• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

a brief rant: incredibly bad rehab counselors

I remember being at a rehab once where the counselors got word that I was/am a proponent of psychedelic healing, plant therapy, etc. These people would not let me graduate until I got up in front of the entire facility and gave a speech on why I was wrong, why those opinions were "just the addict in me taking" and how I was going to grow out of that. Keep in mind that I needed to graduate this program for court. So I went up there and lied left and right, told them what they wanted to hear. But I was giving this rehab a serious go up to that point and being forced to manipulate my way through it just made the entire experience so unsatisfying.
 
^So depressing that this kind of narrow-mindedness is so persistent. Reminds me of my husband's cancer oncolgists that are mystified as to why he is still alive with T-cell lymphoma 5 years after diagnosis. When he tells them that he is taking CBD oil every day and has never felt better they say, "Keep doing what you are doing but we doubt CBD has anything to do with it." (We both recognize this may be true but it is because of their own damn perceptions that we have no scientific evidence, thank you very much!)
 
I can relate to having 12 steps forced upon me. Sucks big time. I just tell people 12 steps makes me jones and they leave me alone. hehe. Its not even really a lie. I'm trying to get out of that lifestyle not be reminded of it every single day. That shit would make me go off the deep end eventually.

Yeah I agree about long term 12 step programs. Some people can't pick up a white chip if they slip up and if they are that emotionally invested in it to where it is their social life it seems like slip ups are even worse for members.

There are some people in there that will tell you that if you have one drink you will be performing sexual favors for hard drugs by the end of the night, might be true for them but the whole relapse and die is a bit extreme. I am not undermining the program just some people that don't bring much to the table.

There also are some really nasty people. I remember I took an ex fiance to a meeting and some woman talked so much shit to her for talking and she only talked to me when she was asking about the chips. This gal was sent sensitive but sure didn't look it, she was sobbing. I never seen her breakdown and she is just like this is supposed to make me better and I just told her that some people are just not nice. It wasn't her fault she didn't understand the chip thing, she wasn't the smartest, once again not her fault but it left a bad impression of recovery until some people spoke to her including my sponsor and explained things. She basically got treated bad because she was very pretty and the woman had a chip on her shoulder, pun not intended.

I have been to several meetings where people with 20 years clean or so had killed themselves after relapsing.

I don't like the all or nothing mindset some people pick up. Life isn't so black and white and neither is substance use and abuse. Even addiction is different for people from mental to physical dependency.

All that being said, AA and NA based rehab and recovery is probably still the best we got out there. I have seen far worse tactics implemented in drug treatment. So AA does protect you from worse and believe there is worse and honestly it was so bad I don't want to discuss it but I found incarceration more pleasant than the last few inpatient places I went and it was better when it was AA based. I would rather be praying and drinking coffee than have to clean my room, the halls, and shower before getting detox meds. I liked starting the day with a prayer. These places scare me more than jail.

As far as staying clean, I couldn't go to AA daily and not use, maybe a few times a week. It is good support at first but I don't want to spend my time going over the past and not living the future I worked to get.

Also what is the deal with these 20 year old kids in AA that have as much clean time as they spent using. They all seem to plan on spending the rest of their life in AA and/or NA. I don't like NA at all, prefer As even though my problems were more than alcohol for sure.

I remember one guy who was 17 and he had a year clean. His mother was in the program and convinced him he was an addict after having what was clearly manic episode and I doubt alcohol induced it, I am pretty sure he is bipolar. I think he needed some sort of group counseling but yeah that is not the place.

I really hate people who don't know me telling me that if they can do it I can because they did this or that and there is no way anyone else could have had it so rough or committed an act so desperate. That type of mentality is destructive to everyone there and yet widely applauded. I don't care who loud someone can yell about their hardcore life of crime and misery because those people tend not to be what they present themselves.

I know first hand the people with really bad problems and memories just do not want to talk about them. I am sure some mean well but for someone to tell me they did more drugs so I can just cold turkey cuz they did can really cause damage if not kill because wd can kill with alcohol benzos, and barbiturates to name a few.

Also these treatment centers say things to the family that are not true and I remember I had trouble finding a place because I have seizures and they say my seizure medication is part of my addiction and I call bullshit there, I never abused it and the staff told me all sorts of crazy shit as they said my mother didn't want to speak to me, my best friend didn't ever want to see me until I did 12 steps, and my gf was breaking up with me. So when my gf picked me up they kept my wallet and money and this was a place I paid for and it was isolated with no cell phone service anywhere within hours but she came through right before I had another seizure and they said she was breaking up with me, lol. I wasn't naive enough in my life to ever buy that but these people were fine with risking my life and letting me have seizures while telling me everyone I was close to wanted nothing to do with me.

They kept 500 dollars of my money so they wouldn't contribute to my relapse but it was my money and I left to not die of a seizure. They were fine on the phone with me taking medication I need to not die. I get some people abuse it but that is not my problem. They kept some of my art supplies and I had to pay for the shipping and they still managed to break my stuff. I don't have that type of money to drive six hours and then pay for someone else to drive six hours.

Went a bit of topic but I did want to point out how difficult they will make your life is there is a medication you need and I suppose the rebuttal would be what would have happened if that type of medication didn't exist, chances are I would be dead from a seizure. So that is great they want to deviate from AA principles just to be progressive and create a one size fits all program that doesn't fit all.

The mentality is it is your fault if their program does not work for you. I did call them a few months later to tell them I was still clean and was then but no thanks to them.

It is a real bitch when your freedom depends on them because you will get seizure medication in jail after enough seizures but not with these people. Trust me, I know first hand or better yet question it and everything because you should think for yourself.
 
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I had a similar experience. I was told I was exaggerating benzo withdrawals. Exaggerating puking, seizures, and diarrhea. Faking liquid blasting out of every orifice, in front of people, multiple times a day. I was told I was avoiding the real problems because i wanted to deal with my serious medical conditions first. Draconian motherfuckers.

I was still on methadone, as I had been at a steady dose for years and didnt abuse it,and they would sometimes delay me by 4-5 hours getting to the clinic because I was "exhibition drug seeking behavior". Damn fucking right I was! I was sick as a goddamn dog.

Then they put me in phenobarbital to combat seizures. Spoiler alert, phenobarb elimantes methadone from your system at an alarming rate so I was going through methadone and benzo withdrawal simultaneously. Either of those on their own is a hell unfit for the human mind. They had one doctor at the rehab, and he was there for literally 5 hours a week. You got a problem on Tuesday night? Tough shit, you're waiting till next Monday. Seizures? Well the doctor didn't leave any notes but you can see him in 5 days... okay?

They convinced all staff I was just trying to get high, no matter what evidence I showed that what they were doing was downright retarded. I'm talking, black and white, universally accepted shit, like benzo WD causes seizures and seizures are bad for your brain. They didn't agree with THAT.

Needless to say I still have anxiety and intense nightmares about being locked away and forced to withdrawal while being yelled at and forgotten. My mom is convinced I have PTSD after she saw me once I got out, shaking like a leaf 65 days clean of a 5 month benzo habitand heard me screaming in my sleep lol

That experience pushed me down further than years of addiction, and if I ever relapse I don't think I'll ever have it in me to trust again. I spent years shooting heroin with crackheads, blacking out for literal weeks at a time shooting etizolam. seeing people almost die, guns, aids infected hookers, brutal robberies, and still, that was by far the most traumatizing experience of my life.

My point was... what was my point? Oh yeah, you're not alone, we understand and we are here to support you. I despise 12 step programs and I despise counselors who think they are Gods because they are sober a couple years and you are not. I've gone to a thousand NA meetings probably and 90% of the useful shit I got was with conversations after the meeting when people dropped the bullshit 12-step-is-the-holy-trinity act

It's frustrating, but one gem I've found from NA is "take what makes sense, leave the rest" and I employ that to life in general. It's hard not to be mad. Hell, on bad nights, I fantasize what I'd do to those rehab employees If I saw them in the outside world. But that's not healthy and will not help recovery. Take what you can brother
 
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The sad thing is none of these stories suprised me at all.
 
"Take what you want and leave the rest"... "Look for the similarities, not the differences"... "honesty, open-mindedness, willingness"... I really have tried, and continue to try to take these slogans to heart. After all, I need all the help I can get with this cleaning up business. But these very liberal, generous ideas are, I've found, pretty hard to square if you spend much time actually sitting in 12-step meetings. Still smoking cannabis? Think you're unique in some way? Interested in *why* we're asking you to do x, y, and z? ...Addict bullshit. Denial. Not committed to The Program.

My hat's off to anyone who has been helped by the 12-step fellowships. But so far, my experience in those rooms has been mostly counterproductive, leading to feelings of shame, despair, and inadequacy.
 
Luckily there are more and more good alternatives to twelve step psychoeducation and reprogramming style treatment that is still the norm offered today than ever before. SMART Recovery and Refuge Recovery are the two best alternative models I know of that seem to have slightly higher success rates. Far from perfect considering the rather unbalance focus on the narrow mind, dogmatic and old abstinence-only paradigm of recovery, but still a huge improvement since the days of Synanon.
 
The counselor the OP spoke of is in my opinion a vile pice of shit who is a detrement to anyone in recovery they communicate with
 
The counselor the OP spoke of is in my opinion a vile pice of shit who is a detrement to anyone in recovery they communicate with

that's pretty much what i told his boss when i filed my complaint against the counselor.

...in related news, i'm "graduating" from my outpatient rehab tonight. it's weird, as much as i have disliked the program and found it at times counter-productive, i'm a little freaked out about it ending. whatever i'm doing right now seems to be working pretty well--this is now my most successful quit attempt by several measures--so i don't want to rock the boat.

i think i might have stockholm syndrome. ;)
 
Congratulations simco! What kind of support do you have going back to life post IOP?
 
Congratulations simco! What kind of support do you have going back to life post IOP?

Well, I did decide I'd enroll in the Continuing Care program from the clinic that administered my IOP. As I mentioned in my last post, as much as I've bristled at the experience, I figured that at this point, it might be safest to avoid any dramatic changes in how I allocated my recovery efforts. So I'll be going there one night a week for 90 minutes...not a huge deal.

But to answer your question more directly:
* I have a network of family and friends, at least one of whom I call daily to check in and talk specifically about my recovery. Obviously, if things get tough, I call more than one of them. And they are in communication with each other, too.
* My best, best friend (who I can tell anything and who doesn't use) urine tests me every 48 hours. We use that time to talk about what's going on, what went on, etc.
* My wife and I "check in" each morning and evening. Neither of us is terribly comfortable talking about recovery with the other one at this point. But we're forcing ourselves to do it, and it helps a ton. Also, during our morning check-in, my wife administers my daily naltrexone pill. That way, we all know I'm complying with that.
* I've got the SL community!
* Every now and then, if I really feel like I want to be around other people in recovery, I do go to an NA meeting.

Writing it out, the regimen seems ridiculously overblown. But the redundancy and overkill gives me some mental relief. e.g. Of course I don't need to do the urine screens every 48 hours. But what I find is that if I go to, say, 72 hours between tests, I start thinking about trying to game the process. Likewise, the naltrexone kinda obviates the need for the piss tests. But as I put this plan in place, I went with what I know about how my own brain works: the more thoroughly I can take dope off the table, the more effective I seem to be at figuring out new ways to cope.

I'm also doing a fair amount of stuff on my own. Mindfulness exercises. Lots of time at the gym. Little time alone.

I'm still looking over my shoulder, waiting to get hit hard with the kinds of cravings and compulsions and thinking that kept me relapsing for so long. So far, though, this stack of interventions seems to be helping a lot. It's certainly not *easy*, day to day. But it does feel different from before.
 
Wow, that is quite impressive simco! Nice job organizing all that support, that is at least half the battle right there. Have you ever been to a Refuge Recovery meeting or Against the Stream group? They are a really nice compliment to any more formal or clinic type of treatment you might receive. I find they're infinitely more beneficial than my experience with twelve step fellowships has been (particularly Against the Stream).
 
Thanks, @TPD. A Refuge Recovery meeting just started in my town, and I've been meaning to go. I've never heard of Against the Stream, but I like the name! ;)
 
www.againstthestream.org I think is their website. Good stuff. About 50% of the people who are part of it are in recovery, the other 50% are just human being who've faced other challenges in life other than substance use disorders.
 
My first rehab therapists were competent, my third rehab therapists were outstanding, but my second rehab therapist was for shit. She was a condescending twit who had never been an addict. And she was morbidly overweight which made me like her even less. I wrote on my discharge evaluation that being told supposedly how to put down a bottle of pills or alcohol by someone who can't put down a fork isn't effective treatment. With her manner, she probably would have made a great kindergarten teacher. But a shitty therapist in an adult rehab.

I'm going to try and give Refuge Recovery a try tomorrow after work. The closest meeting to me is literally on the beach at Cape Canaveral. It's an hours drive away, but meditating with other addicts on the beach listening to the surf...sounds a hell of a lot more appealing than going to a nasty meeting hall where the walls are still yellowed from cigarette smoke (although no one's been able to smoke in a meeting for years) and drinking shitty coffee.
 
Wow, that counsler sucks!! My motto is to "do whatever works for you"...if Methadone is working for her, that's wonderful and they should support that. I was also blasted for taking Klonopin and Adderall, which are both prescribed to me by a doctor. If I wasn't on those meds, I honestly might have relapsed on heroin. I don't understand why so many people are being shamed by taking meds to help with addiction. If you are taking it as prescribed and it's helping, I see no reason for people to be so judgmental.
 
Wow, that counsler sucks!! My motto is to "do whatever works for you"...if Methadone is working for her, that's wonderful and they should support that. I was also blasted for taking Klonopin and Adderall, which are both prescribed to me by a doctor. If I wasn't on those meds, I honestly might have relapsed on heroin. I don't understand why so many people are being shamed by taking meds to help with addiction. If you are taking it as prescribed and it's helping, I see no reason for people to be so judgmental.

It makes them feel better about the short comings of there recovery. 379
 
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