People and the families of drug or alcohol abusers who contact me to enter our drug-free detox and rehab program are spilling their stories of grief to me daily. This caller's information doesn't even make me blink anymore.
He's been to 6 different programs, all 12 Step, 3 medical. They put him on wellbutrin, concerta, celexa, zyprexa. Oh, he's also ADHD and Bi-polar. We just don't know what to do with him anymore.
This mother is calling for help. She was given 'help' by the 3 other centers that put him on the above meds. One has to ask: Is this rehab or 'pill stacking'? Pill stacking is the use of multiple drugs to get intoxicated.
Addiction medicine may be becoming an underground racket that swells with 'off-label' use of prescription drugs. Off-label means the pharmaceuticals weren't tested and approved for use in treating addictions. The doctors aren't being stopped by the checks and balances of the industry as it's so wide spread. Drug doctors are protected by anonymity: 'If everyone is doing it, it looks usual or right'.
Family of addicted loved ones call me, who have been to a medical drug rehab program, and are on more drugs after going to rehab than before they entered. Why? This doesn't sound right to me.
Rehabilitation means:
Returned back to normal or right condition again. To make healthy again.
If addictions medicine is busily medicating symptoms, are they also creating drug-free clear headed people? Yet, a rehab center that tries to do it's best has to lay down a rock solid 'drug-free' policy, as so many abusers are coming in from other rehabilitation programs loaded up on meds for their newly diagnosed disorders. Some disagree, yet, those white coats and Doctorate certificates inspire much confidence. Is their certainty well founded?
In British Columbia, Canada, Rx pharmacare billed out over $1 billion in one year. That province has the population of maybe Oregon and Idaho. FYI about $60 billion was spent on marketing pharmaceuticals in the US in one year. Doctors get free lunches, expensive dinners, golf vacations etc. for writing the most prescriptions for a specific drug or pharmaceutical company. Off label Rx writing by doctors accounts for much of these incentives.
If you are still wondering why your son or daughters addiction isn't being cured, follow the money.
The drug rehab industry is getting a bit of a bad repute, due to increasing numbers of drugs being pushed at addicts as the next wonder drug for recovery. My main job as a rehab consultant has been working to convince mothers and fathers that there is nothing wrong with their kids; they don't have defective genes.
The only thing wrong is that they have been sold a new pill for a pill. I tell parents, essentially, that their kids may not have had an honest try at rehab yet. That's the primary job of helping people truly recover from addiction. First, you start by telling the truth about rehab. That's the honest road to recovery, and I don't know of a better one.
Before going down the road of addictions medicine, one should really get in touch with a consultant familiar with the industry of addiction. The rehab industry may have more to do with addiction than getting people off of drugs.
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