Those who specialise in the treatment of alcoholism or drug dependence know that it is not easy to treat alcoholics and addicts together. We do.
The most important British study of the decade, at an eminent London hospital, followed up one hundred alcoholics from stable family and work backgrounds at six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four months after hospital in-patient treatment. It showed that by the two-year mark there was a 100-per-cent relapse rate: all the patients so treated had gone back to drinking over this period. A recent important ten-year follow-up at a number of London drug clinics showed that 53 per cent of addicts had either died or continued to be maintained on drugs. Only 38 per cent were abstinent from illegal drugs.
Our treatment results are much better. Our follow-up studies over five years include all patients, even those who did not fully complete treatment with us. Patients in the study ranged from very disturbed young addicts to alcoholics in their sixties. All patients were followed up at six-month intervals for five years after treatment.
Conservatively, fifty out of every hundred patients were totally abstinent. A further
twenty-five had had a relapse, usually of short length after leaving the clinic, but had gone back to abstinence, successfully continued in recovery and improved the quality of their lives.
These short-term relapsers were often the young and impulsive addicts or alcoholics. Though persuaded that they had a drink and/or drug problem, nevertheless they made one final effort to prove the treatment wrong. Their relapse instead acted as a final convincer that abstinence from all mood-altering chemicals was the only answer.
A final twenty-five addicts and alcoholics relapsed after treatment and had to be
re-hospitalised or «required further long-term treatment. Among these were many who had left treatment early.
These results show that treating alcoholics and addicts is not a waste of time or money, and that, with the right treatment, a high degree of success can be expected. Some patients, indeed, have an even better prognosis. Referrals from employers or unions with a policy of treatment and support for alcoholism and drug dependence, instead of dismissal or covering up the problem, can expect a 75-80-per-cent recovery rate without any relapse.
Treating alcoholics and addicts has great rewards. We see them arrive for treatment as sick, miserable people, leading destructive lives; but as their recovery progresses they become happy, stable, achieving people, full of life.
Change is the key that turns misery into a walking miracle.
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Anti-Smoking
