If I said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times—most people don’t understand addiction. Most people don’t understand that drug and alcohol rehab can be a total waste of time and money. Most people don’t understand the disease of alcoholism or addiction, and most can’t fully grasp the concept that alcoholism or drug addiction is a complicated disease and the only way for a person to be successful in recovering is if that person agrees to be an active participant in their own recovery. Most people also don’t understand that even if someone does go to the most expensive or renowned rehab facility—recovery may still not take hold. Think of it like this: You can’t acquire a great tan in five minutes, and you can’t change lifelong habits and one’s manner of thinking in thirty days.
Rehab programs only work if the person is truly committed to changing one thing—and that’s everything. With that said, companies can spend thousands of dollars sending someone to rehab; the person completes the program and comes back to work all smiles and reassurances that they got this—they’re sure they’re on the right track, but within a short amount of time the person may find themselves right back to where they started—drinking or using again. This is the nature of the beast, but this doesn’t have to be the typical story.
The best way to combat the ubiquitous drug and alcohol culture is to have people in your organization who are intimately familiar with the disease. Most companies have a wealth of information at their fingertips but they don’t create a corporate culture that is conducive to discussing substance abuse. Most all companies already have people within their ranks who are sober employees and who are working a program of recovery. These people are a valuable resource, but in most cases, the person would not feel comfortable breaking their anonymity, and the reasons are many and varied: the stigma, attitudes of upper management, upper management may be comprised of drinkers, attitudes of their peers, misinformation—all of these are reasons why people choose to stay anonymous. Who wants to deal with the backlash? The stigma? The whispers? These are just some of the reasons why people who could be a valuable resource tend to stay silent.
Most EAP’s may have a counselor or someone along those lines, but few if any that I’m aware of actually have people in recovery on their EAP staff. The old adage “It takes one to know one,” is true. A person with a drug or alcohol problem will open up to another person in recovery in ways that they would never open up to someone who has never been caught up in the disease. Many people tell me this, and one high school teacher relayed how she was downright obstinate toward the rehab counselors who were not former drug addicts or alcoholics. She said that she would stand there with her arms crossed in front of her and didn’t talk to any of them. It was only when she was in a session with a counselor who was a recovering alcoholic, did she open up and share what all was going on with her.
This story is all too familiar. What people don’t understand is that unless you’re in recovery, you’re not going to hear these sorts of truths. Unless you’re in recovery and rub elbows with former alcoholics and addicts, how are you going to know the lies they will tell, the cons they will run, the ways in which they run their games at work? The answer is—you’re not.
People not in recovery may believe that if you send someone to rehab that they’ll come home sober and stay sober. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot of rehab programs out there and some are nothing but a waste of time and money. I’ve talked to people who went to rehab and they’ve told me that people were buying drugs through the windows. Some rehabs may say they want people to get well, but they don’t run a tight ship, they don’t employ quality people, and lest we forget, their doors stay open for business as long as people fail.
Also, most don’t understand the modality of thinking that an addict or alcoholic has—it can be hard to understand unless you’ve been there. I’m certainly not saying that there aren’t good counselors and professionals out there who aren’t addicts or alcoholics, but the ones I know who have found success were the ones willing to surround themselves with other recovering people and acquired some street smarts. They educated themselves in the school of life and could sniff out some of the nuances that most people miss. When it comes to addiction or alcoholism, there are too many things that can’t be learned in class or any Ph.D. program. A good counselor acquires that sixth sense and can better determine if a person is lying, or if they’re serious about sobriety or only going through the motions to get everyone off their backs.
With all that said, there are no absolutes. When you deal with human beings, people from different backgrounds, cultures, emotional make-ups, coupled with a plethora of experiences unique to each of us—you can see that there is no one perfect solution—and anyone who disputes that fact is not being honest.
Not everyone has to leave their job and families for thirty days in order to get well. There are stages of addiction and if someone is still functional, they are probably able to find as much success in outpatient treatment, if they’re also willing to attend and immerse themselves in a twelve-step program, or some other peer support option.
I’ve been sober for twenty-eight years. I never went to inpatient or outpatient rehab. I never went to the doctor. I never had an assessment, but I had some knowledge of the disease of alcoholism from watching my mother completely self-destruct, and when my drinking started to get out of hand, I knew where to go and what to do. I self-diagnosed my alcoholism and started in with a twelve step group. Twenty-eight years later, I’m still active in that fellowship.
I wonder if more companies were open to talking about substance abuse, then perhaps more people would understand how it’s possible to be a high functioning surgeon, doctor, executive, marketing manager, teacher, file clerk; pick one.
I wonder if more people would do what I did and take stock of their drinking or drug use while still in the early stages instead of opting for the slow descent and destruction of their health, their career, and their families? As long as people continue to think that alcoholics and addicts are only the people they see on the six o’clock news, is there any wonder that companies will continue to hire people in the throes of addiction, and then be left with the complicated problem of what to do and how to handle them?
Education is key. If we are to ever fully address addiction, it has to come into the light, and people need to understand that 80% of alcoholics have jobs. They work somewhere, and believe me, quite a few of them probably work in your place of business, your factory, your hospital, your sales department, your bank. Case in point: I have yet to work on any nursing unit in any hospital where we didn’t have employees in the throes of addiction. Most times, no one connected the objectionable behavior to the underlying issue of substance abuse, and the issue was never addressed until the addiction became obvious to everyone. My point is that even the medical community has much to learn about addiction. If they could even understand that their go-to solution of prescribing pharmaceuticals almost always compounds the problem and rarely if ever leads a person to recovery, we’d take a step in the right direction.
I am convinced that if more people understood addiction and knew what some of the early warning signs looked like, that more people would opt to make different choices? Would more people change the whole trajectory of their life and their career if they understood that the reason things may not be working out at home or work is because alcohol has taken on a dominant role in that person’s life?
We will never get ahead of the alcohol and drug problem in America until everyone becomes a willing participant in the discussion. None of us lives in a box. What we do at home spills over into our work. If you’re someone who thinks you function just fine, but every night you find yourself with a cocktail in hand, perhaps your drinking is no longer so normal after all. The truth of the matter in all cases is this: If you don’t do something about your disease it will do something about you.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain: Raising the Bottom is all about raising your bottom-line, and saving and changing lives!
After short stints where Lisa trained polo horses, worked as a flight attendant, hairdresser, and bartender, she revamped her life and settled in as a registered nurse. For past twenty-eight years has worked with hundreds of people overcome alcoholism, live better lives. She was prompted to write the award-winning book, Raising the Bottom, when she realized after twenty plus years of working in hospitals, that doctors and traditional healthcare offer few solutions to people with addiction issues.
Lisa is available for consulting or speaking.