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The
Advocate's Corner
'Voices
for Recovery' muffled without
congressional action, presidential support
Physically exhausted, drained emotionally and teetering on the edge of
financial bankruptcy, I somehow made it out of a New York City crack house
in 1989 and into a drug treatment center in Minnesota. After a decade
of using and abusing cocaine, alcohol and other drugs, I was in trouble
and needed professional help.
Help is what I got. And ever since, I've
learned that opportunity comes from adversity. Today I hold a job, pay
taxes, raise a family, vote and obey the law.
It is an opportunity that
many alcoholics and addicts don't get now. From California and Oregon
to Minnesota and New York, state legislatures across the country have
slashed treatment dollars as they struggle with gaping budget deficits.
Partisan political rancor over vouchers for so-called faith based drug
treatment programs deflects federal funds from treatment programs that
work.
Our county jails and state prisons are filled with addicts whose
only treatment is punishment. Among working families, private health care
insurance benefits for addiction treatment are steadily eroding.
Even
those fortunate enough to receive treatment are sicker now than my generation
of addicts and alcoholics. Fourteen years ago, about six percent of the
patients who were in treatment with me at Hazelden were diagnosed with
what is now commonly known as a "co-occurring disorder" - addiction
as well as serious mental issues such as depression, bipolar disorder
and anxiety disorders.
Today, as many as 65 percent of individuals admitted for addiction
treatment also have at least one co-occurring mental health diagnosis.
The drugs of abuse in 2003 don't just buzz the body. They can rewire the
brain, in some cases permanently.
Many patients striving to overcome addiction
must also hurdle persistent and debilitating mental health issues too.
And vice versa. It is a wicked cycle.
Yet today's reality is obscured
by our nation's persistent belief that addiction is somehow different
than other illnesses, if it is even considered an illness at all. This
summer, a blue-ribbon panel established by President Bush to examine how
to deal with the burgeoning problem of the mentally ill all but ignored
alcoholism and drug addiction in laying out its recommendations.
In Congress,
legislation introduced by Republican Senator Pete Domenici to improve
private health insurance coverage for mental illness specifically excludes
addiction treatment. Around the country, only six states provide full
and equal insurance coverage for both illnesses.
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Meantime,
the nation continues to wage a war against addicted people. And the Bush
Administration sends mixed messages about its drug policy. The president
himself inspired millions of people during his State of the Union speech
in January when he declared, "The miracle of recovery is possible,
and it could be you." On Fox News a few months ago, drug czar John
Walters ably defended the disease model of addiction against a commentator's
contention that drug abusers are moral degenerates who should be executed,
not treated. The Administration's 2004 budget does include millions of
additional dollars for drug treatment programs.
Yet the disproportionate
bulk of the Administration's annual $20-billion drug budget still goes
where every administration's has for decades - to fighting a war America
cannot win primarily through international interdiction and tough law
enforcement at home. And so far, the Administration has remained strangely
silent on a key bill introduced in May by two Republicans, Senator Norm
Coleman and Representative Jim Ramstad, to improve access to addiction
treatment through private health care plans.
Most plans don't cover such
treatment like they do for hypertension, diabetes or other chronic illnesses.
At this point, nothing short of the President's direct endorsement this
fall will overcome this discrimination and prod Congress to approve this
legislation before the end of the year.
Ironically, the federal government
declared September "National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery
Month." Last year's theme was "Join the Voices for Recovery:
Celebrating Health." It's a celebration I joined, because I got a
chance to recover. Millions of others didn't, because stigma and a lack
of funds for treatment stand between them and President Bush's "miracle
of recovery."
William C. Moyers is vice president of external affairs
for the Hazelden Foundation, based in Minnesota. His personal experiences
were the basis for the 1998 public television series, Moyers on Addiction:
Close to Home.
This article originally appeared in September, 2003 on Join Together
Online [www.jointogether.org]
and is reprinted with permission.
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