Rational Recovery ®

Last month, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), crashed his car during a drunken spree, adding to his long history of habitual drunkenness and substance abuse. Capitol Police extended him special treatment, due to his high office, and provided him a ride home instead of to the clink. Rep. Kennedy said he had no memory of the incident or the events surrounding it, although his memory seemed unimpaired to the police at the time of the accident.

He assured the public that he would obtain the finest treatment available for the mysterious disease of addiction, the same treatment he’s received many times since the onset of his addictive disease in 1986. He spoke of himself as a heroic figure, as someone who has struggled with addictive disease most of his life. Then, he was quickly on his way to the Mayo Clinic addiction treatment program.

Today, Mr. Kennedy was released from rehab, and at a press conference he assured the public and his constituency that his “treatment” for the disease of addiction will never be completed. He said he will remain “in recovery” for the rest of his days, diligently attending 12-step recovery group meetings in order to stave off his progressive, chronic disease. He assures us that he can never guarantee anyone that he won’t once again explode into drunkenness, and endanger the public by driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.

He further explained that, even with the very best medical care, cancer patients cannot guarantee that they will remain tumor-free, so neither can he guarantee that he won’t decide sometime to have a drink or take illegal drugs when conditions are perfect for a “relapse.” Very importantly, the congressman did not apologize for his substance abuse. How could he apologize for using drugs, rendering himself senseleses, when reserves for himself the privilege of relapse? Indeed, he explained that he suffers from a disease, similar in many ways to cancer, that compels his unruly, unprincipled conduct.

Presuming that habitual drunkenness and drug addiction are compelled by a “psychobiosocial” disease (the only one of its kind), alcoholics and other substance abusers are ultimately victims rather than willful perpetrators of harm upon their families and society. As such, drunks and junkies are innocent people who should be accorded the same respect, dignity, health care, and privileges that would be due to someone suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, or spina bifida. Before the law, their crimes are mitigated by a congenital defect that makes them powerless over their bodily desires. Being a Kennedy suffering from addictive disease may be a double-barrelled mitigation of one’s crimes.

One would think the public should be given some information on the effectiveness of the treatment Rep. Kennedy has been receiving. After all, Rep. Kennedy has refused to resign from his very high office for reasons of incompetence, as some of his colleagues have urged him to do. Everyone already knows that the many courses of treatment he’s received thus far have not worked at all. Most would agree that the purpose of addiction treatment is an outcome of secure abstinence. As it turns out, there is practically no research on the effectiveness of addiction treatment such as Rep. Kennedy has been receiving.

Effectiveness of Rep. Kennedy’s treatment
The research director of the California Dept. of Drug and Alcohol Programs, has acknowledged that the abstinent outcome of that state’s addiction treatment industry is “…about zero; it just isn’t going to happen.” A nonprofit front organization of the addiction treatment industry, Join Together, recently published some startling figures about how unlikely abstinent outcome is for persons who participate in addiction treatment programs. First, they state what Rep. Kennedy said at his release-day press conference, that the success of addiction treatment is entirely dependent upon frequent, endless attendance of recovery group meetings, at least 4 to 5 meetings per week. At the 5 year mark, 79% of persons discharged from addiction treatment programs who had been attending over 200 meetings per year reported total abstinence for the last 30 days.

Think of it. After 30 to 90 days of intensive, inpatient “treatment,” at the cost of $500 to $1,000/day, the ones who attended the most meetings for five years thereafter were still struggling to stay sober for even one full month. The study went further to document the declining fortunes of those who attended fewer than four meetings per week, so that only 43% of those who attended meetings for a year or so and then tapered off reported they hadn’t had a drink during the last 30 days. A few years back, a study of Texas prison addiction treatment programs found that recidivism was higher among those receiving treatment, than those with similar patterns of substance abuse who received no treatment. One must seriously wonder if Rep. Kennedy (and the nation) would be better off if he would simply grow up and bear the personal, moral responsibility of abstinence under all conditions, without groups, doctors, and rehabs.

Perhaps voters should heed Rep. Kennedy’s colleagues, who have suggested that he is unfit for the great responsibilities of high office, and vote him out of office in the public interest. In the past, as part of his deep involvement in social policies related to addiction, recovery, and addiction treatment, he has condemned such negative reactions to substance abusers as discriminatory, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Remember, as an American, Rep. Kennedy is a sacred addict, with special needs for special treatment, and endowed with the right to infinite tolerance of his indulgence in addictive pleasures.

No stigma, please
For many years, Rep. Kennedy has been active in the recovery group movement loaning his political credentials to the addiction treatment industry, and to the anti-stigma movement. The addiction treatment industry is the business arm of its huge, nonprofit feeder system, the recovery group movement, where the doctrines of addiction are instilled in addicted people as well as society at large.

The anti-stigma movement is a well-organized public information campaign by a league of non-profit organizations aimed at identifying substance abusers as disease victims rather than as persons characterized by bad judgment, low character, moral weakness, or stupidity. The anti-stigma movement aims to prevent moral judgments from being made about the use of alcohol and other drugs by people who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs, and to portray the addict’s wake of human destruction as if it were the result of an involuntary spasm or seizure. To judge another’s use of drugs to produce unspeakable pleasure at the expense of others as immoral, is, in this grand, new era of political niceness, immoral! To suggest that Rep. Kennedy loves drugs more than he loves his country would seem ugly and cruel. However, exactly when, if ever, do one’s actions overtake the credibility of one’s oath of office?

One of Rep. Kennedy’s cohorts in the anti-stigma movement is the now-deceased Sen. Paul Welstone, whose ill-fated Mental Health Parity Bill would have created parity between traditional medical care for (real) diseases and traumas, on one hand, and a host of (fishy) diseases that are best diagnosed by members of addiction recovery groups practicing medicine or in the counseling professions. Because the alleged “disease” of addiction is so devastating, the anti-stigma lobby believes that addicted people are entitled to enormous support from society, in the form of free services, free health care, and special treatment by law enforcement and courts when they encounter the behavior of people suffering from the dread disease, addiction. This is an example of a pervasive recovery group syndicate, with cell groups in every community networked with aggressive representation in every niche in our social service system.

Rep. Kennedy is a member of the recovery group movement, a client of the addiction treatment industry, a political friend of the addiction treatment industry, and a political proponent of the anti-stigma movement, of which he is a chief beneficiary. It should do our hearts good to know we are being so supportive of someone who believes he is entitled to every benefit he can reap for himself and others like him from the society he claims to serve. Let us hope his continued relapses bring little harm as he basks in the glow of addictive pleasures.

Let us hope most of all that Rep. Patrick Kennedy will rise up as a human being, endowed with knowledge of good and evil, and abstain from self-intoxication under all conditions based upon moral principle alone. Of course, to do this he must cast off the trappings of addictive disease and defy the de facto religion of our land, the Fellowship of Addiction which pronounces such grand ambitions as a florid symptom of addictive disease — denial.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Rational Recovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.