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Wired In envisions a community that enables individuals to access the tools they need to support their own Recovery and the Recovery of others. Wired In envisions a safe and welcoming environment where knowledge and experience, celebration and loss, lessons learned and mistakes made can be shared openly.
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What a week! I am continuously surprised by the differences in attitudes to treatment and recovery throughout the country.
As I have previously mentioned, I have had the delight of working in parts of the country that truly welcome diverse approaches to treatment, and recovery areas that do not use worst case scenarios as an obstacle to providing a service for PEOPLE to get the help they need now.
I work at a detox centre for alcohol and drugs which firstly detoxes people and then starts them on a journey of recovery. One that has a criteria of placing people back into local services, or an ongoing package of recovery… detox alone is not enough.
We have the beds, the qualified staff and a programme that will and has done exactly that for a limited number of people through some commissioned services – but unfortunately not enough.
It seems to me that we have a system that will only recognise an alcohol dependency when it has reached the point of the onset of severe physical complications. These conditions are often life-threatening and brought on through alcohol abuse.
Therefore, enforcing the need for a hospital admission at that point and only really treating the medical complication – not what has now become the secondary issue of the alcohol dependency – by providing a detoxification to stablise the patient whilst in hospital. Then discharging the patient once the medical condition has been treated.
What happened to the cause? Has it been lost somewhere?
I was recently talking to a senior practitioner within a hospital setting, who readily admitted this. He stated that it causes them, the NHS, no end of frustration, as they know at best they have only provided a stop gap for the individual.
This often makes the alcohol problem worse. The patient is often then sent home with a small supply of detox medication and no follow up to treat the alcohol problem or at best a referral for some time in the future.
The staff concerned know they are going to see that same patient back within a short period of time, dealing with the same medical complications brought on by continued use of alcohol.
Am I being naive to think that a detox centre is actually there to deal with the addiction/dependence and not the life threatening illness… there is probably a contradiction in terms somewhere there? In some cases, an onward referral to a psychiatric ward is actioned, the SCAN Project Consensus already identified this as not best practice.
Why can’t there be an onward referral from the hospital to a detoxification centre? You never know, it might even help the revolving door senario for some patients in both treatment for their addiction and the admissions for emergency acute patients within the NHS.
My point is that some people will need to have the medical complications addressed within the NHS system. It is actually designed to manage acute conditions and then detox should be sought once these conditions are addressed. A full detox and recovery journey initiated, if we talk about holistic care.
Equally, a lot of people seek a detox before the onset of further complications but are not deemed severe enough to warrant placement.
The funding available for organisations like ours and the cost of providing full medical cover do not marry up. Can a detox centre be expected to provide the type of medical cover, equipment and resourses needed to manage both acute cases brought on by alcohol dependence and safely manage the detox at the same time?
At one end of the argument we are asked to cover worst case scenarios, but we are not provided with the needed expertise or budget to do so.
In some ways, the expectation from services such as ours is to provide a greater staffing level than the staffing level for the acute care of these conditions in hospital settings.
A detox should address the detoxification and dependence in the physical and psychological sense. If it only addresses the dependence by dealing with the physical dependence, it is not in the long run going to provide anything more than a stop-gap solution itself.
It was recently put to me that this is all I am being asked to deal with, which shocked me. It seemed like I was being rebuked for trying to offer more.
Instead, we offer a medically managed detox regime to safely manage the detoxification with a psychological component and input that is designed to both inspire hope and purpose back into people’s lives and has fed people into a new journey of recovery.
Is that wrong? Or am I just getting frustrated again?
I have spent many years watching people (me included), organisations, commissioners, practitioners and 12 Steppers bang their own various drums and argue about treatment, 12 Steps, Fellowship and recovery.
So locked into their own points of views or opinions that they actually lose the point of what most of them have tried to do in their own communities.
I have personally banged a 12 Step drum. We have to remember the literature – its founders left it to the individual to decide whether that way of life had anything to offer. Ironic, as I spent many years tearing it apart as well from about the age of 13.
A confirmed athiest and dad hater (he was weak and couldn’t drink). I was in my own ‘I know best’ era and I wasn’t gonna be like dad, oh yes. Resentment – the word still doesn’t quite seem to catch the depth of hate and envy I had for the man.
At 25, I knew nothing but pain, hurt, humiliation, shame, guilt and alcohol.
At 27, beaten badly, reality came. I wasn’t living. Fellowship, recovery, responsibility – humility – work – some peace, contentment – pride, and not the false kind, with no trace of hatred.
At 29/30, I knew best attitude in a different form. Cock sureness – arrogance – discomfort – fear – increasing isolation – separation from all that works. And more – pain – shame – guilt – alcohol and drugs. Well, alcohol wasn’t enough now by itself. It didn’t work. Not that it did with my particular cocktail, couldn’t stop anyway.
I couldn’t drink enough to forget that I didn’t need to drink. There was another way!
Five years later I was on my knees with more baggage than the earlier 27 years had provided altogether. I couldn’t blame dad this time! It was all my fault. I’m a fraud – I should know better – and pure self hatred. GOD, how did I get there again? Well, I think it might have something to do with the ‘I knew best’ attitude? Spot the contradiction?
A MOMENT OF CLARITY. It was more than that, someone knocked me off my stolen bike, thankfully. In those five years, I knew exactly what I was doing, now that was insanity.
A decade later, a decade clean and sober, I work with people like me and I don’t care how they get well. It has to be a choice they both make and work.
Yes, I have a way that has worked for me, TWICE. And it works for others, if they work it. If not, I will work with them anyway and some have got well.
I have met people who have found different routes to a happy, purposeful and contented life. Does that spell recovery?
Some years ago, someone had the afront to call me closed-minded. I thought about it and indeed I was putting my blinkers back on. Thank you, I am grateful.
I am still in the fellowship. I find meetings that are right for me and people seem to find me and my message without banging a drum.
I had the pleasure of meeting someone recently who talked a SMART recovery. He had a lasting impact on me by his humility and sense of responsibility. There was nothing he said that insulted me or the fellowship.
Thankfully, I didn’t judge. I was very happy to see someone else released from addiction and in recovery.
I think that is the point. Isn’t anything else a judgement?
Brendan Georgeson