions to report primary alcohol abuse, marijuana abuse, methamphetamine abuse, and less likely to report primary opiate abuse.
While it is great to see the criminal justice system doing more referrals for addiction treatment instead of incarceration, it is still disturbing that only about ten percent of all admissions are into inpatient drug rehabs, and only about six percent go into long-term rehab programs. When the recovery method used is then taken into account, the number of people who remain drug-free out of the nearly two million admissions is shocking.
For more information on successful addiction treatment and recovery programs, contact us today by calling 1-877-372-5719.
Tags: addiction treatment, inpatient drug rehabs, long-term rehab programs
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October 30th, 2009
As the disease theory of addiction and other propaganda has been pushed on society more and more to sell ineffective treatments and pharmaceuticals, more centers have jumped on the bandwagon of trying to offer dual diagnosis treatment. The idea is that the addicts have a substance abuse disorder as well as one or more additional mental disorders. What might be most ironic about this is that facilities that promote dual diagnosis treatment believe they are the best and offer the most comprehensive approach, yet the very nature of their argument means that they cannot get results and are therefore ineffective!
For, if you claim that addiction and other mental disorders are incurable diseases, how can you rehabilitate the individual? That’s just it they don’t.
True rehabilitation seeks to return people to the way they were before the substance abuse and other symptoms set in. Successful addiction recovery programs don’t just focus on the symptoms and claim continuous treatment is needed, they help people to put it all behind them forever. This is something we can assist with. Contact us today to find an addiction recovery program that offers effective rehabilitation and join The New Face of Recovery.
Tags: addiction recovery, addiction treatment, dual diagnosis treatment
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October 12th, 2009
Addiction recovery advocates all over the world are tired of having a label pinned on them, yet when they continually say at daily or weekly meetings that they are still an addict, they’re doing it to themselves without even realizing it.
The stigma associated with addiction is far-reaching. It’s not okay to judge someone if they used to have a problem with drugs or alcohol. It’s not fair to hold their past misdeeds against them if they are upstanding citizens today.
Drug addiction is the root cause of many other social problems that we face in our communities. It affects us all in one way or another; therefore it is up to us all to help find solutions for successful rehabilitation and effective prevention. Without these two key elements changing the social norms then this will be an eternal battle of substance abuse ebbs and flows.
Is addiction a disease?
There is no scientific proof that alcohol or other drug addiction is a disease, and certainly not a brain disease. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I have personally met hundreds of people who were former addicts who no longer suffer from the affliction. Some of them were able to do it on their own, and others used tools they learned through effective drug rehabilitation programs.
I also happen to be one of those people. Why was I able to do it? Am I some kind of anomaly? No. I did what these other people did. I realized that I didn’t want to be a dreg of society dragging down my friends and family and drifting closer to death every day. I didn’t want to die. I pulled myself up from my bootstraps, decided to confront life and make it what I wanted it to be. It wasn’t easy for me, and I’m sure it’s not really easy for anyone to overcome, but it can be done and it happens every day. It’s called a willingness to live and, without trying to sound too much like a cliché, learning that you get out of life what you put into it.
Does faith have something to do with it? Maybe. It can for some people, but your life is in your own hands. God didn’t make people addicts. He didn’t force them to do drugs; they decided that on their own, just like they can reach for help and decide to quit on their own. You simply have to make up your own mind to find solutions that help you reach that goal. This simple step alone circumvents any supposed theories of how the brain functions, because the mind is separate from the brain. Our mind stores memories and we use it to make decisions. Our brain is nothing more than the control room for the central nervous system.
Parity
Some lawmakers, doctors and suffering patients feel that substance abuse and other labeled mental health disorders should receive insurance benefits equal to physical diseases. That’s fine. There are benefits and there are drawbacks, but the biggest pushers of substance abuse and mental health parity are the psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies. Why is this? Is it because they want the best for their patients – to receive the best care possible? No. It has absolutely nothing to do with that. It is so they can get paid more. Period. Repeated attempt at addiction treatment is expensive. If insurance companies were mandated by law to cover addiction and other mental conditions then that means the legal drug pushers and the weekly psychotherapists and mental health hospitals now have several billion dollars of additional income – because the tap doesn’t run dry so quickly.
Much of our healthcare system, especially mental health, is based on how long someone is treated. Doctors usually get paid more for not having a well patient. Therefore, when addiction, or depression for that matter, is classified as a brain disease, they have an excuse to continue treating a patient and getting paid for it, repeatedly, without having to get any real results. We should be paying more for treatment that actually works, not paying more for something that doesn’t get any better or gets worse, like the side effects caused by some of the medications today.
Tags: addiction disease, addiction parity, addiction recovery, addiction treatment
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October 7th, 2009
Exerpt from JoinTogether Online – “A federal advisory panel has recommended that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin because of their damaging effects on the liver, the New York Times reported on July 1.
The two popular painkillers combine acetaminophen with a narcotic. High doses of acetaminophen are believed to cause liver damage. The panel noted that, over time, people who take Percocet or Vicodin need to take higher and higher doses of the drugs to receive the same effect.
At least seven other prescription drugs that combined acetaminophen with narcotics also would be banned if the FDA follows the panel’s recommendations.
The FDA asked the advisory panel to meet to address problems arising from the high demand for acetaminophen, which can be found in over-the-counter medicines such as Tylenol and Excedrin. In 2005, Americans bought 28 billion doses of products containing acetaminophen.
Although the medicine treats headaches and relieves fevers, liver damage can be caused in some people even when taking the recommended doses. More than 400 Americans die and 42,000 are hospitalized each year because of acetaminophen overdoses.
The committee also recommended that the FDA reduce the highest allowed dose of the ingredient in over-the-counter products such as Tylenol from 500 milligrams to 325 milligrams and to reduce the maximum daily dosage to no more than 4,000 milligrams.
Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Tylenol, said it “strongly disagrees” with the panel’s recommendations.”…
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Gee, no kidding! You have to take more to achieve the same effect? That’s the case with all drugs once an individual starts to build a tolerance to it. Why they would ban these drugs, but not something like Oxycontin, which kills more than 400 people per year, is beyond my comprehension. But then again, not much the FDA does makes sense.
Prescription painkillers have become one of the biggest substance abuse problems in America in recent years. Literally millions of people in this country are addicted to these drugs in their various forms.
However, there is help available. We can assist you in locating successful inpatient drug rehabs that are extremely effective at helping people achieve permanent recovery from painkiller addiction. Call 1-877-372-5719 today for more information.
Tags: addiction recovery, drug rehabs, painkiller addiction, prescription drug addiction
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