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

Intensive Outpatient vs Inpatient?

Have you ever come across Help at Any Cost, by Maia Szalavitz? Really great book. Deals with exactly the kind of treatment culture your experience (and my own) highlights. This particular kind of culture has long been the normal in the treatment industry. More recent interaction with the industry have led me to believe things are changing, but I have a feeling these kinds of experiences are still the norm through the industry in America.
 
I forgot who brought it up but my biggest problem with drug treatment is that I have panic disorder and take klonopin. I need it and you shouldn't taper someone off a mg a day or at all.

I dunno what type of quack thinks they can take you off a medication you have been on over a decade and take you off in less than a week when you have seizures if you don't take it.

Also they had problems with every non-narcotic medication that is schedule IV now but I really had some bad injuries but basically they wouldn't even let you take allergy medicine if you were allergic to cats and they had cats for example.

They did all this holistic stuff. I remember the psychologist calling the higher ups saying there was no way it was going to work and then she whispered to me "you should leave, you might die here" and shit got real.

I started phoning friends and family because I was already having pretty bad muscle spasms and if I checked in officially I was fucked and even though it was free I would be charged 1000 dollars a day for each day I wasn't there, so I imagine that is how they keep people there. I had just handed them my money for I guess their version of commisery so there I am in the middle of no where with no phone reception and them refusing to give me my money.

As far as the people I phoned for rides someone did come to get me but they told me a few lies. Your mother doesn't want you to call her until you finish and go to a halfway house, your girlfriend broke up with you, your friend said he won't speak to you until you finish our program. My girlfriend picked me up, my mother called and demanded to speak with me, and my friend had told them he could pick me up the next day at noon or later that night if need be.

I hadn't seen that friend in a while but he was a close friend and the only one near there and I was losing my shit quick. I had already gone through detox and was considered clean by AA/NA standards and I didn't see why I couldn't take muscle relaxers if my whole back spasms. It isn't like I haven't had some really bad injuries. They gave me some shit like they had someone addicted to muscle relaxers and I laughed and they told me it wasn't funny and I said yeah it is.

I wasn't about the buy this whole accupuncture which is 69.95 a session is all I need not to have pain for a week shit and to drink decaffinated imported tea for 4 bucks a pop shit.

So I was really surprised at the degree they isolate you from family. If I had gone through the whole check in process, you can't use the phone or see anyone for several months. I get it might work if you are not actually addicted to anything. I suppose the main problem was I needed to stay on klonopin and they let me keep it in jail at this point which is rare but the guys in county have seen me have a few seizures.

I thought I was fucked for sure when I left and my PO was going to put me in jail but she said if the place didn't suit my needs I could just do outpatient and that worked out pretty well for me. I think I was the only person to actually finish their program and most people just stay in it so they can piss dirty and still finish probation.

I still was disgusted they told me lies about my treatment plan because I wouldn't have gone there if I had none they would say one thing on the phone and did another the second my ride was gone. So when I was calling for a ride I started with my mother and the nurse was like no she doesn't want to talk to you and hung up the phone while I was talking and my mother freaked out and demanded to speak with me so I already knew they were lying because she said she was going to come up there if she couldn't speak with me.

I decided halfway through the paperwork when they told me about their no-benzo policy and I was out. I am on the anxiety medication for a reason. I don't know where they get off saying my gf left me or that my friend didn't want to speak to me. The whole time I was waiting for my ride they kept saying shit like "she ain't coming" or "I told you she left you" but there is a two hour deadzone and they knew it and I knew it so yeah she actually drove 4 hours to pick me up. I dunno why they tried to fuck up my friendship cuz when I talked to my friend his dog had just died and he ended up having to bury it that day so he was willing to come that night or in the morning.

Of course they don't make any money and they signed me up for six weeks to they really wanted to bill me for 40k dollars as I had a free ride because I wrote them a letter. It would have been one thing if I had known and they had not lied on the telephone.

I really do think they would have let me die of a seizure before taking me to a hospital. It is kinda too late if it takes 20 minutes to get to a hopsital and yeah a seizure can kill you and you can have worse from benzo wd so even with a month of clean time they insisted benzos had something to do with my heroin addiction.

I haven't used heroin just a week shy of a year now and I really don't think benzos are part of my past drug habit because I still take them and outpatient let me take them and didn't even bring them up but then again you could be on oxy and morphine and they wouldn't care. I have had the staff tell me they didn't think the most the people on heavy duty pain meds actually needed them and I know because half them were selling them and I of course didn't say anything, I kept my head down to anything like that as well as any corruption.

I don't think you can beat drugs or alcohol problems in a set amount of days and being forced into a rehab facility is never good. They are pretty good at selling their services and they are willing to lie and they don't care if you die. I get some people on a low dose of benzos probably don't need them but at 6 mgs you are looking at serious complications and some tea is not going to fix the issue because it goes far past relaxing a bit and an inevitable medical problem that they really shouldn't even try to ride out but would most likely just give me some antipsychotics and say it was suicide if it came down to it and I didn't pull through.

Anyways they were kinda obligated to keep me on benzos until I either checked out or got a ride and I was expected to be out by 6am in the morning and left at 2am and they gave me a load of shit and for some reason kept all my drawing pencils and mailed them to me. I am not a big fan of television and asked if I could bring a few sketch pads and pens. I suppose they wanted to check it very well for drugs because they were pissed they didn't get paid.

I think the problem is privatizing medicine. This place is not really any different than a state facility, it might have a nice couch but you have a roomate. You also for some reason are not allowed to talk to the opposite sex even though you might be sitting right next to them if you choose to sit in the commons room you can't say a word without being locked in your room for a day. I didn't even get through the rules before I started calling people and they still kept reading them to me like I was going to stay.

It really annoyed me that I told them I was leaving and they were like "what are you going to do walk" and I said if it comes down to it. They laughed but I actually have hitchhiked from alcohol detox about 250 miles so yeah I would have. When I left they wouldn't give me the money I just gave them, my wallet, and some of my stuff. I don't get it. I am an adult who signed in willingly and they did call my probation officer and I didn't give them the number. My PO was cool about it and said its like a suit and if it doesn't fit right its not the one you want. I was just glad I didn't wind up in jail.

I really feel like these people did everything they could think of to keep me there when it clearly was putting my life in danger.
That sounds about right. They will do and say anything to get you there because most family members will not come pick you up once your there because they buy into the whole "he will die if he leaves" bullshit. These people are professionals at getting patients and keeping them there. Its 100 percent a business.
 
Some of my experiences mirror this. I looked into one residential rehab where they told me they were going to cold turkey me off benzos. No thanks, and especially not at $20k a month. The one I ended up at wasn't particularly pleased about it, but allowed me to keep taking it PRN. Last week looking into IOP programs, one required 4 12 step meetings a week outside IOP and again, cold turkey off the benzos. I'd much rather be outside doing some physical activity than sitting inside drinking shit coffee and listening to quasi-religious blather and given that IOP is 10 hours a week, if you work a 40 hour week that doesn't leave you a whole hell of a lot of time to do the things you enjoy, and I'm not going to waste it doing something I find downright loathsome. Things are slowly changing, as I found an IOP that uses an evidence based treatment model developed by SAMSHA, and they don't have an issue with benzos, but it is maddening how resistant the treatment industry is to change. I know I sound like a broken record, but is there any other medical condition that is treated the same way as it was in 1930???

I enjoy Szalavitz's books. I'll have to see if the library has that one. I own "Unbroken Brain" and read it last summer.
 
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I know I sound like a broken record, but is there any other medical condition that is treated the same way as it was in 1930???

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Exactly. No other field of medicine would get away with what addiction medicine does to there patients. They say if the rehab fails then its the patients fault. Could you imagine an oncologist blaming the patient for the chemo therapy not working? Its fucking absurd.
 
I get that some people get a lot out of 12 step. More power to them, but to each his own. I hate that it's crammed down your throat by the treatment industry and that many professionals consider it the only way to recover. The recovery experience is not monolithic.
 
I get that some people get a lot out of 12 step. More power to them, but to each his own. I hate that it's crammed down your throat by the treatment industry and that many professionals consider it the only way to recover. The recovery experience is not monolithic.
Nor will complete abstinence work for everyone. Life is not black and white like that.
 
12 step isn't too bad when you are not forced there and they set up the program so you are clean and it doesn't matter if your life sucks, you are just doing what you should have always been doing is what thru say.

I don't like NA for three reasons 1) ok, I know half the people and they are drug dealers and sure they might be there to get help but they are still packing dope for sale 2) the chanting is kinda cult like and the whole white chip shaming 3) they stray way too far from the AA basic principles and I really don't like hugging cuz look if I took a shower a NA meeting will cancel that out plus the cult like quasi religious crap just makes it a bad place for me plus so many people use and give people shit for taking any medication.

I like AA a lil. It helped me in the past but most of it is frap to me and I have the book memorized. I still orefer AA any day and as long as you say alcoholic its all good and half the people there are there for herin and polysubstance use. Really that is going to br every drunk to some degree.

I don't buy the all or nothing thing and think that makes relapses worse.

IOP works and maybe it is because you have a choice. I think detox takes a while and checking into rehab after a three day detox is usually a trip to the hospital or morgue depending on how addicted you are but hey lets put a one size fits all approach and fuck who dies.

Every drug is different and so is every person. How long and how much you used kinda matters but they think they know it all and the sad part is even if they know you gonna be in the hospital or should be within six to twelve hours they say they can handle it.

Sadly some families buy it hook line and sinker. They think they can buy someone else's sobirety and they are talking to someone who says they went through it and embellish their story and thr facilities capabilities just to get a sale and we are talking human lives and sometimes rehab is deadly and medically dangerous with some policies and even then you are supposed to come out fixed and it doesn't work like that for someone with a serious problem and they don't care if you have medical issues and whatever it is they say is related to addiction. I had one place have a problem with promethazine and look I need it to eat and the fact the drunk across the hall gets codeine shouldn't matter because they should dispense medicine privately.

That one place I went to said they were a hospital on the phone but the said hospital-like after you check in. I truly think id I had stayed I could have died and would have had seizures.

I can't trust someone that lies to me and the lies are constant. I went to one place that locks the soor behind you as soon as you walk in and I wanted to get something to eat before I got sick but they said I could go eat after I filled out the paperwork and then they called fucking security and put a 24 hour hold on me. I bounced after two days and they did me so bad that they agreed I was fully detoxed after 36 hours cuz for some reason they didn't feed me and left me at the hospital outside for about four hours so I could have called malpractice or gotten my paperwork signed so I went with the paperwork.

That was the worst experience ever. I went in ok health and came out terrible. I was actually glad no long place would take me with my medical problems which are nothing serious other than an anxiety/panic disorder and some dietary issues were I just have trouble eating some foods. I am sorry but yeah I gotta eat fruit and vegetables or I end up puking up stuff that is rough on my stomach without promethazine. I still don't know what it is but I can manage it fine on my own and eat a healthy diet, it's more unhealthy food that I can keep down.

So its not drug wd when I puke, its panic attacks and disgusting food and I ate the food in jail just fine and got my medication and prefer jail any day.

IOP SAMSHA is actually way better.
 
It feels like rehabs value there program over the needs of the clients.
 
It feels like rehabs value there program over the needs of the clients.

It's the bullying I have an issue with. If you don't completely drop everything, go into treatment and put your life on hold for 30-90 days YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!! I had to explain to one particularly persistent admissions person this way, "Look, I have a subsidized Obamacare health insurance policy. If I don't earn a certain amount of money in a year, I won't qualify for my subsidy, but thanks to Governor Dickwad, I will still make way too much for Medicaid. Then there won't be treatment or therapy of ANY kind, inpatient or outpatient." She still called at least two times after I gave her that little spiel.

dopemaster said:
I really don't like hugging cuz look if I took a shower a NA meeting will cancel that out

ROFLMAO...It wouldn't be so funny if it weren't true! I've said elsewhere on this forum that NA meetings take the meaning of schifo to a whole other level.
 
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I gotta admit, I like the hugs. I feel like I'm still reeling from the brutal loneliness of my last couple runs. Getting hugs, even from filthy and the sick, counteracts that a bit. Shit, I'm sure they think I'm filthy and sick half the time ;)
 
Sometimes hugs are okay, other times not so much. "Enforced" hugs are fucked up. There should always be some kind of spoken or body language indicating, "I'm happy to offer you a hug, but it isn't required," kind of thing.

I find the whole hugging thing - actually any kind of body contact (and mind you, I'm the kind of human who LOVES skin to skin body contact, even with otherwise strangers) - highly problematic given the prevalence of those who've experienced physical and sexual abuse/trauma in the twelve step community.
 
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