How To Rid Yourself Of Drug Addiction: Final Part:

THE TRAINING ROUTE

AND

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS.

Any addict who has just finished an assisted drug free withdrawal, as described in Part ONE of this post series, although no longer taking drugs or suffering from severe cold turkey effects, will normally feel a little shaken, and so may need to be stabilised in the “here and now” with a few locational training routines, something which takes a matter of hours rather than days.

Then the next two training steps are designed to ensure that his or her PREVIOUS DRUG USE HISTORY, in both body and mind terms, will no longer provide a basis for a return to drug usage.

Drug trips and cold turkey experiences both impinge on an addict's body and mind to a greater or lesser degree, and leave lasting problems which need handling.

Drug metabolites and toxic drug residues are stored or lodged in the fatty tissues of the body, and, under circumstances such as heavy physical work, intensive exercise, hot weather or other sweat generating activity (which can cause a breakdown of body fat) can be released back into the bloodstream and restimulate a demand for the drug, causing an unexpected and otherwise inexplicable 'trip' or 'high'.

To avoid this, it is therefore necessary to ensure that all these metabolites and toxic residues are discharged from the body under controlled sweating circumstances in a sauna, which action is supplemented by carefully measured vitamin and mineral dosages to combat any risk of that discharge creating circumstances where the body might again be prompted to alter its metabolism towards demand for more drugs.

After the addict has thus purged his or her body of all such metabolites and residues (quite incidentally including other stored poisons such as fertilisers, insecticides, hormones, weed-killers / herbicides and other agricultural, industrial and cleaning chemicals, etc.) a similar flushing out from the mind of irrational computations and weird decisions based on drug demands or drugged reactions is essential, to avoid such irrationalities influencing future decision making.

Like all recovery training, this step is done with another student “twin” or training partner both of which alternate as “Coach” and “Student”. i.e. the Coach learns what is required and then applies it with the Student who, when completed, then becomes the Coach, learns what is required and then helps his or her “twin” to also complete that step.

You will recognise that, at this point, the recovering addict (or Student) is not only comfortably no longer using any addictive substance, but that additionally he / she is now protected against a return to drug usage generated by both physical, mental and emotional demand factors which are part of his or her own personal addiction history.

The next steps therefore include learning to protect him or her self against FACTORS IN HIS OR HER PRESENT TIME & FUTURE ENVIRONMENT, especially including suppressive individuals in that environment, as well as lifestyle agreements he or she might earlier have made, and which they are now able to start recognising can contribute to a relapse into further drug usage - if they don't change those agreements.

Amongst other “return home” preparations covering lessons in communication and perception, morals, ethics, personal values and integrity, how to change conditions and other Graduation requirements, this includes training the Student to certainty on the sane and healthy living precepts contained in the famous booklet: “The Way To Happiness”, written by L. Ron Hubbard, and of which millions of copies have been distributed by government bodies and police forces around the world and in numerous languages.

Because Students are fully trained and have successfully, over a three month period, applied his or her training to themselves, as well as to their twins, their level of conviction and certainty is high enough to render them increasingly “self-determined” in their attitude to drugs, addiction and life in general,

In fact, 50 years of practice show that a Student who abstains for 12 months is extremely unlikely to use drugs ever again.  (Even an addict who has completed the first few of the above training steps can often thereafter comfortably abstain.)

Recovery is not about temporary “relief”.  It is about lasting relaxed abstinence.  It is not the “dry drunk” reformed alcoholic who continuously yearns for a drink, or the recently rehabilitated “one day at a time” ex-addict who has to continuously grit his teeth, bolster his resolve and walk on the other side of the road whenever he sees a former friend who is still using, or to avoid a pusher he once bought from.

No . . . . True recovery is about relaxed abstinence – the same condition as before the individual first used – and is defined by effective recovery training programmes as follows:

Any truly workable method of drug recovery training or rehabilitation must start with an UNAMBIGUOUS expression of an effective result, and successful rehabs hold that the only logical and compassionate goal for rehabilitation is ‘lifelong comfortable abstinence’, and practical experience has shown the best working definition to be:

A FULLY EMPLOYABLE FORMER ADDICT OR USER WHO:

i) since commencing a self-help ‘training for recovery’ programme has NOT used his or her original addictive substance(s) for a period provably of not less than six to twelve months, (depending on the drug(s) used and the period of usage),

ii) who remains fully convinced that (s)he will comfortably abstain for life,

iii) who has not replaced such earlier usage with another addictive substance, (e.g. methadone, alcohol or Subutex, etc.),

iv) who is now taking responsibility for his or her own life and family,

v) who no longer needs or wants further rehabilitative support, and,

vi) who is now also taking responsibility for, and is contributing to, his or her community.

It makes sense for any providers of self-help addiction recovery training and rehabilitation to have a goal for the programme they are offering.  If they don’t have a target to aim at, how can they ever know that they and their patient / client are winning and making progress.

Without a lasting abstinence goal, WHAT CAN POSSIBLY BE THE PURPOSE for spending time, money and effort on a rehab’s particular “treatment” or “counselling”?

SO, when seeking an effective recovery programme, it makes sense to always ask for and insist upon a clear expression – preferably in writing – of the intended purpose and goal of any particular programme.

Obviously, because cases differ, not every patient will attain that goal, but if the executives of a rehab organisation under consideration do not claim or cannot prove that at least half and up to three-quarters of their patients attain such an expressly stated valuable goal, is there any sense in signing a contract which offers results weighted in favour of failure rather than success?

In fact the acid test of any rehabilitation centre's ability to deliver lasting abstinence is to enquire if they are prepared to, AT LEAST IN PART, accept remuneration on a “Payment by Results” basis – medically tested against at least six months of relaxed abstinence from the date of commencement of their programme.

Around the world in 49 countries there are approaching one hundred residential self-help addiction recovery training centres (including prison units), and the number of such centres has increased practically every year since 1966.

If you live in the United Kingdom and would like to receive

a free copy of:

“The Way To Happiness” booklet, simply e-mail your name,

street address, town or city and Post Code to keneck@btinternet.com.

S.A.F.E. Is A Not-For-Profit Community Support Group Formed In 1975.

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How To Rid Yourself Of Drug Addiction: Part ONE:

CHOOSING THE RIGHT WAY

TO HANDLE YOUR HABIT AND

TO SUIT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES.

Although, in order to maximise sales of their own addictive products, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies have been telling government, for over 80 years, that substance addiction is basically incurable, the fact remains that since the 1930s, around the world, millions of drink and drug addicts are known to have successfully escaped from the addiction trap by one of three main ways.

To fully appreciate the above statement, it is necessary to recognise that psycho-pharmaceutical so-called “treatment” in the form of OST (Opioid Substitution Therapy) is NOT a cure for addiction !  It is merely a system of moving a drug addict from an illegal supply of drugs to a legal supply, in the vain hope of taking the addict out of a life of crime by giving him free supplies, paid for by the U.K. taxpayer, and costing the N.H.S. £8.46 BILLION EVERY YEAR !

However the famous and authoritative “BIG ISSUE in the North” August 1999 report titled: “Drugs at the Sharp End” provided adequate proof that OST methadone and buprenorphine “treatments” seldom if ever work to procure crime reduction or lasting relaxed abstinence, and some time later the National Treatment Agency (now Public Health England) admitted that OST worked long-term in only 3% of cases – interestingly the same success rate as natural withdrawal with advancing age.

THE THREE MAIN WAYS TO WITHDRAW AND THUS START CURING ONESELF OF SUBSTANCE ADDICTION ARE:

12 STEPS:

The system of mutual support established in 1935 by a group of alcoholic American business men and professionals, plagued with drinking problems sufficiently serious to be ruining their businesses and their family life.

Known originally as “A.A.” (Alcoholics Anonymous) 12 Steps has since expanded to successfully encompass those suffering from Heroin and Cocaine addictions, and all these forms of “anonymous” groups can now be found in most towns and cities around the western world and, in addition, many residential rehabilitation centres deliver 12 Steps on a professional basis over a period of weeks or months before sending a “cleaner” but usually not yet fully cured addict out to continue at his or her local 12 Steps group.

It is reported that some 20 to 30% of 12 Steps practitioners succeed, usually in a period of nine to 36 months or longer, during which time they will successfully and with guts and mutually supported determination, stop using and “one day at a time” fight the effects of “cold-turkey”, or gradually reduce their addictive consumption.

Although 12 Step Groups are basically free of cost, 12 Step Residential Rehabs charge fees dependent mainly upon the quality of the accommodation, service and meals, etc. As a consequence, professionals and business men tend initially to go to a rehab, whilst those of lesser financial means tend to rely solely upon their local group activities.

Whilst reliance on a “higher power” is included in most 12 Steps programmes, no further technical physical or mental steps are indicated, so that the high possibility of reverting to drug usage caused by the presence of metabolites and toxic drug residues in the body, along also with irrational drug influenced decisions in the mind, are in no way dealt with. 

SMALL DOSE STEP DOWN WITHDRAWAL:

This is the system of very gradual dose size reduction recommended by the authors of the “British National Formulary”, published jointly by the “British Medical Association” and the “Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain”.

A system which unquestionably works – particularly for involuntarily addicted patients on prescription drugs whose dosing can be professionally controlled over the often long period of time required to ensure the patient's comfort during the whole withdrawal process, which can be from three to nine months or even longer.

Unfortunately, the different additive and / or hypnotic drugs necessitating this type of withdrawal come in a variety of dosage formats – tablets, pills, capsules and liquids – and all in different manufacturer recommended dose sizes.

In the early stages of small step down withdrawal, the necessary size of the smaller doses can be achieved by cutting large tablets or pills into halves, quarters or even eighths of their original size, but for elderly patients this can be totally impractical beyond quarters and, of course, is not possible at all with most forms of capsule, especially when liquid filled.

Because for patient comfort, the optimum amount of step-down should not exceed 2.5 to 5% of the current dosage, the range of small doses which need to be available can go all the way down to 1% 2.5%, 5%, and 10% of the producer's normally manufactured and recommended dose sizes and, because in many instances, they claim that smaller sizes are more difficult or costly to manufacture, producers endeavour as far as possible to avoid providing and stocking them on a regular basis.

However, in addition, producers are well aware that a patient using 1,095 doses a year of their benzodiazepine or other 3 times a day drug medication will be a lost profitable consumer if they are encouraged to successfully withdraw.  One can therefore from a commercial viewpoint understand a lack of enthusiasm or degree of reluctance on the part of their marketing people to even contemplate offering the above indicated smaller doses.

And, again in addition, regular and easy availability of such small doses would allow General Practitioners to initially prescribe smaller doses, and thus avoid more of the involuntary addiction they know larger doses can so easily create.

Here again, those pharmacists who describe and offer small dose step down withdrawal principles make no comment on the eradication of metabolites and toxic drug residues from the withdrawn addict's body. Nor do their psychiatric colleagues offer any way of correcting irrational computations and weird decisions made during drug overwhelmed events or drug deprived and desperate cold turkey periods.

Thus leaving the withdrawn addict wide open to a resumption of his or her former addiction.

SUPPORTED IMMEDIATE DRUG-FREE WITHDRAWAL:

In some eastern countries, a drug addict (but not a severe alcoholic) is withdrawn simply by locking him or her in a room long enough to suffer through all the grossly uncomfortable “cold turkey” effects of unsupported withdrawal.

Those eastern “service providers” know that whilst deprived drug addicts may well FEEL they are dying, this is never actually the case, and that confronting “cold turkey withdrawal” head-on is considered to be the best way to ensure they will never again choose to use such drugs.

On the other hand, "sympathetic" pharmaceutical drugs marketing departments say they hate to see addicts suffering, when they have available another “helpful” drug which can see the addict through all those nasty “cold turkey” miseries, which, if the addict accepts that, will most likely leave him or her with a new addiction to the pharmaceutical drug prescribed to “help” them through their withdrawal.

So a totally “drug-free”, but nevertheless “supported” withdrawal has since 1966 been used to help the addict to far more comfortably confront the rigours of so-called “cold turkey”, without the possibility of generating a new addiction.

A system of simple locational and body “assists” or exercises applied by a trained staff member at any and all times of the day and night as required, coupled with sufficient water based supplement drinking and minimum eating of mainly green salad vegetables, will in 3 days to 3 weeks see the individual through a withdrawal struggle no more severe than the feelings associated with a dose of influenza.  But whilst 'flu can kill, drug-free withdrawal doesn't.

The period of withdrawal varies according to how long the addict has been using drugs, according to which drugs and which dose sizes have been used, and how often they have been used, and a majority don't take longer than 3 to 10 days.

The product of supported immediate drug-free withdrawal is an individual who is no longer using drugs, but who may still need to be stabilised in the here and now, which can be achieved with further “Assists”, a form of mental and emotional “First-Aid”.

On the physical level, he or she will also need to get rid of the metabolites, hormones and toxic drug residues, etc., stored or lodged in the fatty tissues of the body which, can under hot weather conditions, hard physical work, prolonged exercise or other sweating, be broken down and be released back into the blood-stream thus restimulating an addictive demand for the drug(s).

On the emotional level, the withdrawn addict's mind also needs to have “flushed out” the irrational decisions and weird concepts picked up during drug controlled events and / or during desperate drug deprived cold-turkey periods.

This however starts us into Part Two of “How To Rid Yourself Of Drug Addiction”, which is better dealt with in a separate post.

S.A.F.E. Is A Not-For-Profit Community Support Group Founded in 1975.

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What Is Meant By An Addiction-Free Society ?

IT IS THE OPPOSITE OF

THE “BIO-CHEMICAL SOCIETY”

WE ARE CURRENTLY INTO.

The essence of an addiction-free society is

that no one is threatened by

the behaviour of addicts or dealers,

because no one is using addictive drugs,

and, no one intends to use them.

BUT THE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH IS THAT THIS

IS MOST LIKELY IMPOSSIBLE AND UNOBTAINABLE !

Nevertheless, such a fact should never be allowed to stop us from having a worthwhile goal and trying to reach it. Especially when the ability to get closer and closer to such a goal is itself a valued result. Worth aiming for, because it has the vital effect of benefiting a majority in our society.

SO THE DEFINITION OF AN “EFFECTIVE” ANTI

DRUG ADDICTION POLICY IS THEREFORE ONE

WHICH CONTINUOUSLY MOVES

A SOCIETY OR COMMUNITY

IN THE DIRECTION OF

TOTAL ABSTINENCE.

i.e. ALWAYS TOWARDS A SOCIETY

FREE OF ADDICTIVE DRUGS.

By definition, such a policy must essentially result in less and less overall production and distribution of ALL TYPES of addictive drugs – illicit, licensed AND prescription drugs, plus a continuing reduction in demand for them, coupled with a decrease in the number of citizens of all ages using ALL ADDICTIVE DRUGS, both by choice and involuntarily.

ISN’T THE ABOVE POLICY WORTH FULLY INVESTIGATING ?

TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CREATING A SOCIETY

WHICH AVOIDS and CURES ADDICTION,

AND WHICH TRAINS ADDICTS HOW TO THEMSELVES

ESCAPE FROM THEIR TRAP:

please phone: Int: (0044) or UK (0)1342 810151,

or E-mail: keneck@btinternet.com

S.A.F.E. is a not-for-profit community support group established in 1975.

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