I had lunch this week with one of our local judges who volunteers for our drug court. Offenders charged with minor offenses can have their case dismissed if they successfully complete a drug or alcohol treatment program. It is voluntary and this judge believes it is a wonderful program.
It is, with one exception: It treats only substance abuse, which is just one of the mental illnesses that many of these addicts and alcoholics have. The number one reason for relapse among the dual diagnosed is untreated or improperly treated` depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.
When the system cherry picks which mental illness to treat it fails the dual diagnosed addicts and alcoholics who believe it will help them to get clean and sober. When these newly clean and sober addicts and alcoholics get depressed, manic or delusional they grab the only thing they know will give them some relief: drugs and alcohol. They relapse. They can’t understand why they can’t “get it.” They feel like failures. Treatment doesn’t work. Might as well just keep drinking/drugging.
Seven years into my recovery the clouds parted when I was finally diagnosed with depression and bipolar. My life made sense. My drinking and drugging made sense. The diagnoses were not an excuse, but an explanation. We dual diagnosed addicts and alcoholics desperately need that explanation.
Why can’t the judges, attorneys and probation officers understand this? Why do they insist on treating just one mental illness? Why do they think that rehabilitating addicts and alcoholics charged with crimes costs so much money? Don’t they know that the most successful abstinence program ever – the 12 Steps – are FREE? If they would just take the time to LEARN how the 12-Steps work and how other mental illnesses interact with substance abuse, we could prevent so many crimes and so much misery.
All I am asking is this: Educate yourself. Read the 12-Steps. Read the first 168 pages of The Big Book. Then you can ask intelligent questions. Here goes:
- Step 1 – We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable
- Step 2 – Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
- Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
- Step 4 – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
- Step 5 – Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
- Step 6 – Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
- Step 7 – Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
- Step 8 – Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
- Step 9 – Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
- Step 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
- Step 11 – Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out
- Step 12 – Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs
The judge I had lunch with explained that the primary function of the criminal justice system is punishment. It is not a social service agency. There is no “funding” for screening and treatment. The system is drowning in cases. I tried to explain that knowledge is free. But you have to want it. If judges, attorneys, police and probation officers would learn about dual diagnosis, read the Big Book and learn how an addict or alcoholics uses the 12-Steps, they could ask wise questions. Among them:
- 1. Have you ever been treated for or wondered if you have depression, bipolar or any other mental illnesses?
- 2. Have you ever tried or thought about killing yourself?
- 3. Are you doing 90 in 90?
- 4. Do you have a sponsor?
- 5. How often do you call your sponsor?
- 6. How often do you go to meetings?
- 7. What step are you on? When will you start your 4th step?
- 8. What is your home group?
There are plenty of self-screening tools for substance abuse and other mental illnesses. Just ask a defendant to take a quiz. That’s all. You will never know the impact you have had on that addict by just introducing her to the idea that she may also be bipolar or depressed. It may not be as good as a face-to-face screening but it is better than nothing – and costs nothing. We just have to want to do these things. And any addict with tell you, if you want something bad enough, you can get it.
Christine Stapleton has been a reporter for The Palm Beach Post for 26 years and in 2006, began writing a column entitled,
Kicking Depression.
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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (September 8, 2009)
Last reviewed: 4 Sep 2009
APA Reference
Stapleton, C. (2009). Dual diagnosis: There may be no "funding" but knowledge is free. Psych Central.
Retrieved on February 14, 2012, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/depression/2009/09/dual-diagnosis-there-may-be-no-funding-but-knowledge-is-free/
