Over a year ago I posted about a guy I had been seeing for almost two years who got drunk six weeks before he was about to get off probation, scuffled with a cop and ended up in jail for a month or so.
Well, he came out of jail, entered rehab, and went back on probation. In the beginning of his new probationary period he was put into a program that met almost every day, and monitored him closely. He had to stay sober for ninety consecutive days to get out of the program. He failed three times, lasting between fifty and eighty days. After those failures they told him he had to stay in the program until his probation is up, which will be Friday. And it will be Friday.
He has still been seeing me almost every week, and for a while he had been honest with me, telling me when he had been drinking and getting away with it. But over the last five months he had been telling me all the time how much he has learned, how much better his life is, how humble he had become, and how well he was doing with his new AA friends. He told me he was sorry that he had wasted so much of his life; but now he was sober.
I know that he needs me to write monthly letters to his probation officer. So I guess he couldn't risk telling me the truth. We had been talking a lot, especially this last month, about my concern that once he is off probation, and no one is watching, that his urge to drink will become very powerful.
He was very insightful and reassuring. He told me his strategies and back-up plans. He also told me that his wife has been watching him closely, and that she would probably cut him free if he began to drink again.
Bullshit.
Yesterday, I got a call from his wife asking me if it was true that on Friday, the day his probation ends, that I promised him I would get him into rehab.
What?
Didn't I know that he has been drinking about three days a week for the last two months, and that he has somehow managed to stay clear of getting tested.
Oh.
I guess the probation department is sick of him. I can't imagine that a substance abuse program that has someone checking on him one to three times a week really couldn't figure this out --- even if I didn't. They run tests, breath and urine.
I guess they figure that if he isn't in real trouble then his drinking is his problem, and his wife's.
Well, I am not going to turn him in. His wife told me not to call him because her life would be hell, and she doesn't want him to go to jail.
I don't either. And I will try to get him into rehab as soon as his probation ends. And when he gets out, I doubt that I will take him back as a client. I have a tendency, as I have mentioned, to try and bring out the best in people, I have higher expectations for them then they have themselves, and I think that sometimes it frightens them.
Drinking is not against the law. If he gets loud and belligerent and obnoxious, he runs the risk of getting in trouble. He also runs the risk of losing his wife. But he has lost a wife before this one.
Addictions are very powerful. They, whatever substance one chooses, can make you feel better, for a while, then anything else in the world.
That makes the rest of the world so disappointing, and so much more difficult to be a part of.
8 comments:
"Rehab" is often just another game that addicts play.
This sicken me; I can only surmise what it does to you.
Addicts are the best liars in the world. They're so good in fact, they often believe their own lies.
Addicts often suffer from post traumatic stress and are using substances to tamp down the trauma. I think it would be more helpful to this man if you could make this line of inquiry instead of just dumping him. He sounds like he's in pain.
Dear Anonymous, Yeah, sometimes. And in one case I know, the "helpful" diagnosis of PTSD just gave the alleged victim an excuse to keep the dance of addiction going on for a few more years.
If any of your clients sincerely wants to tackle this problem, I recommend this book.
The point I am making is that if someone is using a substance to survive the PTSD, it is going to be very difficult to give up the substance without getting proper treatment for the trauma. I am not by any means suggesting that people should pretend that addiction is not a problem. Many substance using trauma survivors are finding success with treating the trauma and the addiction at the same time. Relapse is high when the trauma is ignored because things like that don't just go away.
I also think that when addicts are not seen as human beings by those who treat them, then the treatment is doomed to fail. Someone has to show them how to have respect for themselves instead of just telling them to when they don't know how and already feel like damaged goods. (And NO, that 'someone' should NOT be any person who has been or is being hurt or taken advantage of by the addict.)
You are going to turn your patient away because he lied to you and has a drinking problem? I agree with anon - and the "one" case you know of does not a majority make.
If you refuse to treat him, and you have been treating him longterm, you will be one more person in his life who abandons him in his pain.
sad...
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