The Joys of Fighting a Fatal Disease

June 12, 2017 - Uncategorized - 0 Comments

According to a recent article in the New York Times by Josh Katz on June 5, 2017 Death from drugs are rising at a terrible rate with the totals from overdose alone in 2016 ranging from 59,000 to 65,000 people in the United States. Addiction is a fatal disease. If this were not so there wouldn’t be any drug rehabilitation centers. My life would have been spent doing so other kind of work.
My life in recovery and addiction has led me to see a great many sad and tragic things. Lives destroyed by the substances such as alcohol which is a vicious central nervous system depressant to methamphetamine which tends to burn out all organs to opiods which have epidemically destroyed youth in this country. The families involved become just as sick. The fires from addiction in the lives of those addicted appear to be too hot and strong to put out from the addicted persons perspective. The lifestyles that are lived in the throes of addiction are dangerous and filled with systemic horrors and risks. There is no doubt that the disease of addiction is fatal.
But recovery transcends this seemingly hopeless situation. It allows for those utterly bereft of hope to once again experience the sunshine of hope and joy. I have seen it! At His House New creation we have an individualized program that allows for each and every client to have their needs met and to be given an opportunity to embrace live and wellness. I have seen the broken come in through detox time and again, in utter despair and physical and emotional pain. They all believe they are bad people and learn immediate that in fact they are only sick. When we can get them clean the person inside them that is in fact a good person will rise up and take the reins again. I see them start with doubt and then slowly take leaps of faith in believing that the process of treatment and thus recovery work. I see these clients making small gains in the first two weeks as they see and hear how others have truly done this and gotten better. Hope returns. Faith begins. Trust ensues.
By the middle of the treatment process the isolated and broken person is now a new social construction and is able to share with others the hope they have. They now see the broken and derelict new clients come in to detox and are able to be the strength. This reinforces the ideas of recovery. Who better to believe than one who has been there? By the end of treatment they are leaders. This is quite natural. This is they rhythm of treatment. By the end the families have reconciled or the client has a better understanding of this process ahead. Treatment is understood to always be designed to have a beginning and an end but the process of recovery is without destination. It is a wonderful and joyous transformation.

Dean Watson LMFT, CADC-II