l: re
news “rehab reality,” continued... people who needed help didn’t get it. For nearly everyone in treatment, conquering substance abuse is an uphill climb. Studies have shown that drug abuse has a long life, in many cases lasting more than a decade from first use to last. One study of opiate users showed that over the course of 12 months, more than two-thirds relapsed to daily use. In all likelihood, staying clean will take more than one episode of treatment. Spokane Valley’s Laurie Taggart has watched both of her sons struggle, again and again, to overcome addiction. Her oldest son’s troubles began when he got a DUI at 17. He sought treatment at Lakeside Recovery Center, but the teen was out of place among 50-year-old alcoholics. A minor-in-possession charge in Cheney came when he was 19. And after failing a third drug test stemming from that charge, a judge ordered his arrest, and he was sent to Geiger Corrections Center in Airway Heights. “He told me he saw worse stuff there than ever before,” Taggart says. “The first time he saw heroin was there.” Now 23, he’s in jail in Wheatland, Wyoming. Taggart isn’t sure for how long. Her youngest son is now 21 and still lives at home, pouring cement by day to pay off the $5,000 in court fines he’s accrued getting in trouble as a teen. Problems, she says, really began when he was devastated after getting cut from the high school baseball team. He started drinking and smoking pot. Then he tried to sell a breath mint as Ecstasy to a classmate. He was arrested and charged with a felony, says Taggart. His life tumbled after that. He was enrolled in Daybreak Youth Services’ outpatient program. Then he was sent to 40 days in the wilderness with the SUWS Wilderness program in Idaho, an accredited intervention program for kids. He came back “looking great,” says Taggart, but it didn’t stick. He’s finally broken free from some of his demons, but “he’s still struggling,” says Taggart, adding hopefully, “He’s not drinking.” She keeps both her boys on her health insurance, just in case they want to enter a program, but she looks skeptically at the system she’s been involved with so far. She doesn’t blame anyone other than her kids — and herself — and she doesn’t view them as unwilling victims. She just wishes something had worked. “Kids can’t do a 12-step program. They don’t get it,” she says. With offenses racking up thousands
A Painful Process
New Vision’s Jina Doggett: “We are the only medical detox on this side of the Cascades.”
K
icking drugs is complicated in part because of the painful process of withdrawal. The New Vision program at Providence Holy Family Hospital focuses on helping people through those initial tough days without chemicals. But while desperate family members may want to drop off an addict, that’s not part of the plan. “We are a self-referred service. So we don’t do any involuntary treatment. The patient has to be the one to call us,” says Jina Doggett, service coordinator at New Vision. “Intake takes about 30 minutes over the phone. We’re asking them demographic info, use history, medication that they’re on, anything the doctor would need to know, insurance info.” When the patient shows up, they have to show signs of withdrawal. Then it’s a three-day stay, on average, with their own private room and bathroom. “We don’t want them mingling with other patients. It’s more of a private process,” says Doggett. “There’s nothing social about ours. There’s no behavioral health program. It’s strictly a medical-based service.” As a “medical stabilization service,” there’s 24-hour supervision by a medical professional and a doctor on hand to dispense medication. The goal: to get patients medically stabilized so they won’t be distracted when they’re at inpatient or outpatient services following their stay. About 30 to 40 patients receive care each month, at an average cost of $5,325 for a three-day stay. “We are the only medical detox on this side of the Cascades. We don’t have a charity bed — yet,” says Doggett. “But we do accept Medicaid. We accept any insurance, state or private. And we do accept cash.” — nicholas deshais
of dollars in fines, Taggart says it becomes harder and harder for people to get out of the system. “Once they get into the court system, that’s what’s wrong with it, you can’t get out.”
S
andra Altshuler doesn’t blame Taggart for being frustrated. Kicking a habit is a tough task, with substance abuse treatment programs nationwide suc-
ceeding with just 40 percent of their clients. “I look at research all the time,” says Altshuler, the coordinator of Behavioral Health Adult Felony Therapeutic Drug Court, which is part of the Spokane County Superior Courts. “We really can’t predict who will succeed and graduate. We can’t predict it. The good news of that, in my opinion, is we don’t exclude people.” Altshuler says the drug court she runs
18 Health JUNE-JULY, 2013 News_inhealth_june_2013.indd 18
5/22/13 1:22 PM