Co-ordinated teamwork beats addiction

Serving for two decades as pastor/psychologist at Ramot, a church-run addiction treatment centre near Cape Town, was a privilege.

The 10 facilities I visited in Europe had long-term programs of a year or more for in-patients. Other facilities I visited (10 in the U.K., two in the U.S., five in Canada and five in South Africa) offered three to five weeks inpatient treatment followed by aftercare.

Because addiction harms people in body, soul, spirit and relations, the multi-professional team at Ramot included doctors, nurses, psychologists, pastors, social workers and recreation instructors. The centre was one of three vital phases in rehabilitation: motivation, treatment and after-care.

To prepare young professionals for their part in the three-stage intervention, third-year students in nursing, medicine, social work, psychology and theology took turns to attend half-day courses at the centre, acquainting them with the centre and its team-approach.

With the help of films, smallgroups, interviews and recreational guidance, patients made fast progress. People in their third, fourth and fifth week of treatment had a positive influence on first- and second-week patients who were inclined to minimizing and denial. Spouses participated in marriage therapy in the fifth week of the patient’s treatment.

Ex-patients helped as volunteers in the three phases of recovery. Some attended groups with in-patients once a week, diminishing fears (or unrealistic optimism) in patients before discharge. By God’s grace, 84 per cent of first admissions did not have a readmission within five years.

Ex-patients also assisted doctors, pastors and social workers in the field, motivating addicts in detox for treatment. These former addicts could testify from personal experience about withdrawal, and how the treatment program helped them to quit.

We don’t have to wait passively for addicts to become motivated by themselves. Waiting for rock-bottom can be fatal. Addicts can be helped to get in a condition where they can consider treatment without severe withdrawal symptoms eroding their will.

In the after-care phase, ex-patients received newly discharged patients in small groups, making them aware they were not alone in adapting to a drug-free lifestyle. Spouses of recovering addicts had their own supportive group discussions. Social workers, pastors and doctors monitored the progress of expatients, often more than hundred kilometres from the treatment centre.

Co-ordinated teamwork prevailed.

Jacob Van Zyl

Lethbridge