A Revolution in the Treatment of Substance Use Problems

End Your Addiction Now
by Charles Gant, M.D. and Greg Lewis, Ph.D.

Do you fit the following profile?

Esther W. was embarrassed the first time she came into my office. "I just can't seem to quit smoking," she said. "I know there are so many people out there with worse problems than I have, I'm almost ashamed to tell you about mine." Esther had started smoking when she was a junior in high school, to be "one of the crowd," as she put it. That was fifteen years ago. She knew about the dangers: "I can read the warnings on the packs. I just can't make myself take them seriously," she said.

It had gotten to the point where she worried that she was harming the health of the other members of her family, particularly her two small children. She also confessed that she felt as if her husband, who had quit smoking the year before, no longer found her as attractive as he once had and that he'd hinted that her smoking was the primary reason. Esther had tried hypnosis, acupuncture, and a stop-smoking program sponsored by the American Lung Association. I could feel her frustration as she said, "I guess the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when our family doctor prescribed a nicotine patch for me. Isn't nicotine what I'm addicted to? How am I supposed to quit using an addictive substance when all my doctor does is give me a prescription for the same stuff?"

Or perhaps this sounds familiar to you:

Michael M. was eleven years old when his parents first brought him to see me. Within a few minutes of meeting him, I realized Michael was above average in intelligence. He got As and Bs in all of his subjects, but when I asked him about his classes he replied, "Bo-oring."

Michael had been identified as a boy with potential behavioral problems by his third-and fourth-grade teachers. He had gone to a child psychologist once a week for three months in the spring semester of fourth grade, but his unacceptable behavior didn't change. Early in his second semester in fifth grade, Michael's parents were called to a meeting with his teacher and the school psychologist. The teacher reported that Michael's classroom behavior had become "too disruptive." In Michael's teacher's words, "He's constantly fidgeting, and he rarely pays attention in class. He just doesn't seem to have a normal attention span." Both the teacher and the school psychologist recommended that Michael's parents consider "putting him on Ritalin."

His parents took Michael to see their pediatrician, and after a ten-minute consultation, the pediatrician told them that Michael was suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and gave them a prescription for Ritalin for Michael. Michael's classroom behavior got "better"-meaning he didn't fidget as much-and his behavior was deemed less disruptive by his teacher. His grades im proved marginally, but Michael still thought school was not very interesting. Every day, by the time his afternoon dose of Ritalin had worn off early in the evening, Michael became irritable and unable to concentrate or sit still. His parents decided to live with this behavior, considering they were no longer hearing complaints from school.

When school let out for the summer, and his parents tried to taper his Ritalin usage, Michael began to show hostility toward those around him in addition to being irritable and unable to concentrate. The family doctor advised his parents to keep him on the drug. They even saw a column in the local newspaper that recommended keeping kids on Ritalin during summer vacation. It was Michael who finally opened their eyes. "I don't want to take this stuff," he said. "I can't help it if I'm active. It's just me. I don't want to be a Ritalin geek, but I don't like it when I don't take it. I feel horrible."

Or maybe you're closer to this profile:

Jane L. is a twenty-eight-year-old woman who started her own public relations business and was working very hard to build it up. "It's just me and a secretary right now, but it's really beginning to grow," she told me proudly. The pride turned to sadness when she began to discuss her drinking problem. She and her husband had separated, then divorced, a little over two years ago. To cope with the stress of her divorce and the uncertainty of starting her own business, she began to have a glass or two of wine every night to help herself relax. Within a few months, she was drinking a bottle of wine every evening. She was exhausted every day because she was trying to recover from a hangover while she conducted her business. She started looking forward to weekends, when she could A Revolution in the Treatment of Substance Use Problems "really unwind." Translation: Drink even more heavily.

Jane began going to a therapist to get help coping with the depression she hadn't really been able to break out of since her divorce. After several months of consultations proved largely ineffective, her therapist recommended Prozac, which Jane's physician willingly prescribed. When I first met her, Jane had been taking the drug for five months, during which time she also continued to drink. When the subject of her drinking came up, the therapist at first told her, "You're not psychologically ready to quit using drugs or alcohol." As her drinking worsened, the therapist began to tell her, "You don't want to quit badly enough," and "Once you've worked through your psychological problems, you'll have a much better chance of stopping your drinking."

These are three of the thousands of patients I've helped to recover successfully from nicotine, alcohol, stimulant, opiate, and prescription drug problems. In this book, I'll tell you more about the specifics of their treatments and show you the step-by-step program that enabled them to end their substance use. Let me start by pointing out several things about these people that virtually all of my patients have in common.

First, they are all good people who began to use addictive substances for what seemed like justifiable reasons and who found that their substance use was causing problems. The message here is that you don't have to be an "addict" to have a problem with addictive substances.

Second, they had all received counseling or treatment from traditional sources, such as psychotherapists, school psychologists, and family physicians. Third, their treatment strategies had them using potentially addictive mood-altering substances, including nicotine, Prozac, and Ritalin. In each case, the substances were supposed to help them overcome their primary problems. Finally, they were unable to find solutions to their problems through traditional methods.

These brief case histories highlight two important tendencies. The first is the consistent failure of traditional approaches in treating substance use problems. The second is the growing tendency among physicians to put their patients at risk by prescribing potentially addictive mood-altering substances, substances that at best temporarily mask behavioral and substance use problems. At worst, the patients whom these prescription drugs are supposed to help actually become addicted to the substances themselves. These trends have led many people to question whether traditional approaches really work. The answer is not just a simple yes or no.

There's no doubt that traditional drug and alcohol treatment strategies used by most physicians and in most drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities have enjoyed some success. On average, around 25 percent of the people who use these traditional methods do recover. But there's a catch: Approximately 20 percent of all substance abusers recover with no treatment at all. In any case, if you have a substance problem, your chance of recovery through traditional methods is about one in four, and I think those are lousy odds. Whether it's your therapist, your M.D., or your AA sponsor, he or she is in effect saying to you, "Do it my way. I'll help you recover." What they're not saying is that you may recover if you're the lucky one in four patients. I think you deserve better.

I've spent the past twenty-five years treating compulsive substance users, from smokers to alcoholic and drug-dependent people. I became frustrated very early by the obvious inadequacies of traditional methods used by most of the addictions treatment community, and this frustration led me to begin closely following the exciting new scientific research in the field of biochemistry. It is A Revolution in the Treatment of Substance Use Problems this research-virtually ignored by most addictions treatment professionals-that has become the basis for my revolutionary new substance abuse treatment strategy, the Power Recovery Program. This program takes full advantage of what the research has taught us, and it has consistently achieved outstanding recovery rates.

The proof of this is in the results. While I was Medical Director of the Tully Hill Hospital, a fifty-six-bed, JCAH-approved (Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospitals) drug and alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation facility near Syracuse, New York, I developed a treatment program that incorporated totally natural nutritional supplements (including nutrients such as amino acids, vitamins, and minerals) into the overall treatment plans for thousands of patients. This nutritional supplementation protocol was based on the revolutionary new discoveries in biochemistry to which I've referred. According to a clinical outcome study conducted by New Standards, Inc., an independent research group that assesses drug and alcohol recovery results, more than 80 percent of the patients who followed through with the nutritional protocols I implemented remained alcohol-and drug-free two years after completing their treatment. That's over three times better than the national average when conventional methods are used. These results suggest that with the Power Recovery Program, the odds are as high as five to one that you will be able to successfully overcome your substance use problem.

About the Author

CHARLES GANT, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the American Academy of Psychiatrists in Addiction and Alcoholism, served as medical director for the Tully Hill Hospital, a drug rehabilitation facility in Syracuse, NY. He is now in private practice and lectures widely on biomolecular medicine and his substance abuse therapies.