".....the medical profession has consistently demonised
home-based non-medical detoxification in their inexorable drive to
medicalise the whole of addiction. The tendency of most doctors
(apologies to all the doctors on this list - but you know it's the
truth!!) to revert to the security blanket of the disease model of
addiction is profoundly depressing. It's as if the work of Zinberg,
Engel, Kantzian, Schaz and all the other addiction theorists of the past
four decades had never existed!!..."
Isnīt the problem that most of the guidelines are made of people who has
never seen a TC or any other kind of drug-facility but only out-patient MMT
and detox-facilities?
Itīs always been the basis of my medical treatment that it should make it
possible for the patient to enter treatment and stay in it - not that the
chemicals are treatment in itself. Itīs the patients right to stop
medication at any time even if I donīt agree and it can be necessary for me
to say that I think the idea is problematic but Iīll never deny further
treatment if they decide to try.
Right now we treat a young street-homeless man with multiple drug use, ADHD
and drug-elicited psychoses - to get him into in-patient treatment we had to
refer him to the official treatment system - and they wanted to put him on
methadone - even if he doesnīt use heroin more than occasionally.
To many MDīs methadone has become the answer to anything (instead of talking
to the people who seek them) and I donīt even think they really have
reverted to any disease-model - they just want people to stay quiet and in
their "right" place and they have heard that methadone is evidence-based so
thats what they use.
I see a lot of non-creative and and un-focused medical "treatment" on people
who are so doped from their medication that they canīt have two consecutive
thoughts and the explanation is that some people just want and need to be
"closed down" and I have seen how these people begin to blossom and develop
on proper medication with planning on how to taper it.
Henrik Thiesen
MD :o)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wendy Dawson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [EFTC] Methadone residents study
> Hi Rowdy
>
> I absolutely agree with you regarding how the medical profession have
> demonised non-med detox. Re my reference to policy it's stated in the NTA
> guidelines which seem to be being religiously followed! However I recently
> mentioned the idea in a meeting at the regional NTA office and it was met
> with an interesting ummmmm. Its very much in the embryonic stage so far.
>
> Wendy
>
>
>
>
> Wendy Dawson
> Chief Executive
>
> The Ley Community
> Sandy Croft, Sandy Lane
> Yarnton
> Oxford
> OX5 1PB
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 1865 378600
> Fax: +44 (0) 1865 842238
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Website: www.ley.co.uk
> Registered Charity No. 1074874
> Company No. 3736193
>
> The email message is intended solely for the above mentioned recipient and
> may contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received
> it
> in error please notify us immediately by telephone. You must neither copy
> nor distribute the email transmission, nor cause nor permit such copying
> or
> distribution.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Therapeutic Communities
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rowdy Yates
> Sent: 07 January 2009 12:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [EFTC] Methadone residents study
>
> Wendy
>
>
>
> As you know, I think there are some real positives for your idea.
> Certainly, I feel the voluntary sector in general (at least in the UK)
> has lost touch with it's old skills-base in this respect. Certainly,
> when I was working at Lifeline in the 1970s we developed a real ability
> to do home-based detoxs (effectively and with low levels of discomfort)
> because that's all there was! By and large the medical profession didn'
> t want to know and if they did, they stuck folk on some godawful general
> psychiatric ward (usually excusing the appalling conditions as a "test
> of motivation"!!) and detoxified people with librium.
>
>
>
> The early Synanon was characterised by the fact that people could come
> in off the street and detox in the lobby of the hotel in which the TC
> was based. I've said before on this list, my view is that this had a
> positive impact on the dynamic of the community. When you started to
> get pull-ups, as often as not, the people doing the pulling up were the
> same community members who soothed your troubled brow and mopped up your
> sick when you first arrived.
>
>
>
> My view is that the medical profession has consistently demonised
> home-based non-medical detoxification in their inexorable drive to
> medicalise the whole of addiction. The tendency of most doctors
> (apologies to all the doctors on this list - but you know it's the
> truth!!) to revert to the security blanket of the disease model of
> addiction is profoundly depressing. It's as if the work of Zinberg,
> Engel, Kantzian, Schaz and all the other addiction theorists of the past
> four decades had never existed!!
>
>
>
> But maybe this is just the pining of an old man for those far-off good
> old days when drug workers were able to work out whether someone was
> stoned (and on what) without having to wait for the results of an
> observed urine test (shudder!!).
>
>
>
> One other thing though. You say:
>
>
>
> "indeed policy will not allow them to enter into a residential TC
> treatment until successful completion of a detox"
>
>
>
> Whose policy is this? It sounds completely daft to me. It should be up
> to the TC itself to decide the most appropriate entry
> conditions/regulations. Certainly, Phoenix Sheffield have for some time
> accepted clients on reducing doses of methadone - I'm not sure of the
> exact amounts/timescales and unfortunately, I don't think anyone from
> Phoenix Sheffield is on the list - and my impression was that it had
> been an extraordinarily uneventful development for them. Certainly when
> I was there about 18 months ago, it wasn't really possible to work out
> who the detoxing residents were (though I suppose other residents would
> be more critically aware.
>
>
>
> Rowdy Yates
> Senior Research Fellow
> Scottish Addiction Studies
> Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology Section
> Department of Applied Social Science
> University of Stirling
>
> E: <BLOCKED::mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
>
> W: <http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/sections/showsection.php?id=4>
> http://www.dass.stir.ac.uk/sections/showsection.php?id=4 (home)
> http://www.drugslibrary.stir.ac.uk
> <http://www.drugslibrary.stir.ac.uk/> (library)
>
> T: +44(0)1786 - 467737
> M: 07894- 864897
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Therapeutic Communities
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wendy
> Dawson
> Sent: 07 January 2009 11:31
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [EFTC] Methadone residents study
>
>
>
> Hi
>
>
>
> This is disturbing news!
>
>
>
> Particularly as I am keen to challenge NTA guidelines by developing a
> detox unit without prescribed medication here at the Ley. We have 15
> people waiting to come into the Ley but their funders and indeed policy
> will not allow them to enter into a residential TC treatment until
> successful completion of a detox. However with increasing demand and
> waiting time for detox these people may possibly be dead, change their
> mind or decide to be maintained for the rest of their lives on a script
> - where is the client choice in all of this?
>
>
>
> Best wishes
>
>
>
> Wendy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Wendy Dawson
>
> Chief Executive
>
>
>
> The Ley Community
>
> Sandy Croft, Sandy Lane
>
> Yarnton
>
> Oxford
>
> OX5 1PB
>
>
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 1865 378600
>
> Fax: +44 (0) 1865 842238
>
>
>
> Email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
>
> Website: <http://www.ley.co.uk> www.ley.co.uk
>
> Registered Charity No. 1074874
>
> Company No. 3736193
>
>
>
> The email message is intended solely for the above mentioned recipient
> and may contain confidential or privileged information. If you have
> received it in error please notify us immediately by telephone. You must
> neither copy nor distribute the email transmission, nor cause nor permit
> such copying or distribution.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Therapeutic Communities
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anthony
> Slater
> Sent: 07 January 2009 11:20
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [EFTC] Methadone residents study
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> This study is now being promoted in Norway via various news groups.
>
>
>
> In some ways this will be, I think, unfortunate for drug free addiction
> tc's, as we have already been under a great deal of pressure to take
> people on methadone in to treatment, in drug free recovery tc's.
>
> A real dilemma is that the medical authorities / advisors strongly also
> recommend that individuals stay on it for life.
>
>
>
> More to come on this topic no doubt...........
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> As ever
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Anthony Slater,
>
> Director - Phoenix House Haga,
>
> President, E.F.T.C.
>
> Folkenborgveien 198,
>
> 1850 Mysen, Norway.
>
> tlf. +47 69 89 82 50 / fax. + 47 69 89 82 51.
>
> E-post: [log in to unmask]
>
> www.phoenixhouse.no
>
> www.eftc-europe.com
>
>
>
> http://www.tc-of.org.uk/wiki/index.php/RadioTC_International_Norsk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Academic Excellence at the Heart of Scotland.
> The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number
> SC 011159.
>
>
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