If you have tried to seek help for a substance use problem over the past few years, you have no doubt found thousands of drug treatment programs on the internet claiming to have the best and most successful programs for addiction. They use scientific sounding language, talk about brain chemistry and brain scans, put up pictures of official looking men and women in lab coats, have a variety of professionals with a virtual alphabet after their name to show just how smart they are, and convince you that “no one can beat addiction on their own, and you need their help.” If you called one of these places they probably did not ask you about the problem; instead their first question was how you will pay for their program? Now dont get me wrong; I understand that business is business, but one of the first rules in sales is to find out if the person even needs or wants your product. But not in the treatment business…oh no; they automatically assume that if you are calling, you absolutely need their services; making their greatest concern how they will get paid.

Evidence-Based Means Nothing with Respect to Drug Treatment

As people have become wise to places like Betty Ford, Promises and Hazelden charging tens of thousands of dollars to stick you in meetings that you can go to for free at home, many rehabs have jumped on the “treatment alternative” bandwagon, advertising their newer methods, newer medications, saunas, holistic therapies, removing toxins, adjusting brain chemicals, and basically better living through chemistry and therapies. The new buzzwords in the treatment industry are “evidence-based practices.” Lets look at this for a moment “evidence” implies that there is some research and data showing that their methods and “practices” have shown positive results. But when you take a closer look at each of these programs that claim to use “evidence-based practices” you find no research that can stand up to scientific scrutiny, no data indicating even a modicum of success for substance users, and no significant changes in the methodology for nearly a century. Furthermore the “evidence-based practices” utilized in many of these programs such as Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy are nothing more than a side dish or window dressing to entice you to buy. The meat and potatoes of these treatment programs is the same old stand-by talk therapy designed to manipulate and control people, support group meetings such as AA, NA with success rates below 5%, and ever-increasing mental health diagnoses and medications. People are still force-fed the damaging misinformation that they are powerless and/or diseased, and can never truly change.

Dont think for a moment that addiction treatment professionals cannot see that their methods fail nearly all of the time. Yet instead of looking for true alternatives, changing their philosophies or developing real evidence-based methods, they double their efforts in what they know to be ineffective: exerting more control, employing stronger manipulation tactics and prescribing more medications. Their mantra has become; people need lifelong treatment to combat this lifelong disease called addiction. How convenient for the treatment industry, and how tragic for the substance user and their families… and worst of all, its patently false and refuted completely by all research conducted outside the treatment industry itself.

Are You Looking for Help?

If you are looking for an alcohol and drug treatment program for yourself or a loved one, read the fine print and call and talk with the staff. If their first concern is what insurance you carry, I would politely end the conversation. If they advertise “evidence-based practices” ask them what those practices are exactly and what evidence they can send to you or point you toward that will show that their methods and program actually work. And then ask this question, do I need your program to change my life? This question is key, because if they are honest with you they will tell you, no, you dont their treatment program or any treatment program for that matter because you have the power within yourself right now to change. They will tell you that based on independent research the majority of people overcome substance use problems on their own without attending a treatment program of any kind. And they will tell you happily that people do have the power and ability to change their lives at any point in time, and many do. Any addiction treatment professional or addiction treatment program that does not acknowledge and embrace this reality cant help you. And many will actually harm you with distortions, misinformation and blatant lies designed to make you dependent on them and their services forever; causing you a lifetime of needless misery and struggle.

Read the papers, search the internet, watch the television news and look at the tabloids; the evidence of the harm of traditional drug and alcohol treatment is all around. The most recent evidence of complete failure is the tragic death of singer/songwriter, Amy Winehouse. A fellow blogger, Steven Slate of TheCleanSlate.org posted a compelling article about this true tragedy and how the methods used by the treatment industry and addiction professionals played an enormous role in her struggles and likely in her subsequent death. And he also clearly illustrates how in light of this tragedy and many other recent tragic deaths, that addiction treatment refuses to change, digs in their heels, uses these failures as rationale to employ more coercive methods and blame everyone else, including the substance user and his or her family.

If you are struggling with substance use problems, or with emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder or one of the many other diagnoses that now go hand-in-hand with drug and alcohol problems, take heart in knowing that you can change. For those who feel they need or want help, there is a true “evidence-based” program and there are people who can and will help you. But that help starts by telling you the truth; you dont have a lifelong disease, you can overcome this problem forever, and you do have the power within you right now to turn your life around and start anew.

Michelle Dunbar is the Executive Director of Baldwin Research Institute, Inc., developers of the St. Jude Program offered exclusively at the St. Jude Retreats. The St. Jude Program is the only non-treatment, non-disease, non-12 step approach to help people to overcome drug and alcohol problems. For a FREE sample of St. Jude Program materials go to http://www.soberforever.net/previewtext.cfm.