Reflections IV
By Dr. John Leipold Executive Vice President/CEO
Drug Addiction Treatment:
Everyone knows that people who need
drug addiction treatment
are usually dead set
against it. They almost always fight the
idea tooth and nail looking for every
excuse in the world to avoid treatment.
Can you imagine a heart disease patient
looking for every excuse to avoid treatment?
When you have heart disease other people may feel bad for
you but they don’t feel bad about you. You are not a bad person
if you have heart disease. If you are drug addicted other people
sometimes do think you are a bad person. Ouch.
No one wants to be a bad person. Just accepting the disease
of addiction is most often a huge challenge.
In the end we know that addiction is a chronic and progressive
disease, just like heart disease. Either disease can and often
does end in death if not treated. That means what we do every
day at Valley Hope
really is a matter of life and death.
But that’s not what this article is about.
Having made the point that drug addiction patients resist
treatment there is something of a miracle that happens every
day at Valley Hope for those people who are fortunate enough
to get the treatment they need. After two or three weeks of
residential treatment
at a Valley Hope facility
patients who would have avoided treatment suddenly want to stay longer
and resist leaving! Amazing, but true. It has to be a change
at the deepest levels of the heart.
Broken hearts are common with addiction patients. This
isn’t the kind of heart disease your surgeon can fix. However,
it would seem that broken hearts do heal during drug addiction
treatment. So, among other things, we mend broken hearts
at Valley Hope.
What is it that heals a broken heart? To answer this
question just look at what breaks a person’s heart. Hearts
break when something is lost. We all know that lost love will
break our hearts whether it is a loved one who has passed away
or a person we love who doesn’t return our love. These are all
obvious heart breakers.
Less obvious is the loss of self-respect or the loss of respect
from some one else who is important.
Most insidious is the loss of one’s own self worth. The self
worth of alcoholics and addicts is attacked continuously as the
drug addiction is practiced. Unconditional positive regard is absent
from the life of the alcoholic or addict. The heart is going to
break as soon as the human being who is addicted comes to
believe that they are not worthy of love.
At Valley Hope we really do try to practice what we preach.
Keep it simple is one of the really good ones. We simply believe
that alcoholics and addicts are human beings worthy of the
respect, dignity, and love of other human beings. Why do
you think we hug so much around Valley Hope?
After about two or three weeks of this, addiction patients
actually start to believe it. The broken heart of self
worthlessness begins to mend. Worthlessness begins
disappearing like the rising sun dissolves night’s darkness. The
heart realizes something good is happening. What is broken
starts to heal.
It is no wonder why patients who stay long enough at Valley
Hope want to stay longer. Valley Hope drug addiction treatment is a place
where human beings, regardless of whether or not they are
addicted, can find unconditional positive regard. Nothing
mends a broken heart like the return of self-worth.
But that’s not what this article is about.
Do you have a pet cat or dog that you love? When they
walk into the room are you happy to see your pet? Can your
pet walk into the room fifty times a day and get the same
happy greeting from you fifty times a day? Wouldn’t it be
nice if we human beings all treated each other with the happyto-
see-you greeting we give the animal pets we love?
Our animal friends give us unconditional positive regard so
that’s why we are so darn happy to see them fifty times a day.
There is a lesson in here for us human beings and that’s what
this article is actually about.
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