Reflections on a 20 year
drug career
By Bruce Weik
(The author is a retired
substance abuse counselor, as well as a regular columnist for the Zephyr.)
Part One
The Myth
People have some odd
notions about drugs, drug use, and what can be done about the problem. IÕm
going to be brutally straightforward in discussing the myth, the reality, and
the fix. No
statistics, no fancy theories, just some thoughts, observations and feelings
from 20 years of experience.
THE MYTH: When people think
of drugs, they usually are referring to cocaine (crack), methamphetamine
(meth), and/or cannabis (marijuana, grass, pot). The fact of the matter is,
alcohol, nicotine, and prescription drugs are the most used and abused drugs in
America. The primary reason for this is that they are legal, making them more
widely available. Often, prescription drugs are sold on the street, having been
acquired in a legal manner with a doctorÕs prescription. Combined, the three
cause enormous problems for our society. A good argument against legalizing
drugs.
THE MYTH: Cannabis is a
Ògateway drug.Ó This is something of a half-truth. If youÕre looking for the
major Ògateway drugs,Ó look no further than cigarettes and alcohol. People
usually start their drug careers using one, or both. The research is split
concerning cannabis being a ÒgatewayÓ to more potent drugs. It would appear to
be about a 50/50 argument,
with half the studies saying, maybe cannabis users will move on to other drugs,
and half the studies stating, no, cannabis users are content to stay with
cannabis.
THE MYTH: I can use just a
little bit of a drug, to help get over the rough times. It wonÕt happen that
way. If youÕre using drugs in a habitual manner, whatever drug, you will not be
able to control it. It will control you. It generally speaking always happens
that way.
THE MYTH: Anyone who is
dependent on a drug should be written off as a no good druggie who will never
get over it. IÕve heard that line during my entire career, sometimes from
people you would think should know better. People can get over abusive or
dependent use. IÕve seen many smokers quit, many alcoholics and many drug
addicts quit. But itÕs not easy. The best combination, and most successful one, is treatment
and a support group. No magic, no frills, and a success rate, for long-term
abstinence, of probably around 25%. Any program that claims otherwise is not
using long-term abstinence as a criteria, or is straight-out pulling your leg.
ThatÕs how hard it is. One has to realize, quitting is not an event, it is a
process. A person may need two or five or eight treatments before it sticks.
Relapses are always a possibility. The object is not to beat yourself up, or
the addict, if they relapse, but to help them get back to abstinence as quickly
as possible. Unfortunately, today, money rules. Treatment can be costly, and
nobody today wants to pay, particularly for repeat treatment events. TodayÕs
political and economic climate dictates that it is easier to put a person in
jail or prison than it is to help them get over their addiction. This is one of
our greatest failures as a society.
THE MYTH: Forcing people
into treatment is wrong. Forcing people into treatment is hard on the person
and hard on the counselor, but due to the nature of addiction, it is a
necessary evil. Very few people voluntarily enter drug treatment. WeÕre too
proud, too sure we can beat it on our own. We donÕt like to look at our
weaknesses, and on top of that, the drugs screw up our thinking. The first
treatment episode can be thought of as an introduction to living a drug free
life. Little headway may be made, but the point is that itÕs a start. Without
this start, there will likely be one of three outcomes: Insanity, prison,
and/or death. Remember, recovery is a long-term, lifetime process that requires
lifestyle changes and ongoing support. Entering it with anything less of a
commitment will almost guarantee failure.
THE MYTH: All counselors
and programs are the same. This is an obvious mistake. Like doctors or lawyers
or carpenters, some are better than others. The level of competence one rises
to depends mainly on the initiative of the counselor. Experience is the best
teacher, but young counselors have to start somewhere. The key is to have a
good supervisory system in place, utilizing your most experienced counselors as
teachers, mentors. Unfortunately, today, in many programs, that key element is
missing. The focus has turned to how many people you can see in an eight hour
period, not how good of a job you can do, or what you can teach the younger,
less experienced counselors. Like recovery, building a staff is a process that
takes nurturing, commitment, and guidance. So when looking around, look for
continuity, dedication, and todayÕs new ingredient, a fair price.
ThatÕs some of the myths I
have heard along the way. There are many others. Not everyone will agree with
how IÕve answered some of them. ThatÕs fine. The point is not so much to necessarily
agree with what IÕve said as it is to think about it. Exposing the myths will
prepare us to better deal with The Reality.
Part 2
The Reality
A Òwar on drugsÓ will never
work. Maybe a Òwar on indifference.Ó Perhaps a Òwar on negativity.Ó Or how
about a Òwar on injusticeÓ? But a Òwar on drugsÓ is doomed to failure from the
very start. Because no matter how many drugs you intercept, no matter how many
pesticides you drop on marijuana or poppy fields, or how many walls you build
to keep drugs out, or how many people you put in prison, we will not stop
people from wanting to use drugs. It seems to be human nature, to want to feel
different, to want to feel better, be happier, to wanting to find a shortcut to
answering Òthe great mystery.Ó Drugs fool us into thinking we can Òget there
faster.Ó
IÕve always figured that
life is about finding happiness. Not the tee-hee kind of happiness, but Òthe
happiness,Ó that contentment, satisfaction, love, security, joy, on top of the
world kind of happiness. ItÕs hard to maintain, but IÕm sure you have felt it,
at least at times. That kind of happiness doesnÕt come cheap. Because the path
is filled with challenges, one looks for a shortcut. And there is no more
available hope for immediate satisfaction than drugs. Drugs can take you away
from your troubles, away from the challenges, the pressures, the failures, the
poverty, in a way that nothing else can. ItÕs available, fast, but
unfortunately, unforgiving. The ÒhappinessÓ is short-lived, if at all. What
seems like a heavenly experience soon turns to hell. You find yourself on a
one-way street to nowhere. No one who becomes dependent is spared the trip. Not
the rich, the poor, black, white, female, male, grandma, grandpa, husband,
wife, kids. The line goes straight down.
People look for that high.
While physiologically explainable, a high is pretty much different for every
addicted person. I suppose itÕs not so much that the high is different, as it
is the high is used for different purposes: to forget, to remember, to have
energy, to settle down, for sleeping, for staying awake, to have more sex, to
not want to have sex, to looking for God, to trying to forget God. The reasons
are endless. This is one of the unfortunate problems. There is an easy answer
to ending drug use — simply donÕt use anymore. But there is no easy
answer to why a person used in the first place. This complicates treatment,
making it hard to get at the root causes. But then again, maybe to quit you
donÕt need to get at root causes. Maybe just quitting will suffice.
The high numbs us of our
pain. It transports us to a place we think is good, but turns out bad. As it
ends up, the high can be approached in many non-drug ways. Runners talk about
getting a high. Meditation, yoga, relaxation can get you there. The mountains,
the ocean, the forest, make people feel high. Achievements, accomplishments,
successes, excelling at something — be it playing the guitar, basketball,
quilting, cooking, writing —
a whole host of things can produce this Ònatural high.Ó Of course, you have to
do those things, you have to work at it. ItÕs easier to walk out to the street
corner, go to the bar, or get a prescription that you know youÕre not going to
use correctly. ItÕs faster, itÕs immediate. But itÕs not real.
You can stop one drug only
to find yourself addicted to something else. To gambling. To working. To sex.
To religion. To all the above. Addiction is the mistaken belief that we can
solve our longings for a better life, for a happier life, that we can ÒfixÓ
ourselves, with a drug rather than with Òblood, sweat, and tears.Ó Such a
belief is always a mistake.
The reality is there are
hundreds of reasons why people use drugs. So where does this leave us? How can
we beat something people want so badly? What can we do? Where can we get Òthe
fixÓ?
Part 3
The Fix
So what do we do about drug
use and abuse and sellers? The fix is not as easy to come by as Òthe fix.Ó I can go down to any Main Street,
USA and have what I need within ten–fifteen minutes. The same holds true
for Galesburg as holds true for Springfield or Chicago. You can get any drug
you want, at AliceÕs Restaurant.
While itÕs hard to pin down
why a person may use drugs, there is no such mystery surrounding why they are
sold. They do it for the money. ItÕs easy money, although a career fraught with
danger. As it works out, in a recent study done in Chicago, the easy money
theory is not all itÕs made out to be. Taking into account the time street
sellers spend buying, selling, defending their territory, and bailing
themselves out of trouble, they made about minimum wage. And oddly enough, most
of the drug dealers continued to live with their mothers, long after they
should have departed. Over the short haul, drug dealing looks to be lucrative.
But like drug using, drug dealing is not going to work for long. ItÕs a
downward spiraling career choice, full of myths and misinformation about how it
can take you from a miserable existence to one of glamour. It wonÕt. We need to
expose that myth.
Putting drug sellers in
prison is for the most part an unending process. You break the law, obviously
you should pay. ThatÕs how it works. But the penalties need to be reasonable.
The Òmandatory sentences, three strikes youÕre outÓ mentality is wrong. Every
situation is different. We need to allow for that. Granted, this takes some
judgement and commonsense. That shouldnÕt be too much to ask from our judicial
system.
Drug users are another
story. Addiction is a disease. It can be helped. It should not be a crime to be
an addict. If thereÕs to be a sentence, it should be to treatment, not to
prison. There should be conditions, but they need to be realistic. We know
addicts for the most part are going to relapse. We know they are not going to
be happy, being forced into treatment. We know theyÕre going to have a hard
time finding a job, particularly if they have a criminal record. We know they
will do whatever is necessary to protect their addiction and livelihood. The
conditions under which treatment needs to occur need to be enormously flexible.
Unfortunately, most treatment programs, and the legal system, are enormously
inflexible.
Cannabis use should be
decriminalized. Make no mistake, there are problems with chronic, long-term
use. But remember, there are problems with chronic, long-term use of alcohol
and nicotine. If we were to judge on sheer problems generated, those two would
have to go first. The evolution of drug use, with the advent of crack cocaine
and meth, has made cannabis use something of a non-issue. Still, cannabis is
the number one targeted drug in our ÒWar Against Drugs.Ó Our prisons are full
of minor drug users and sellers. We need to radically change our approach. IÕm
not convinced that cannabis use should be legalized, but I am firmly convinced
that we need to make its use less of a crime, perhaps a misdemeanor. It would
take some serious thinking, but the discussion needs to take place.
So, to summarize:
1. Try to get reasonable information about drugs, drug use, and drug
sellers. Remember, everyone is giving you their biased viewpoints. Gather
information from various sources. Look to see that it is presented in some
substantiated way. IÕve given you personal information in this three part series,
backed for the most part by my twenty year career in alcohol and drug
counseling.
2. In life, there are givens. One seems to be that we all want to
somehow feel better, be happier. Drugs of all kind afford us that opportunity.
They provide us with a shortcut, we think, to the promised land. Drug use, and
consequently abuse, will never go away, mainly, as I see it, for that reason.
There would be no drug problems, or sellers, if people didnÕt want drugs. It is
a problem that needs ongoing review and a constant push for innovative
solutions.
3. Drug abuse and dependence can be overcome. The best combination to
date is treatment and ongoing support. Remember, it may take repeated
treatment, and the support may be needed for a lifetime. But recovery is
possible.
4. We need to rethink how we treat addicted people. Prison is not an
answer.
5. We need to decriminalize cannabis.
6. And finally, we need to each take the responsibility for showing our
young people that life can be fulfilling, rewarding, and happy, in a
non-drugged way. That we are capable of facing the world without the use of
drugs. If parents do not model this type of behavior for their children, the
cycle of addiction will continue to grow. No prevention in the world will
overcome them watching us attempting to make our lives better by using drugs.