The
most glaring challenges encountered by individuals in Lonny
Shavelson’s Hooked
present themselves almost as paradoxes. The first is the urge to use
drugs for the dual purposes of celebrating one’s successes and as a
cure for feeling upset, anxious, or worried, and as a relief for
depression following an episode of failure. The second is convincing
oneself that it would be beneficial to temporarily resume taking
drugs either as a way to relieve the stresses of attempting to quit
the drug, to test one’s tolerance and find out whether the time
spent without the drug will allow one to return to a consistent but
less intense pattern of drug use safely, or to assert that the use of
the drug is acceptable because going several weeks without drugs is
enough to convince a former hard-core addict that it is almost as if
they no longer do drugs anyway.
One challenge that
seems difficult for a recovering substance addict to overcome is the
sheer availability of drugs and the ease the addicts have obtaining
them. Although she resisted all three temptations, we saw with
Darlene that along with finding drugs by chance comes an urge to
consume them, or else an urge to put them to good use – in a manner
of speaking – i.e. by selling them or giving them away. Another
male mentioned in the book relapsed when his friends offered him free
alcohol and cocaine.
Another challenge is
for a recovering addict to avoid people and places associated with
their patterns of drug use. For many of the addicts mentioned, the
treatment facilities which they were supposed to visit with some
regularity were in or near those parts of town where they knew they
could obtain drugs with little effort or risk and without anyone else
finding out, as in the example of Mike and his connection at the 16th
& Mission BART station, which was two blocks from a treatment
facility.
For Crystal, simply
visiting the facility in her neighborhood was enough to get her
noticed by those individuals with whom she had relatively recently
sold, bought, and consumed drugs. In situations like that, Crystal
would lose control of her refusal skills as she accepts her friends’
offers, and let one thing lead to another. Knowing that ceasing to
take part in such activities may cause friends to disappear or react
with disapproval or condescension could very well have been one of
her causes for relapsing.
Another challenge is
how to remove the desire for using and abusing illicit substances to
self-medicate, that is, cure emotional pain, psychological trauma,
and block out negative memories from a person with a troubled past
who also has multiple and / or severe drug addictions. We see that
Mike suffers from guilt from not preventing the abuse of his sister
as a child, that Glenda had a traumatic experience involving her
mother’s alcoholism-induced death, and that Darlene had been raped
in her adulthood multiple times. Also, we see that both Darlene in
her relationship with William (p. 290) and Crystal in her
relationship with Tony (chapter 12) struggle with abusive
relationships during the time period covered by the book, and it
appears obvious that the drug abuse and addiction of all partners are
likely making those relationships less healthy and less stable.
A challenge that was
evident from Darlene’s experience with the Haight Ashbury Free
Clinic (chapter 14) was how to begin reducing substance abuse and
providing mental health care for a person who does not respond
positively to confrontation. As Dr. Pablo Stewart says during the
clinic’s argument concerning Darlene’s violent gesture at a staff
member (p. 286), “…you learn to calm the clients down, not…
accelerate things until we’ve got to throw them out.” Darlene’s
behavior is often unpredictable, she is blunt about her thoughts and
feelings, and she has no qualms about appearing contemptuous of
people who want to help her curb her drug intake, nor about appearing
less than optimistic about the possibility that any progress can be
made. That is precisely why the methods of a program like Walden
House, which would react to a relapse by Darlene in a way that would
undoubtedly frighten, frustrate, and anger her into never again
returning, is likely to fail when an individual with an extreme case
of substance abuse – in this case, in conjunction with
psychological disorders – requests the help of the program.
The
problems presented in Hooked
that seemed to have obvious solutions were the addicts’ lack of
adequate housing, education and vocational training, and their
non-drug-related health care problems. It seems that if these
addicts’ housing situations, physical fitness, and life skills
could be on par with at least the worst-off citizens who do not
suffer from substance abuse and / or psychological problems, they
would likely be well on their way to recovery, if only they exhibit
optimism, enthusiasm, willingness, perseverance, and patience towards
the programs, substance abuse and mental health counselors, and case
workers that treat and assist them. It also seemed obvious that –
as in Pablo Stewart’s view – it should be imperative that those
programs and professionals coordinate with one another and make
referrals (p. 54).
One
of the most poignant moments of Hooked
comes when Crystal tells the Iris Center that she is there “to work
on the biological, social, psychological, and spiritual issues around
[her] addiction,” followed by the group’s applause (p. 239).
Crystal appeared to have a definite readiness and willingness to
improve and discover herself from relatively early on in the process,
and simply being able to say something like that, especially in front
of a large group of people, is probably an early indicator of
success.
I
appreciated Darlene’s and Mike’s cases the most because of the
controversy they caused, both in the mind of myself as the reader,
and in the minds of people around them. I feel like Mike even
convinced me that he could return to heroin just once more after
going so many months without it, and that he could manage to do it
safely and not do it again. Glenda’s story was also powerful, with
its allusions to disturbing medical conditions, highways littered
with broken bottles, and the blatantly unnecessary despair and
suffering borne by the two individuals, Glenda and her mother, that
is embedded so deeply in the American historical framework.
I
have not had experiences with individuals with such traumatic pasts,
nor such severe addictions or mental problems as those in this book,
but I am not foreign to hearing about such problems. I know a person
who suffers from persistent hallucinations, mild alcoholism, and
post-traumatic stress disorder coupled with emotional issues
resulting from his inappropriate, involuntary commitment to an
abusive boot camp for teenage delinquents. He claims to have recently
sought medication for his alcoholism only to have the health
professional become suspicious that he was being swindled for drugs,
and also claims to have gone to a mental health facility to seek
alcoholism treatment only to be told he may as well submit to being
strapped down for the treatment, and he was threatened by the staff
member that the police would be called if he did not submit to the
staff’s procedure.
Originally written in July 2009 as a college essay
For
more entries on food and drugs, please
visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-opposition-to-hypothetical-excise.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-opposition-to-hypothetical-excise.html
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