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A Letter to Treatment Centres in the UK from Blamedenial.co.uk:
(Added a letter to Agent Orange regarding the Priory Group at the bottom - 13th May 2008)
I am just going to write this and see where it takes me – its only agenda is to provide these facilities with an opposing view for their model of treatment, namely the Minesota Model which includes the use of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
This extract from a Guardian Newspaper special report raises the following point:
Addiction as an illness with drugs as a symptom: it's a philosophy borrowed from Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous and, though there is no hard medical evidence to prove it, it acts as an effective metaphor for what happens when people get addicted to hard drugs. And it's increasingly a model that the Home Office and the British criminal justice system is turning to.
Available here
The report goes on to say:
The medical and scientific research on the nature of addiction is patchy and poorly funded. Meanwhile, the 12-step approach, developed over many years of working with addicts, has developed a solid reputation for helping people recover.
Perhaps the reason for that ‘patchy and poorly funded’ research boils down to the fact that there is no scientific proof showing the efficacy of 12 Step programmes. After all if something does not really work, how can it be proved that it does? How about with personal testimonials or the 12th Step? (Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.) We are TOLD this programme works by people who in turn have been told to tell us it does by the mere virtue of trying to work it themselves, and most worryingly these same people are also TELLING our governments the same thing. These treatment workers will argue that they come across people everyday who tell them this programme saved their lives, and lest we not forget most of these ‘professionals’ are also in the rooms too. But here is my question for these so called professional people – what do you do for those patients for whom this programme has not worked? If the 12 Step treatment centres could prove a success rate anywhere near 50% these issues would diminish considerably. However the reality is that it has no such success rate at all – it has a 95% failure rate, which would be wrong to describe as a 5% success rate. One man in the US who goes by the name Agent Orange has done extensive research into AA’s efficacy: you can read his disturbing findings here
Should you want to go straight to the horse’s mouth, you can consult AA’s own Triennial Survey’s conducted in 1989 that, rather embarrassingly for AA, provide a similar 5% figure. Available here
The reporter who conducted the report for the Guardian is a little more informed than I expected. He hits the proverbial nail on the head when he makes the very valid, and all too often hushed up point, that treating addiction can be a very profitable business:
But there are other serious issues with Britain's treatment culture. For a start, it is driven by the market in addicts: rehabilitation is a lucrative business (a Drug Treatment and Testing Order costs £6,000) and treatment centres spring up to meet the need. Broadway Lodge is a registered charity, but many treatment centres are strictly commercial operations, often converted old people's homes that have ceased to be financially viable.The writer of the Guardian report surpasses any earlier praise I have expressed for him when he writes:
After a while, the psychobabble of Broadway Lodge starts to pall and you begin to wonder if the residents are being taught anything more than a new vocabulary to help them buy further in to the programme. There is at times a sense that the reason the 12-step programme works so well for addicts is that it just replaces drug addiction with another form of obsessive behaviour.
‘Psychobabble’ is just the word needed here. My investigation into the 12 Step programme includes the making of a video which I posted on Youtube entitled, ‘The Power of Words in Alcoholics Anonymous.’ (I had to take down the video due to threats from members of AA) The crux of the video was to point out that AA redefines many commonly used words, and these redefinitions do not only have the effect of moulding and shaping the thoughts of the recipient, but all of ours. For example for the most part society has largely accepted AA’s stereotype of the alcoholic without entirely understanding precisely what that is. An alcoholic by AA’s reckoning is not simply a person that loses control of alcohol, i.e. when it is in their system, but at ALL times. Step One reads, ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable - it does NOT state the alcoholic is powerless over alcohol when they are drinking, it quite simply says that the alcoholic is powerless over alcohol. For anyone reading this that believes this is simply taking the words and using them to fit my argument the following extracts from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by its founder Bill Wilson, will be of interest:
We are without defense against the first drink. (Big Book pg 24)
The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. (Big Book pg 43)
This leads nicely onto my next point as well as another raised by the Guardian report:
Pauline Bissett, the director of Broadway Lodge, has her own issues with the emphasis on the 'higher power'. All staff are expected to go on a short 12-step course and Pauline found the process difficult to accept. 'I was extremely resistant. I thought: nobody's going to ram religion down my throat. I flatly refused to say "God" at the beginning of the Serenity Prayer for most of my first week.
I have long argued that God is a red herring in all this; of course AA will state that you can have any Higher Power (HP) you wish – it has no investment in whether you believe in a Christian God, or any other sort of deity, provided you believe in AA, and the only requirement for that to happen is that your HP tells you to have faith in AA and its programme of recovery. It is famously often parroted in AA meetings that one can believe in a doorknob if they wish, but this can soon be dismissed as utter rubbish the moment we review steps 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11 – all of which mention God or refer to Him. Putting most of those steps to one side for a moment to focus on Step 11 (Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out), this begs the question, how can we pray to a doorknob or have any conscious contact with one?
I suspect the likes of Pauline Bissett will respond to my concerns by implying that the programme is merely made up of suggestions. However, as is often said in the rooms, ‘…it is also recommended you wear a parachute if you jump out of an aeroplane.’ Further to that point, I would ask Bissett how any patient of BL would be treated should they opt not to follow these suggestions?
My final query for all the 12-step based treatment centres in the UK is a simple one, posed earlier; when the programme is clearly not working for any of your patients, do you offer them any alternative approaches that might benefit them? I suppose such a thing would be hard to do when one of the slogans echoed in AA meetings all over the world is, ‘It works if you work it.’ Harmless enough, until we fully understand the ramifications of this belief – if they truly believe that the programme always works if the patient works it, it also means that the programme by definition is without fault, or put another way, perfect. The only possible conclusion then is to blame the patient. Very dangerous indeed – especially when there are no reliably conducted scientific studies to back up these assertions. Still not shocked? If someone in AA shows too much resistance to the program, they are sometimes advised to go out and try some ‘controlled drinking’. Treatment centres are unlikely to mirror this recommendation, however should they simply eject a ‘rebellious’ patient, that could be just as damaging.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other points of interest:
I took a look at Broadway Lodge’s (BL) website. The first thing that strikes me about it is the fact that it does not mention the 12 Steps anywhere on the Introduction page, or in its Mission Statement. It does refer to the Minnesota Model and gives itself the accolade of having been the first treatment centre in England to adopt this approach in 1974.On its homepage it goes on to say:
In acknowledgement for having one of the best completion rates and highest standards of professional care, in 2006 the Broadway Lodge treatment programme was the first to be accredited by the European Association for the Treatment of Addiction (EATA) of which it was a founder member.
As someone that has done a significant amount of research into both the 12 Step Model of recovery and the addiction treatment industry, the above extract raises alarms. One has to ask the blindingly obvious: if BL was a founder member does that not in turn lessen the weighting that we should place on this accreditation? But as any thorough look into this field will reveal, everyone is in bed with each other, for want of a better phrase. For the average person looking for help either for themselves or a loved one, they would be unlikely to make this connection, coming to the fray believing, like most, that anyone trying to help must mean well.
So I went to the EATA website – an interesting endeavour all by itself and I stumbled across this passage:
A mark of quality
Demonstrating the quality of service you provide to individuals in drug and alcohol rehabilitative treatment is essential for helping informed purchase and choice.
In acknowledgement of this, we have established EATA's Accredited Provider Status. It is the kite mark for quality for rehabilitative treatment providers, enabling them to visibly demonstrate the quality of treatment delivery through clear evidence about aims, objectives and methods used.Available here
Maybe I am guilty of making too much of this point but it concerns me that BL should both play a role in creating, as well as giving, an accreditation – and then offer one to itself. On that note, in terms of the public making an ‘informed purchase’, I hope they realise how valueless this award really is. (On a side note, I’d recommend you have a look at the forum hosted on the EATA site – it has one post welcoming the members, although it is only a month old.)
But EATA and Broadway Lodge’s association does not stop there. The following NHS (National Health Service) produced guide (available here) highlights a further concern I have with the addiction treatment industry. As the opening page will reveal EATA has accredited this document – and further to that amidst it Broadway Lodge is given thanks, as are several other treatment centres (all of which are 12 Step based as far as I can tell.) In other words the government, with the help of EATA, Broadway Lodge et al., are focusing their efforts on promoting the Minesota Model of recovery (12 Step) whilst ignoring the need for research into alternative treatments. If the government is taking its lead from members of EATA, it should come as no shock that this is the case – after all most of the staff for the treatment centres they represent are also in the programme. It does not take a genius to decipher that this in turn means that these members are going to push for the programme they are working. However I wonder if all these 12 Step members are totally open with regards to this hidden agenda.
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I need to look into the financial workings of BL a little more but this little titbit is more than fascinating:
Investment policy
The charity [BL] currently holds funds not required for day to day running on short-term deposits with the bankers, and a stock market portfolio managed by Rensburg Sheppards.
Available here
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The following post made on a forum reveals the power AA can have over some of its members:
Can someone please, please, PLEASE verify if all, if not at least some, of the factual information found within
http://www.orange-papers.org
is 100% correct?
Having LITERALLY been brainwashed by AA into thinking that I have an incurable disease, I so badly want to know that it's actually true - AA makes so much more sense to me now!!
I am ELATED now that I (ME!) realize AA was NOT for me - although my wife, shrink, family, friends all DEMANDED "GO TO AA!" when I was a stupid drunk...
Available here
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Orange,
Here is some distrubing evidence surrounding the largest and most famous treatment centre group in the UK called The Priory Group. I think this needs to be thoroughly investigated and would be a great addition to the Orange papers. Some of what I have read is shocking. I have conducted this research as part of a recent letter I sent to the treatment industry in the uk available here - link removed - not as important as what is contained below.
This is a lits of links compiled by someone else I stumbled upon - it is amazing what a little digging can achieve:Articles relating to The Priory Hospital and Dr Chai Patel -
http://snipurl.com/nyan "Crony makes a killing from NHS"
http://snipurl.com/ny8q "The business bonus"
http://snipurl.com/10k9a "The Priory, rest home for troubled stars, is accused of 'cynical commercialism'"
http://snipurl.com/ny8u "The highway from hell"
http://snipurl.com/o02l "Dear Weekend"
http://snipurl.com/ny94 "Group therapy: I still howl at the memory"
http://snipurl.com/ny98 "Chai Patel, Westminster Health Care"
http://snipurl.com/ny99 "The Lynde House Relatives Support Group"
http://snipurl.com/ny9d "Labour health guru accused of care home neglect"
http://snipurl.com/ny9e "Priory boss accused of misconduct over elderly care"
http://snipurl.com/ny9f "A home unfit for heroes"
http://snipurl.com/ny9h "Don't bet your life on healthcare shares"
http://snipurl.com/ny9k "Humiliation of a New Labour guru"
http://snipurl.com/o028 "Priory Clinic boss cleared"
http://snipurl.com/ny9q "Dutch bank swoops on Priory celebrity clinics in 875m deal"
http://snipurl.com/ny9r "Former chief executive says he is relieved 'terrible ordeal' is over"
http://snipurl.com/ny9x "MPs diagnose trouble over peerage for Labour's donor doctor"
http://snipurl.com/ny9z "Watchdog warns Blair off ennobling Labour donors"
http://snipurl.com/nya0 "Priory boss 'anger' over peerage"
http://tinyurl.com/29xhj9 "This murky system can't go on: I'm breaking ranks"
http://tinyurl.com/34ffor "No need to be Chai"
http://tinyurl.com/zc93r "Police seek charges by showing loans were 'donations in disguise'"
http://tinyurl.com/yekx58 "Labour says it has proof party donors wanted secrecy"
http://tinyurl.com/wldhl "Honours papers detail block on Labour donors"I am doing my best to go through them all.
Jimmy
J a m e s G can be contacted at jamesg@blamedenial.co.uk