Drug and Alcohol Treatment

I once saw a biography of former first lady Betty Ford, who, after hiding her depression and loneliness with alcohol and prescription drugs (and hiding her addiction), found that when push came to shove getting recovery and opening her own drug and alcohol treatment center worked wonders on the self-esteem, the self-worth, and the self-survival process. Learning about drinking wine is especially beneficial in understanding what drinking responsibly is and how much more you can actually enjoy the wine or even beer and spirits more once you know what to look for and how to savour it more.

Once Mrs. Ford outed herself, she gave license to other celebrities to acknowledge, get help for, and heal from their own private addictions.  And at the same time that Lady Ford was establishing a drug and alcohol treatment center for the well-to-do, those of us who could not afford such expensive recoveries were using the longstanding clinics, therapies, and twelve-step programs that worked for millions. Most of this abuse is through a complete lack of knowledge about what we drink and why.

In other words, when seeking drug and alcohol treatment, we have literally hundreds of options (as another show airing that same week revealed, for example, with its intervention efforts to get bulimics to clinics, speed freaks to intervention centers, and alcoholics to recovery facilities across the nation).

We are blessed with alternatives; alternatives in the sense that for some, drug and alcohol treatment centers with tough love, confrontation-style approaches are the only things that will kick our butts into change, while for others the kid-glove treatment of therapists is necessary to our growth, and for still others the rough and ready rigors of a 12-step program such as Narcotics Anonymous (NA) or Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is the only way to heal.

There’s no need to begrudge the upper class, the wealthy, the elite for having a “different” or “better” program than we mere mortals have.  The fact is that one type of drug and alcohol treatment program that costs thousands and another drug and alcohol recovery system that is cheap or free has nothing to do with quality of recovery.  What works for the individual is what is important, and how one works his or her program is imperative.

That is, in one recovery system the premise is that an addict or alcoholic (or both) should go to the same lengths to get recovery as he or she went to get loaded.  Following this formula of sorts, then, Robert Downey Junior will spend a few grand to heal from the extravagant binges he has fallen prey to, John Doe, the truck driver who succumbed to lifting TV sets and stereos to get a fix will now volunteer his time at a music school to get himself “fixed”. And who will be back at the program first?...... probably not John Doe. If a person has been to rehab then a wine gift basket would probably not be appreciated so a food gift basket would!

In the end it all works out to reveal we are all similar; we all have a disease that needs to be squashed, and we all have to work at using it for it to work.  Or to echo one sentiment (developed by way of Mr. Bill and Dr. Bob (founders of AA), “There are no big shots or little shots.  One shot, and we’re all shot.”