Tired of Drug Treatment? There Are More Effective Methods!
While the non treatment program model is designed to put all control where it belongs, in your hands, programs based on treatment do the opposite: they take away your control, not allowing you to make your own life choices. Treatment programs are ineffective because they teach individuals that they are powerless to change their own behavior, powerless to make the choice to abstain or moderate their drinking or drug use and powerless to change their lives on their own. Treatment programs create a learned helplessness which is the opposite of confidence and maturity. These treatment programs have been ineffective for more than seventy years. In fact, control model substance use treatment programs that systematically teach people that they are powerless to change their behaviors have been, through extensive research, proven to be harmful.
People who find happiness in activities that are seemingly destructive certainly may want to be introduced to other options that may provide greater long term and even greater short term satisfaction. Option presentation, not judgment, works. In presenting new options to the reader, a new world may come into view, one much more fulfilling than the choices currently being made.
We know from decades of research that when individual thought is controlled by others; such control offers poor results at best. And, in many cases, this external control can erode self-confidence, break down self-esteem and frequently produces intense unhappiness. Why, as a culture, would we still utilize these drug and alcohol treatment methods in the name of helping people? Control based substance abuse treatment does not work and in most cases, the learned helplessness that is forced on individuals results in shaken confidence, lowered rates of moderation or abstinence, increased anxiety, increased rates of depression and a lower quality of life.
By controlling other’s thoughts and choices through fear tactics, control model treatment has resulted in greater fear of future excessive substance use and greater misinformation about people’s innate ability to moderate and control their usage to levels that are tolerable and perhaps enjoyable. (Control Model Treatment is classified as all treatment programs in the US.)
In summary, the control model places users in an impossible situation: If you say you have a problem, you do; if you say you don’t have a problem, you do. As with many ideas that sprout from myth, common sense and truth have a way of triumphing in the end. I encourage you to read this series of articles to help you place power back where it belongs-within you!