Drug Treatment and Alcohol Treatment Doesn't Work

To understand the truth about drug and alcohol treatment, the truth that it doesn't work, first we must understand its genesis and the history of the erroneous science. Through the years many improvements have been made in the treatment of disease and other conditions that have plagued mankind. Yet, even today, drug and alcohol treatment is based on myth, anecdotal observations, and guesses, rather than on science and common sense.

Modern medicine, along with general improvements in hygienic practices and the standard of living, has reduced the scourge of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, and polio. Because of vaccines, smallpox is gone from the planet except as a laboratory culture, and polio is predicted to soon depart as well - it is already completely gone from the western hemisphere. Antibiotics have provided cures of chronic infections that were deadly in ages past: plague, tuberculosis, leprosy, and syphilis.

With the discovery of insulin and the ability to provide it to patients, diabetes can now be treated and progress continues to be made to prevent the complications that occur due to imperfect control of blood sugar. Many forms of cancer can now be cured with a combination of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or bone marrow transplants. Childhood leukemia, for instance, once uniformly fatal, now has cure rates approaching 90 percent for some forms. Those with rheumatoid arthritis can be helped to walk. Congenital defects of premature babies and infants can be repaired. Failing organs and joints can be replaced. The list of "miracles" of modern medicine seems limitless.

From the early successes of the "rational" medicine of the Greek physician Hippocrates to the advances made by the application of the modern scientific method for healing disease, from the healing arts of the pagan shaman to the modern faith healer, there has been a steady flow of stories of cures throughout human history. But there have been myths about cures and treatments, as well as outright mistakes, along the way. The traveling "snake oil salesman" may not have been honest about the healing powers of his wares, but the idea that a particular product was effective had to come from some prior mythic belief or from anecdotal experience. Even today, in this era of great technological advances in medicine, mistakes have been made and unfounded myths have been exposed through the magnifying lens of the scientific method.
Based on the dogma that disease is caused by humors (any of the four main fluids of the human body, blood, yellow bile, black bile, or lymph) in the blood that need to be removed, bloodletting as a therapeutic approach was used in the days of Galen (130-200 AD) all the way up to the early 20th century. Whether blood was removed by puncturing blood vessels with a lancet or more slowly with the use of leeches, bloodletting was recommended for treating inflammation, fevers, many different diseases, and even hemorrhage (why removing blood would help someone who has already lost so much is baffling to our modern sensibilities). There were patients who survived this therapy and recovered despite its flawed logic. A precious few actually benefited from bloodletting, for instance those who had excessive body fluid from congestive heart failure and those suffering from polycythemia, the over production of red blood cells, may have had some temporary relief of symptoms. As a scientific approach to medicine began to take hold, a French physician, Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (1787-1872) in the 1835 did a statistical analysis of the efficacy of bloodletting and showed that bloodletting did not alter the course of pneumonia. Physicians of that era ignored his studies, however, so convinced were they of the prevailing theory of disease causation. It was not until medical science had provided better explanations for disease mechanisms that bloodletting finally fell into disrepute. Medical historians note that bloodletting continued in popularity because doctors, patients, and family were all convinced that something important, even heroic, was being done. In addition, the patient, once bled and brought to a state of fainting, would appear to be more restful.

Nonetheless, myths and honest mistakes about the effectiveness or safety of medications or the mechanism of a drug's operation continue to be exposed even today. Fortunately, the FDA provides the U.S. public with some protection from the modern "snake-oil salesman." But physicians tend to develop routines of using certain medications, often pushed by pharmaceutical company marketing. At times, data becomes available that shows a medicine that was thought safe, is not, or a medicine that was thought to be effective is no better than a placebo. And the discovery of side effects of popular drugs is not uncommon.

In summary, due to greater scientific understanding, modern medicine finds itself having to endure paradigm shifts as prior myths are exposed or experience reveals mistaken beliefs about effectiveness or safety of a particular treatment, surgery, or medication. Sometimes change is slow and medical practitioners hold on to old beliefs due to an inherent conservative attitude, intellectual stubbornness, continued reliance on anecdotal experience, and, at times, profit motivation.

Such is the case with alcohol and drug addiction treatment providers. There are no verifiable studies that show treating drug and alcohol problems with group therapy, counseling, or any other psychological-based treatment is effective. Nor are there any verifiable studies supporting the use of medications such as Antabuse or Methadone.

Studies of both psychological- and medical-based treatments showing 20 to 30 percent success rates at one year post treatment are observing the same results that kept bloodletting in use for so long. For a period of 1,800-plus years, treatment providers were convinced that bloodletting worked. But the truth was it did not work, and some patients actually died as a result of the therapy. Those who did recover could thank their own immune system. But, those recoveries, anecdotal observations, became the basis for the claim that bloodletting worked. The claim, then, that bloodletting worked was not based on research or scientific method but on anecdotal experience, which is, more often than not, misleading.

The popular treatment for drug and alcohol problems utilizing psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, other psychological methods, counseling, group therapy, and medication is equally ineffective. These methods of treatment did not become popular based on convincing research, but rather the methods were implemented based on anecdotal experience. The anecdotal experience originated prior to formal treatment programs for alcohol and drug problems. At that time, alcoholics and drug addicts who expressed a desire to get treatment or who were forced into treatment by family or society were sent to mental hospitals. In these mental hospitals, alcoholics and drug addicts were provided essentially the same treatment as the other patients, including shock therapy. This treatment by the mental hospitals became the de facto standard treatment for drug and alcohol problems, not because it worked, but because no other hospitals at the time would admit patients with a diagnosis of drug or alcohol problems.

By the late 1960s, money from insurance companies and government agencies became available, thereby offering a profit motive for treating people with drug and alcohol problems. The experts in the field were mental health professionals, since up to that time they were the primary care providers of drug and alcohol treatment. Not unexpectedly, these experts promoted the only thing they knew - medication and psychological treatment. No one at that time questioned their methods of treatment. Like the bloodletting treatment of old, psychological treatment for drug and alcohol problems became firmly implanted as the accepted paradigm, without confirmation by scientific method.

Even today psychological treatment remains the most popular method for drug and alcohol problems because care providers, doctors, patients, and families are all convinced that drug and alcohol treatment works. Tragically, they remain convinced even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. The following tables show the dismal success rates achieved by these treatment programs.

Today, everyone in the industry concedes that conventional treatment offers, at best, only a 30 percent success rate. Although, few major independent studies agree the success rate is that high and more than 600 studies have consistently shown the success rate to be substantially lower (18 percent at six months and less than 10 percent at five years), this has not deterred the treatment industry from proclaiming that treatment works. However, there are many professional alcoholism counselors in the industry that are compelled to tell their clients the truth about the success of treatment.

In 1978, one of the authors of the Jude Thaddeus Home Recovery Program, Jerry Brown, was a patient at St. Peter's Addiction Recovery Center's detoxification facility located in Albany, N.Y. As part of his treatment he was told over and over that only 1 in 30 recover.

In 1998, Baldwin Research Institute, Inc. polled 50 treated alcoholics and/or drug addicts. Forty-two remembered having been quoted success rates for their respective programs and none remembered being told that 3 out of 10 (30 percent) would recover. The most optimistic quote was that 1 out of 10 "makes it." The most frequently quoted success rate by treatment professionals was 1 out of 20 or about 5 percent.

These success rates offered by the professional counselors are certainly supported by research. In the previous table in years four, five, and eight, the measured success rates are 1 in 14, 1 in 33, and 1 in 20, respectively. The average of these three independent findings is 1 in 22, which is within two points of the most frequently quoted success rates by professional counselors.

Today research also shows that 30 percent of the population that is confronted with their drug or alcohol problem by way of a brief intervention recover immediately. It is more than a little disturbing that the 30 percent recovery rate of the non-treated population can be as much as six times more successful than those who do receive treatment.

Professionals in the treatment industry know that treatment doesn't work. Now you know the truth, too.

The Jude Thaddeus Home Program is NOT treatment. It is a simple and practical approach used to support your decision to stop using alcohol and/or other drugs. The information presented in the Jude Thaddeus Home Program has helped thousands of people find their way out of alcohol and drug abuse problems. To the person we have found The Jude Thaddeus Home Program to be an enjoyable experience. And, whether you decide to use the Jude Thaddeus Home Program or not, we wish you success in what ever you decide to do.

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