One of the most staggering statistics about America is this: More than 48 million Americans have a substance use disorder, according to the federal government. The toll is immense: Every 13 seconds, someone is rushed into an emergency room for misusing drugs. And more than 100,000 Americans die from overdoses each year. Estimates of the financial burden are in the hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps exceeding $1 trillion each year, and the psychological toll is incalculable. This past weekend, a friend of mine with a drug history didn't visit as he was supposed to and then didn't answer the phone for several days; my imagination immediately went to dark places. (It turned out that he was simply ill.) So many families have been shattered by addiction, so many people are living in pain, and so much crime and homelessness is linked to substance use — so why don't we tackle the problem more seriously? I think we don't do a better job because many Americans see addiction as hopeless. They think nothing works. That's wrong. As I argue in a new column, there are solutions — imperfect ones and sometimes expensive ones — but far better than what we have now. I tell of a graduation I attended for a program in Tulsa, Okla., called Women in Recovery. It's a diversion program for women with drug histories and criminal convictions who otherwise would be sent to prison, and it's the best single program I know of for addiction. Some 70 percent of those who enter Women in Recovery complete it, and three years later only 3.7 percent have been returned to the corrections system. This may have been the happiest graduation I've ever seen. An audience of family members, friends and even police officers who had previously arrested the women gave them a standing ovation. In my column, there's a photo of one graduate being embraced in a fierce hug by the judge who had faced her in the courtroom. This article is part of my "How America Heals" series, looking at solutions to problems that have left so many Americans behind. To me, the lesson of Women in Recovery is: There is hope, and treatment can work enough of the time that it is a moral and practical imperative to try. Women in Recovery has a good success rate partly because it is more comprehensive and lasts longer than most other programs (about 18 months), and something like it should be scalable. As I watched those graduates, I kept thinking: What if free and effective treatment were available to all Americans who needed it? This would cost tens of billions of dollars. But anyone who thinks we can't afford to treat addiction doesn't understand the costs to our nation and ourselves of drug and alcohol abuse. Read the column:
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Thursday, February 15, 2024
Opinion Today: Hope for people suffering from addiction
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