Thursday, March 26, 2015

PINBALL



Discussions about Substance Use Disorder in its various guises often include ideas about “Rock Bottom”. The notion being that sooner or later the afflicted have to experience a life altering eventoverdose, incarceration, getting kicked out of school, losing a job, getting kicked out of home, to name a fewthat shocks them into lasting change. Our family, too, heard this advice from multiple sources while our son, William, struggled with his use of heroin and we struggled to cope and understand.

The problem is this. The rocks at the bottom are strewn with dead bodies, including that of my son. Death is rock bottom. Anything else is just a serendipitous, albeit uncomfortable, landing on an outcropping on the way down. It may be a tough climb back. There may be other falls. But it’s not death.

I have recently come up with the idea of writing a letter to everyone who helped treat William along the tortuous descent to his rocky demise. I want to ask them whether his death has given them any cause to reflect upon his treatment. If so, what have they learned? Big ideas or tiny changes in practice? What change might they like to bring about so that others might not only avoid his fate, but actually entertain a productive lifelong recovery?

My suspicion is that very few, if any, have reflected much on William and his treatment. Given a lack of time or effort devoted to reflection, I suspect precious little, if anything, has been learned. I am talking about good, well-intentioned people who have dedicated their lives to important work. But is it work so trapped in orthodoxy of practice, work so mired in bureaucracy, that it leaves little time for introspection? How much are those who treat substance use disorder just like those they hope to cure, repeating the same behavior over and over? We ask addicts to look at what they do. We need to ask treatment providers to take a harder look at what they do. Or how about, just a look. 

Recovery is like a pinball machine. Up at the top somewhere, protected by bumpers and barriers is a target, prolonged recovery, hit sometimes by good luck, sometimes by good management. Your ball may land in a hole temporarily and then get spit back into play again. That’s Emergency Rooms or the court system. Points off for the court system. You might get lucky and hit a treatment gizmo that puts two balls in playone for substance use and one for mental health issues. Your ball may just get swallowed up for a while before reappearing somewhere by surprise. That’s insurance coverage. Or relapse. Points off. The ball may disappear down a hole until it pops up in the starting mechanism. You pull back, let go and start over. Inpatient or outpatient. Or relapse. Points deducted. Up toward the top are some flippers to keep you in play. Methadone. Suboxone. Side bumpers bounce you repeatedly into the center of the game. 12 Steps. DO NOT TILT! The lights flash, the bells go off and you do your best to tune out the frenzy in a game slanted downhill. Over time too many balls roll through that last set of flippers and disappear. Rock Bottom. Game Over.

So why don’t we tilt the table? Why don’t we take the whole game and flip it on its end so that all the balls roll toward WINNER!

I can hear someone calling me a bitter, unrepentant enabler right about now. Unwittingly, or even knowingly, maintaining the status quo. I’m tilting the table. Family members are hardly the only enablers, however quickly blame may come our way. When physicians, medical schools, therapists, Twelve Step programs, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, inpatient and outpatient treatment providers, politicians, judges, drug courts, police, schools and colleges take a good hard look at themselves and ask how they enable addiction, how their actions and ignorance perpetuate it, then we’ll have taken a step toward a solution. We can’t expect answers and solutions when we resist even asking the questions necessary to solve the problem. I’M FLIPPING THE GAME! Who’s joining me? 




5 comments:

  1. Not to be disrespectful, I am mother of a heroin addict. and it has progressed, in five years.. How can we flip the game?

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    1. I don't find you disrespectful at all. I DO sense your deep frustration. You've already begun to flip the game by responding and reaching out. The more we, as parents of children suffering from this disease, talk to one another, the more we can begin to determine priorities and act on them. That's one reason I write as much as I do - to help draw people out. Are you aware of the CRAFT approach for families helping someone with Substance Use Disorder in their midst? It's one way to start flipping the game. Stay in touch. Use my contact information to help share. Thanks for responding.

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  2. Thanks for this writing - which I did not see when it was posted last year but was recently shared by Maia Szalavitz. I am so sorry for your loss, which surely is a loss sustained by all of us, every time the despair and merry-go-round of treatment dysfunction takes over. You describe the whole thing so aptly. We are a family of educators, and we have learned so much.

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    1. Thank you for your kind thoughts Faith. I, too, am an educator. With so much new work to do in order to bring about change in addiction education, awareness, and treatment.

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