Thursday, November 19, 2009

What does modern drug treatment look like?

Well, if we're to be honest, modern drug treatment looks a lot like what the Pat Moore Foundation does in Orange County. That is, takes the things we've learned about addiction and its treatment over the years and apply them in a caring and sensitive environment. The first and most obvious point that we've had to grasp to move into this modern world is that addicion is a disease, a disease that requires treatment. Once we had in fact grasped that we could then move on to trying to work out what was the best form of treatment for it.

That best form though has proven highly elusive. It seems that there is no one best treatment: other than the best being whatever gives the best outcome for the specific individual. Drug treatment is as if there were five, eight, ten different treatments for a cold and you didn't know which one was going to work best until you actually started treatment. So we've learnt further that to be effective a treatment house needs to be able to offer all those treatments which have proven successful for some. This will range from near entirely medical interventions through to therapy and yes, the 12 step program first worked out by AA. As each individual is different so is the treatment they will respond to.

The final seriously important thing that we've worked out about drug treatment is that it is often not the only problem. We thus recognize dual diagnosis as being an important point. Not just, "what are they addicted to?" but also why are they addicted? Is there, whether physical or psychological, another problem that also needs to be dealt with as part of the treatment?

Click through any of the links to find out more about what a modern addiction program looks like.

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