Also listened to Christie yesterday talking about his collgege buddy who had everything and ended up dying of an an overdose of Percoset at 50.
Great story accept one thing....he stated halfway through the story that they (him and his classmates from college) tried to help his friend but “there was just no help there”.
Total BS, there is help all over the place if you want it but it is only successful if the addict/alcoholic has a sincere desire to change. Christie falls into the same trap that liberals often do, they always assign the blame to “society” rather than on the person responsible.
Rehab, AA etc are highly available and successful but only if the abuser truely wants the help.
It is true that AA and NA are free and available to anyone who wants it and it works for many, but sometimes alcoholics and addicts need to detox and rehab for a time, especially for those who have dual diagnosis such as severe depression or those who are bi-polar- they may also need medications and therapy for underlying issues – something that AA or NA can’t give them.
But unless you have a really good health insurance plan that covers in patient addition treatment at at least 80%, most are way too expensive for most – a 7 day detox is expensive but a 60-90 day rehab, even if covered by insurance, is way too expensive for most. At best they usually get is 48 hour psych hold but only if they were arrested for a DUI and or are suicidal or a threat to others.
True story. I was good friends with a woman I knew from AA and Al-Anon. She had been sober for over 15 years, had been very active in AA and sponsored many, helped many, but she relapsed after her very painfull divorce. Unknown to me, her family, other friends and her work, she was drinking heavily but was still functioning enough that no one really knew. She had also started to have increasing thoughts of committing suicide.
One day on a weekend, she developed a very severe tooth abscess with a high fever and went to the ER because the pain had become unbearable and her dentist didn’t have emergency or weekend hours.
While there, especially after her blood test came back positive for alcohol and that she also had a very high BP, she told, finally confessed to the ER doc about her relapse, her heavy drinking and her increasing thoughts of committing suicide and asked him if he could help her – and this was difficult for her to do but she was desperate for help and even asked the ER doc if she could get a psyche consult.
And what did he do?
After telling her to “well just don’t drink anymoreâ€, he gave her a prescription for lithium to help with any withdrawal symptoms, and an antibiotic and then also Percocet for the tooth pain, telling her to follow up with a dentist on Monday and then sent her home.
After getting home, she called several rehab centers but none could take her right away as they had no available beds or they were not covered under her insurance plan and some, many wanted thousands of dollars up front. She called her former AA sponsor and she only told her that she should just pray and go to a meeting.
Very despondent, two days later after going to work and then to the dentist who gave her an Rx for Oxycodon, even after she told him that she was an alcoholic and suffered from depression, she downed two bottles of wine, all of the lithium and all of the Percocet, half of Oxycodon along with another Rx for a muscle relaxer she’d been given for lower back pain several months earlier. The only reason she didn’t die was that she emailed a rambling email to a close relative, not exactly a suicide letter but disturbing enough that her relative tried to call her and after she didn’t answer, called 9-11 and drove to her house. She was taken by ambulance to an ER and diagnosed with a drug OD and was then sent to a psyche ward for a 48 hour hold, but with no real treatment or any follow up plan after her release except for and Rx for anti-depression meds.
She was fortunate to recover and get back to AA and also find a good psychiatrist and then a therapist specializing in dual diagnosis to treat her alcoholism and her depression and a new AA sponsor who had been what she’d been through, but a lot, way too many are not so fortunate.
We as a society and sadly a lot of medical professionals do not do a very go job of knowing how to treat alcoholics and drug addicts even when they do ask for help.