A Sad State of Affairs

For the second year in a row I attended Toronto’s Recovery Day event. As a person who is proud to be in recovery I think Recovery Day is a great idea. It originated in the U.S. as part of the Voices in Recovery Movement (VRM). It’s a grassroots movement with, from my understanding, a two-fold purpose. First to remove the stigma that people who suffer from the disease of addiction face. Second, to act as the vanguards of advocacy to get legislation passed to treat addiction as a disease rather than a crime.

Last year’s event in Toronto was not well attended and I blamed a broken down subway line. However, this year the subway was fine and there seemed to be even less people in attendance. I believe the reason for this is that the people in recovery, those the VRM want to help, refuse to embrace the movement. I further believe that this refusal is based on a misinterpretation of the anonymity tradition followed by 12 Step fellowships world-wide. People have this mistaken belief that if you tell someone you are a recovered alcoholic/addict or as the VRM would word it, “a person of recovery”, you are breaking anonymity. Bill Wilson, co-founder of the original 12 Step Fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous and author of the 12 Traditions, did not want people to hide the fact that they had, “recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body” from the rest of the world. Recovered people do not hide from the world they embrace it. Bill Wilson spoke before a U.S. Congressional Committee in the 1960s (after the 12 Traditions had been adopted) and both him and Dr. Bob Smith (AA’s other co-founder) appointed Marty Mann (AKA: The First Lady of AA) to be a spokesperson to the world in an effort to educate the public that addiction wasn’t a lack of morals or will-power but a medical disease. I firmly believe that both Bill and Dr. Bob would not only attend a Recovery Day in their area but announce at meetings as well.

I am a person of long-term recovery which means I haven’t seen the need to take a drink or mind-altering substance since January 7, 2005. In my recovery journey I have seen first-hand the stigma people with mental health/addiction issues face and the lack of government funded treatments for those who suffer from this illness. I have experienced the strength of various 12 Step Fellowships and the enthusiasm those involved have for recovery events. When I was six months sober I had the privilege to attend the World Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous in Toronto. Along with 50,000 other people I said the Serenity Prayer in the SkyDome. I walked the streets of Toronto proudly displaying my World Conference AA Pass for all to see. From what I observed the majority of those in attendance weren’t hiding their passes either. I regularly attend the annual Ontario Regional Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous (ORC) at the Royal York in Toronto. Although not quite 50,000 people attend there are a good 3,000. At the local AA meetings I attend the ORC and smaller events are regularly announced and received with enthusiasm by a group voracious to attend all things recovery themed. However, when I announced Recovery Day in my area I was met with hostility by some.

The founders of the 12 Step movements were for helping the still suffering person. The Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous states that it doesn’t know everything and promotes cooperation with those who also want to help. This cooperation was clearly not present in Toronto on the last two Recovery Days (2015 & 2016). I was glad to see a Narcotics Anonymous Booth there but aggrieved that no booth existed for either Alcoholics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous. I’ve seen AA booths set up in other community celebrations and/or information days but not for the one set aside especially for those it was formed to help. In fact the Toronto Intergroup is anti-Recovery Day which I can only assume is based on the aforementioned misinterpretation of anonymity tradition.

The Voices in Recovery Movement seeks to show politicians that those in Recovery do vote and can have significant sway in elections. It’s based on the movement by the gay community formed in the 1980s when it was faced with the AIDS epidemic. Sad to say, at least in Toronto, this advocacy movement is not as successful as the one it tries to emulate. In fact, based on the numbers of people in attendance I cannot see our current government or any future one making any changes to the health care system that would help the still suffering alcoholic/addict. A sad state of affairs - indeed.

Dave the Dude

My AA Nightmare

As I sat in the meeting last night I observed that the gentleman next to me had a bad cold. As the meeting went on I noticed that he was blowing his nose and using tissue after tissue. It appeared to be quite the mucus mess. I had a hard time remaining in the now as all I could think of was having to hold his hand during the closing prayer thus risking picking up whatever virus was wreaking havoc on his body. 

At the conclusion of the meeting I was relieved to see the gentleman had gone to the bathroom and not yet returned. I finished the meeting grateful I did not have to take ahold of the infected hand. 

Later that night as I awoke with the beginnings of a sore throat it dawned on me I had shaken the aforementioned gentleman's hand when I introduced myself prior to the start of the meeting. Ahhhhhhhh!!!! 😱

Dave the Dude

Objectionable Treatment Practices

There is a plethora of addiction/mental health treatment centres across Canada, many of them private. In Ontario anyone with a load of money and/or a desire to make more can open one as there is no regulations whatsoever and no plans in the near future to bring in any. This opens the playing field to a host of ne-er-do-wells who take advantage of the lack of regulation, preying on the misery and desperation of families suffering from the disease of addiction and/or mental health. Not only do these people prey on those needing help they also prey on those wanting to help the sick individuals.

Many of the people who open a treatment centre get it into because they have found recovery themselves. Unfortunately, as we say in Alcoholics Anonymous, if you sober up a horse thief you still have a horse thief. Or in this case if you sober up a scum-bag you still have a scum-bag. I’ve been in the field of addictions for over a decade now and have run into my fair share of unscrupulous people. Without naming names (as I’ve had to sign confidentiality agreements) let me share with you a few of my experiences.

There was one centre I had the displeasure to work for that seemed okay at the beginning. The front-line staff was great and even some of the on-site management. I began to see the perniciousness of the centre when I met the main owner. He made his money (prior to getting into the treatment business) by targeting the very people he now wanted to help with a string of payday loan outlets. Actually I wouldn’t say he wanted to help the ones who patronized those establishments as they wouldn’t be able to afford the addiction centre he had opened. This guy went after the whales of addiction – people who still had money or whose families did. I knew something was off with the guy when I first met him. He came to the centre in his high-priced car accompanies by his newly purchased pure-bred puppy. The puppy’s ears were a bleeding mess as the owner had just had them clipped. He mentioned that he had to return the puppy as it was sick. When I asked what would happen to the dog he shrugged it off giving a clear impression that he didn’t give a shit. As time went on myself and other staff realized that this guy didn’t not only didn’t give a shit about canines but didn’t care much for employees or those they were trying to help either. Problems soon arose with bounced bay cheques or none at all. At first staff was patient but when there was not even a sorry from this multi-mansion living owner we began to despair.

The centre owned by this Machiavellian of money-making didn’t have intake counsellors but sales people (a commonality of private centre in the province and across the nation). These sales people, posing as addiction experts, would say anything to get a client signed up for the $20,000 per/month treatment program. One of these hucksters was able to convince a disabled guy in a wheelchair to sign up for treatment, despite the fact that the facility was not accessible to someone in his condition. The guy was able to stick it out for three days before he came to his senses but that was all that was needed because after three days in the facility there was a no-money back clause in the treatment contract. I wish I could say this type of thing was isolated to this one centre but it is becoming a wide-spread epidemic amongst centres in Ontario and across Canada for that matter. Owners/CFOs/CEOs will often tell counsellors to try to makes sure a client stays in treatment at least to the no-money back clause kicks in.

I worked at this one place where families sent loved ones with extreme addiction/mental health issues to get help. Unfortunately for these people they weren’t properly assessed prior to coming to the centre and as a result staff was not properly informed of the issues the person was facing putting both them and clients’ safety in jeopardy. Again it seems the aura of green overshadowed the need to help. There were also very blurry lines between some clinical staff and clients. There was one counsellor who would take two individuals out for day passes when he was off-duty. There seemed to be no line between counsellor and client. There also appeared to be sets of rules that were enforced on regular clients but not on individuals who head clinical staff had a soft spot for. Treatment centres need to be client-centred but they also need to have a set of guidelines that must be adhered to or chaos ensues and no one is helped. For some reason I’ve seen these guidelines thrown by the wayside causing great havoc masked with veil of a therapeutic intervention.

At one centre clients facing therapeutic consequences for negative behaviours were able to plead to the owner to overrule clinical staff. The owner would do so, despite having no clinical training himself, thus throwing a whole stink on the therapeutic dynamic in the centre and undermining the authority of all. In my experience therapists often undermine the authority of addiction counsellors in much the same way but an owner doing this is, my in opinion, is much worse.

What can be done about this? The government must bring in regulation. A few organizations have been formed to try to bring a degree of professionalism but none are recognized by the province or the feds. When and if the government brings in regulations it needs to do so with input from experts in the field hailing from the many successful interventions, including 12 Step which government officials tend to be wary of – most likely because it has to do with a Higher Power which is not quantifiable.

Every so often I have friends and family asking for advice on places to send loved ones for addiction/mental health help. I have come to the conclusion that people should only be sent to institutions that have been around longer than 15 years. This isn’t the only criteria I tell them to look at but it is an important one

Dave the Dude