ADDICTION UNCOVERED

Addiction Experiences From Dr. M.

Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered Ch 21

Hear the voice of everyday people — collection of stories and experiences

by Gabriella Kőrösi, PhD, MN, RN

I have a phone conversation with Dr. M. he works in the addiction field. He tells me that based on his personal as well as his work experience the roots of addiction come from some type of fear.

Fear of a situation, fear of life, fear of not being adequate, not fitting in. Whatever the fear is for the individual. Through fear the response is to numb or take away the fear by using substances.

The substance can be almost anything from alcohol to methamphetamine to heroin. All that Dr. M. had seen is that the underlying cause is fear and people want to numb up this fear and become fearless by taking substances. Initially, he asserts it starts to reduce the fear, then the physiological needs take over. I ask him what he had seen people are fearful of. He tells me it is very individual; he had seen the fear of being inadequate or fear from the future. Fear of what had happened in the past, how to deal with it and the shame and guilt, fear of death, injury, loss.

Dr. M. shares his own journey into an addiction to alcohol and drug abuse.

It initially started with a fear of the future, fear of loss, fear of inadequacy, fear of the health problems of his spouse. He started to cover up with alcohol, then it became an obsession and compulsion. The addiction got worse and worse and he started to have more and more fears.

The addiction was ruining his life, his relationship, his career. There was a point when his wife came to him and told him that he has to stop, or she will leave him. One of his fear was the loss of his spouse and friends and at that point, he turned to get help.

Personally, he found that acceptance of life and what is going on was a key for him. Putting his faith in a higher power and accepting things how they go was helpful for him.

Accepting that there will be losses in life, there will be challenging issues. He believes that the higher power is there to help guide things and give him the grace to deal with things. Dr. M. defines addiction as a compulsive searching out and using substances even though the damage substance is causing. Dr. M. asserts that the individual is responsible for the behavior before the addiction kicks in. Once the addiction took hold it is a compulsion; the individual has to do it.

There is help out there he tells me, and it is the person who is addicted who has the responsibility to seek out help. Once they get help then it is their responsibility to continue in a recovery lifestyle without continuing a behavior that can put them back into addiction. Including being in a recovery lifestyle and avoiding mind-altering substances.

Accepting life on life’s terms.

Dr. M. describes through his own addiction that he had brief moments of sanity where he recognized that what he was doing is not working and he needed help. Most of the time it was not in his mind at all it was just about getting the next dose. On a larger scale, Dr. M. thinks that there should be help available for people with addiction across the board.

The cost for society is losing a societal member and the cost of addiction is too high.

It is the individual’s responsibility to accept the help and accept the recovery lifestyle. It cannot be mandated he said, it is an individual choice. He feels that there is not enough help out there for people now, there is a mix-match of available resources. Part of the problem is lack of funding and another part of is the overuse of resources of a small subset of people.

The societal biases against people who deal with addictions cause people with these problems to hide and not get help. Dr. M. explains that a number of people in society think that addictive behavior is a choice, a moral deficit, something is wrong with this person, they are weak, they are bad or evil and it is not driven by a disease process. Then, the person has blamed not the disease. There is a fine line between the addiction disease and the responsibility of the individual to get help.

The individual does have the responsibility to get help. Dr. M feels education could help change the blaming and stigmatizing mentality. He is not sure how it would look like. People who go through addiction, have this perception of judgement erased, he adds. At that point, they had seen both sides. We start to discuss the medical side of things. Dr. M. asserts that addiction is a disease just like diabetes and heart disease, yet medical insurance only recently started to cover it. The medical insurances however started to dictate the duration and type of treatment, which might not be in the best interest of the client. Dr. M. feels that everyone has a basic right to some level of healthcare.

Dr. M. feels that the U.S. government had not been particularly successful in providing healthcare to U.S. veterans in the VA hospital system. His concern would be if the government totally took over, then healthcare would be run like in the VA hospital system; which is sometimes good and sometimes very bad. He does not trust the government or insurance companies to run it. He tells me that Medicaid pays under market value for all the services, and people only can get services at a small select number of settings. He feels that these services because of the financial constraint are cursory and incomplete. People on Medicaid tend not to go to treatment if it is financed through grants, not through the Medicaid system.

Dr. M. would like to see Medicare and Medicaid paying market rates for treatment. Additionally, looking at results of treatment providers and treatment centers. If the results are not adequate, then people are not getting appropriate treatment and the money is going to places that don’t work well. It is a very complex issue Dr. M. asserts and suggests that looking to other countries might be worthwhile. He feels that the American system is quite broken. We discussed pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and raising prices for essential medications.

Dr. M. gives me examples of Narcan and Epinephrine as essential medications with skyrocketing prices. I personally believe that lifesaving medications need to be very cheap or free including Narcan, Insulin, Vivitrol, Epinephrine for example.

I just saw a documentary on insulin in an episode of Patriot Act. Nobody should make money from insulin. It was practically donated by the inventors and it is very cheap to make. Yet, now people are dying from rationing their insulin or dying because they relapse, and they could not afford Narcan or Vivitrol to prevent relapse or overdose.

Dr. M. also talks about hospitals rising prices and having people pay for services at a higher rate to cover their losses on people who cannot pay rising health care. Medical prices become astronomical. We go back to talk about treatment and its effectiveness. I ask Dr. M. his thoughts on decreased treatment days. He feels that the insurance companies dictate treatment days and it is not very effective because people keep relapsing and going back to treatment multiple times, which becomes very costly. Since this is a chronic disease, the number of times people need to go to treatment is individual. There are people that don’t really want to get clean and just use treatment services for housing and to get better between binge use. There are others who truly want to get clean and after treatment, they get back to their home situation where nothing had changed, and they relapse. I ask Dr. M. what helped him stay sober. He tells me that the first thing is:

” willingness to change and do whatever the professionals tell you to do”.

He tells me that this is very hard for people to admit that they need help. Continue in treatment. Dr. M. has been sober for about 10 years and he still goes and sees an addiction professional every 6–8 weeks to touch base, to get another point of view. He feels very fortunate that his insurance pays for this service.

Not everyone can afford to pay for something like this he adds. Everyone’s story and needs are different he tells me. Not one magic wand would fix all. Certainly. He tells me what does not work. War on drugs is a total failure he feels. Shame and punishment of drug use do not work. Providing treatment for everyone would only work if the individual is willing to do the treatment and willing to make the changes necessary to stay sober.

Acceptance and compassion to other people as everyone has intrinsic worth, do not just throw them away he said.

We are all children of God he adds. It comes down to love thy brother on the second commandment of Jesus. If we just all did that it would certainly solve a lot of life’s problems. He adds that if we just all loved each other instead of saying horrible things about one another life would be much better. We talk about happiness and joy in life. Dr. M feels for some people drugs are an escape from misery and poverty. On the other hand, people with a lot of money including multi-millionaires also get addicted. I ask him about his final thoughts.

Here it is: Just love each other.

Thank you for reading,

Gabriella

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Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered Ch 20

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This book is dedicated to the memory of

Bagóczky József my uncle who died at age 19 — alcohol-related car accident

and to everyone else who has been hurt or lost related to addiction

Many people had been supportive and inspiring to me so I could create this book. Both of my wonderful children told me, just write that book, mom. My mom. I could have not done this without all the stories provided and the encouragement love and caring from my family and friends, nurses, doctors, counselors, teachers, professors, friends who are dealing with addiction and staying sober; and children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers of people who are dealing with addiction currently. Thank you for speaking up, sharing your stories and life experiences. Thank you to all the people who read this book while in progress to provide feedback, ideas, and encouragement for me to continue writing. I would like to say special thanks to my friends and family for believing me and encouraging me to go on.

Front cover acrylic painting created by Andrea Mihaly October 2019

Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered. Hear the voices of everyday people — a collection of stories and experiences.