Out of the Darkness by Ted Arnold content editor
Looking at how the Traverse City community approaches addiction treatment and rehabilitation
Photos: T. Arnold
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espite its dangers, addiction has long been a dinner-table taboo, a disease impossible to put into words. The process of recovery is a long and often hidden road, but not one that can be taken alone. Many services exist to help addicts recover and take important steps toward sobriety. Here in Traverse City, Addiction Treatment Services (ATS) has been providing assistance with recovery for over 40 years. ATS offers a variety of services including a detox facility, residential services, and outpatient support. Dan Rockne, Access Manager at ATS, who describes his job as “communication and coordination.” Rockne is responsible for fielding calls from clients seeking help, as well as family members looking for ways to support their loved ones. Beyond that, he works internally to determine what kind of care someone will need. Rockne has access to a powerful tool when working with clients: he has personally felt the toll of addiction. For many drug and alcohol counselors, experience in recovery allows them to “look across as opposed to look down, it allows me to relate, and it’s the most disarming thing that I can say to anyone.” Rockne’s first task is to “figure out: What are they using? How much are they using? Do they have other kinds of issues that are going on, as far as legal, social, medical?” Then, his team can figure out what it is going to take to treat them, and will they be safe to bring in? Treat-
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ment varies depending on what substances someone is using, how frequently they’re using them, and what sort of home environment someone is coming from. Rockne notes that having “people around you that are safe and supportive” is a very different recovery experience than “coming from a pretty chaotic environment,” and as such, is something the team needs to factor in. As a result of this process, ATS can offer a full spectrum of care, allowing them to properly treat anyone who comes in. According to Rockne, ATS uses their detox facility anytime that someone is using a substance and “develops a chemical dependence in their body.” The facility is designed so that ATS can first assess and then provide constant care and observation to someone as they are medically withdrawn from those substances. This process is incredibly dangerous outside of supervision. Withdrawal from heroin is “like having the worst flu of your life for about 10 days,” and someone with a dependence on alcohol will get a condition called the delirium tremens, when they are “liable to be hypertensive, be very ill, potentially have a seizure, [or] potentially die.” The facility is “the best, most structured environment we can keep them in. They’re under observation. If anything goes south and we don’t have the capability to take care of it here, they’re in the best position to go directly from our
