Entertainment
REHAB RECONSIDERED
A new book delves deep into a world of addicts, recovery, and disappointment.
Wed, Jun 12, 2002 12:00 am
Preston Peet
"If, as the data seem to show, treatment programs don't actually keep junkies clean, this new push for rehab will simply become another dogma-based government strategy doomed to failure," writes Lonny Shavelson in his book, Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge Our Misguided Drug Rehab System (New Press).
After San Francisco embarked on a plan for "appropriate" treatment on demand within 48 hours for all addicts who want it in 1997, Shavelson became intrigued with the growing calls around the U.S. for treatment instead of jail for addicts.
An emergency-room physician and journalist armed with approval from the city's health department, he submerged himself "in the world of hardcore addicts" for two years, spending day after day in drug courts, intake units, treatment facilities, even the dwellings both on and off the streets of the five addicts he profiles. The pictures he paints are fascinatingly colorful, but not pretty.
Shavelson is uncompromisingly blunt in his conclusions.
"My two years in the world of rehab," he opines, "illuminated both its wonders, and tragically, its present failings. Most important, I became convinced that many changes must and can be implemented to make drug treatment work."
Beyond entering treatment as an addict oneself, it would be extremely difficult to get a clearer view of what drug treatment currently entails than Lonny Shavelson's landmark work.
"If, as the data seem to show, treatment programs don't actually keep junkies clean, this new push for rehab will simply become another dogma-based government strategy doomed to failure," writes Lonny Shavelson in his book, Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge Our Misguided Drug Rehab System (New Press).
After San Francisco embarked on a plan for "appropriate" treatment on demand within 48 hours for all addicts who want it in 1997, Shavelson became intrigued with the growing calls around the U.S. for treatment instead of jail for addicts.An emergency-room physician and journalist armed with approval from the city's health department, he submerged himself "in the world of hardcore addicts" for two years, spending day after day in drug courts, intake units, treatment facilities, even the dwellings both on and off the streets of the five addicts he profiles. The pictures he paints are fascinatingly colorful, but not pretty.
Shavelson is uncompromisingly blunt in his conclusions.
"My two years in the world of rehab," he opines, "illuminated both its wonders, and tragically, its present failings. Most important, I became convinced that many changes must and can be implemented to make drug treatment work."
Beyond entering treatment as an addict oneself, it would be extremely difficult to get a clearer view of what drug treatment currently entails than Lonny Shavelson's landmark work.
