>> PEGGY PICO: If you look up drug treatment centers in San Diego you will find a long
list of options, how do you decide which is best and do they work?
Anne Fletcher author of "inside rehab" is here with me with some of these answers.
Anne going into rehab is a phrase that we are oftenÊ we hear often but we don't hear
what happens afterwards, what does happen?
Are we talking group therapy?
What happens >>> That's what I wanted to know and I talked
with experts in the field, I had previously written a book on this and I didn't know what
happened once you stepped inside so I decided to go inside myself, visited 15 programs from
coast to coast, outpatient programs to high end celebrity programs and programs in between.
>> PEGGY PICO: What surprised you the most?
>> One is that the more you spend doesn't necessarily that you get better treatment.
A lot of people think if I spend a lot of money I'm going to get better treatment and
sometimes it means that but I found good, quality treatment at programs where they address
the whole person, going back to work, going back to school, so there were surprises.
Another thing that surprised me is there is a big gap between science and practice in
this field.
There are a lot of things that we know are effective for addiction treatment and they're
not going on in most addiction treatment programs in this country.
I talked to experts who study addiction treatments, andÊ
>> PEGGY PICO: It's a complicated treatment it's not like "stop using drugs" and something
that simple.
Your bookÊ you come from your own experience, did you seek treatment for your addiction?
>> I didn't, I had a serious drinking problem and one of the myths is you have to go to
rehab, when people say, what should I do and the knee jerk reaction is you have to go to
rehab.
First of all, it's residential treatment, most go to outpatient treatment where you're
going for a couple of hours a day usually a couple of times a week and that's just as
effective as residential treatment.
>> PEGGY PICO: And we have those centers here, the smart recovery, correct?
>> That's not treatment, it's like AA, AA and smart recovery are self help groups and
it's an alternative to AA that uses a different philosophy, they're not treatments.
>> PEGGY PICO: How do those programs compare to success rates compare to inpatient treatments?
>> They're completely different, they're not the same thing, they're not treatment.
One of the problems in this country is that our treatment programs, whether they're residential
or outpatient, most of them have adapted AA as a form of treatment, and it wasn't meant
to be a form of treatment >> PEGGY PICO: It was meant for support?
>> It was, and even the original teachings of AA were not designed to have it be used
that way.
AA is great when it works, it works for a lot of people but we find as many as 8 out
of 10 drop out of AA within the first year so it's a problem when you find that about
7 to 8 out of every 10 programs in the country are using AA as a major basis of their treatment
and not telling people about alternatives like smart recovery which would be an alternative
support group.
>> PEGGY PICO: I know the Betty Ford center is typical of the high end places.
>>> I say not a place I visited, they use a 12 step phased Minnesota model program.
>> PEGGY PICO: And $30,000 for a 30 day stay there, expensive.
What sort of alternative centers are there, if people do want to be in a treatment program
let's say versus AA?
>> I visited some nontraditional programs, places that provide non12 step based treatments,
that provide cognitive behavioral therapy, science based treatment, more what the studies
show to be effective, I could give you names, there is one on the east coast called center
for motivation and change, there is a place here called practical recovery that I visited,
there is one in Minnesota called Alseer so there are programs across the country and
programs using science based approaches and I give examples for how to find people who
provide science based treatment.
>> PEGGY PICO: And you can find out about that on our web site where people can follow
links that you have recommended, Anne Fletcher thank you so much.
>>> Thank you.