How to Use the Highly Successful Physician’s Program to Help Your Loved One Recover From Addiction Recovery Professionals

Doctors have first time continuous abstinence rates of 78% at five years

The Family Recovery Management Program for Alcoholics and Addicts

This book discusses improving outcome rates for addicts by modeling services after the highly successful pilot and physician programs. Because addiction is a leading risk to personal and financial family well being, it is imperative that families understand these new concepts and how to use them to help both themselves and their addicted loved ones establish stable recover.

The information presented is about what is proven to work for recovery, namely the continued application of pressure or “therapeutic leverage” on the addict to enter treatment, participate in treatment, and comply with post-treatment recommendations for at least six months (and often longer).

This is exactly what medical boards do for their addicted physicians and airlines do for their addicted pilots – use the threat of permanent license revocation as the pressure point to comply with treatment – for at least two years.  Therefore, one recurring theme in this book is to identify key concepts underlying these successful programs and how to take these concepts and apply them to family settings.

As many family members and friends are all too aware, once addiction takes hold, few addicts voluntarily agree to enter treatment on their own, and if they do so, fewer still fully participate in treatment or comply with post-treatment or continuing care plans.  One reason for non-compliance is that addiction is a very difficult disease to recovery from – to make the behavioral changes necessary to become sober.

One of our roles as family members and friends is to find sources of leverage to encourage our loved ones to remain in treatment and generally be “treatment compliant”.

A second recurring theme, then, is how to find leverage points within the family for this purpose, understanding that this process is much more complex and difficult than the effective leverage provided by licensing for doctors and pilots.

Many family members are told to “let go” and not try to control their loved one’s addiction.  Others believe a loving and supportive approach will motivate the family addict to stop using and enter treatment.  Neither approach is effective in terms of supporting long-term recovery, nor are they realistic early intervention strategies.  Addiction is a progressive disease.  The longer it takes to achieve sustained recovery, the more damage is done to the addict.  Thus, another reason for interest in the pilot/physician programs is the ability to address addiction at the first sins of sustained loss of control.  Addiction is defined by loss of control over use of alcohol or drugs.  The pilot physician model is a useful construct in thinking about how to address early stage alcohol and drug dependency.

A final reason for learning about these programs is that they provide a rationale for understanding treatment and recovery.  For family, friends, and often the addict, treatment is a vague and little understood disease.