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Offline DannyB II

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Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« on: July 16, 2010, 08:44:14 PM »
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,881 ... 60,00.html

Friday, Jul. 16, 2010
Does Teen Drug Rehab Cure Addiction or Create It?
By Maia Szalavitz

"Matt Thomas" (a pseudonym) had only recently begun experimenting with marijuana when he got caught selling a few joints in the bathroom at his junior high school. It was no big deal, Thomas thought, especially considering that his parents — an investment banker and a homemaker — smoked pot too.

But Thomas' grades had already begun to slip, perhaps because of his increasing alcohol and marijuana use; that, coupled with his drug-dealing offense, was enough for the school to recommend that his parents place him in an inpatient drug-treatment program. Thomas, then 13, was sent to Parkview West, a residential rehab center located a few miles from his suburban Minneapolis home. (See pictures of teens in America.)

But rather than encouraging sobriety, Thomas says, his seven-week stint at Parkview West helped trigger a decades-long descent into severe addiction — from regular marijuana user to daily drinker to cocaine and methamphetamine addict. "It was [in rehab] that they told me that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic," says Thomas. "There was no turning back. The whole event solidified and created this notion in my own mind and in my social status. Who I was, was an alcoholic and drug addict."

In treatment, Thomas met other addicts. He attended daily group therapy with older teens, who regaled him with glamorized war stories about drugs he'd never tried. In rehab, says Thomas, one's first question upon meeting a new person is, "What's your drug of choice?" And that's often followed by, "What's that like?" Thomas recalls hearing a description of an LSD high so seductive that he pledged he would try it if he got the chance. He did, not long after getting out of rehab. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Great American Pot Smoke-Out.")

Increasingly, substance-abuse experts are finding that teen drug treatment may indeed be doing more harm than good. Many programs throw casual dabblers together with hard-core addicts and foster continuous group interaction. It tends to strengthen dysfunctional behavior by concentrating it, researchers say. "Just putting kids in group therapy actually promotes greater drug use," says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The exposure can be especially dangerous for impressionable youngsters. "I've known kids who have gone into inpatient treatment and met other users. After treatment, they meet up with them and explore new drugs and become more seriously involved in drug use," says Tom Dishion, director of research at the Child and Family Center at the University of Oregon, who has documented such peer influence in scientific studies.

In academic terms, the problem is known as deviancy training, or the negative impact of friends on teen behavior — what parents would simply call a bad influence. In one 2000 study, in which researchers measured how much time teens spent together and how much they encouraged their peers' misbehavior, Dishion found that social exposure to delinquent peers at age 14 accounted for 53% of adolescents' life problems five years later — including criminal convictions, sexual promiscuity, relationship issues and drug use.

In another study looking specifically at the impact of group interventions, teenagers who had been identified as being at high risk for drug use and delinquency at ages 11 through 14 were more likely to smoke cigarettes and have disciplinary problems at school three years later if they had been enrolled in a teen focus group about drugs, compared with those who underwent private counseling sessions with their immediate families. "Any condition that promotes kids talking about or endorsing drug use [with one another] would increase the likelihood that the treatment would have a negative effect," says Dishion.

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In addition, researchers find, the harm of many teen drug-treatment programs may come not only from the negative influence of new relationships but also from the degradation of positive bonds with family. In a 2003 paper, Jose Szapocznik, chair of the epidemiology and public-health department at the University of Miami, found that teens who used marijuana but still had healthy relationships with their families saw those relationships deteriorate — and their drug habits increase — when they were assigned to peer-therapy groups. Among these teens, who were in treatment for a minimum of four weeks, 17% reduced their marijuana habit, but 50% ended up smoking more. "In group, the risk of getting worse was much greater than the opportunity for getting better," Szapocznik says, adding that in contrast, 57% of teens who were assigned to family therapy showed a significant decrease in drug use, while 19% used more.

Although teens with fewer problems may be adversely affected by their more dysfunctional peers, the reverse can also be true: teens with severe behavioral problems actually improve when placed in groups with better-adjusted youth. The 2004 Cannabis Youth Treatment (CYT) trial, which included 600 teens, found that over the course of a year, marijuana use dropped 25% in teens in both group therapy and family therapy, no matter how severe their behavioral problems were.

CYT's success may be due to the fact that while its participants had varying degrees of behavioral difficulties, they did not differ significantly in terms of substance use — the trial excluded anyone who had used any drug other than marijuana for 13 or more days in the previous three months. That factor alone may account for the across-the-board benefits, but in most teen rehab centers outside of research settings, patients continue to be lumped together with little regard for the severity of their drug problems. (See TIME's health and medicine covers.)

It doesn't help either that the philosophy behind many drug-treatment programs can be easily misinterpreted by teenagers. Most programs in the U.S., including the one Thomas attended, are modeled after the 12-step recovery plan used by Alcoholics Anonymous. The first step encourages participants to accept that they are "powerless" over their addiction and to surrender their will to a higher force. For some people, it inspires mutual support and abstinence, but for others — especially teenagers — it can foster a feeling of defeat. "You get these 12-step teachings telling you that you're doomed, that you have this disease and this is the only way out," Thomas says. (Comment on this story.)

Indeed, surrender is not a word that comes easily to teens, and teaching them to believe they are powerless may create a fatalism that leads to relapse, according to Andrew Morral, a senior behavioral scientist at the Rand Corp. In his studies of teens treated at Phoenix House, one of the largest treatment providers in the U.S., he found that participants who subscribed to the tenet of powerlessness were more likely to return to drugs after treatment, compared with teenagers who did not take the message to heart. (See teens in obesity rehab.)

Still, for an estimated 10% of teen drug users whose addictions are severe enough that they already feel helpless to control them, the 12-step method can help. For example, a study published in July in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence found that teens who had severe addictions to alcohol, marijuana, heroin or painkillers and chose voluntarily to attend 12-step meetings once a week for three months had nearly double the number of sober days as those who did not attend. "People who go to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous and stick with it are the most severe cases," says study author John Kelly, associate director of the Massachusetts General Hospital – Harvard Center for Addiction Medicine, while people with milder problems typically don't feel they "fit" and quit attending.

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The problem is that most treatment programs do not give teens a choice about 12-step attendance; it is usually a mandatory part of rehab or is in some cases legally mandated by a court.

Although individual and family therapy have shown more success with teen drug users than group treatment, most programs continue to use problematic approaches. One reason is cost. Group treatment allows a therapist to see many more patients in a day than individual sessions would. "If you can have four groups a day, you're going to do a lot better [financially] than if you have seven or eight individuals," says Szapocznik, noting that if insurers would pay for individualized treatment according to patient instead of by the hour, treatment for single patients or families could be made affordable.

The 12-step model also remains popular in part because such meetings are free and widely available. What's more, given that about half of addiction counselors are recovering addicts themselves, they tend to stay true to the treatment that worked for them — usually a 12-step program — and are not often well trained in other approaches like family therapy.

Some experts worry that unfavorable treatment strategies may only increase with forthcoming revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of psychiatry. In the current edition of the DSM, substance problems are divided into two diagnoses: "substance dependence," which signifies severe, chronic addiction, and "substance abuse," which applies to the kind of short-term risky behavior that many teens engage in but tend to outgrow.

In the proposed fifth edition of the DSM, however, diagnoses will be divided by drug, then by severity, all under the umbrella category of "addiction." That would mean the label of "addict" may be applied equally to a college binge drinker and a long-term heroin addict, which would not only reinforce the negative labeling effect on teens but also encourage mixing patients with varying substance problems in group therapy. "Failing to make the distinction at diagnosis will contribute to failing to make distinction in treatment," says Dr. Allen Frances, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Duke University and chair of the DSM task force that was in charge of the fourth edition.

What impact the new diagnostic categories may have remains to be seen. For now, researchers say the evidence shows the most effective teen drug treatment involves nongroup settings, especially for young people whose drug habits have not evolved to include harder substances. Anders Hoff, 23, says he was able to overcome his alcohol problem through individual therapy and by avoiding groups that required him to bear the label "alcoholic." At 18, Hoff left his home in Minnesota to attend college in Vermont. By the end of his first semester, he had developed a drinking habit so severe that he was frequently falling down drunk and suffering concussions. He had powerful headaches, and his senses of taste and smell were damaged by brain injury, but he didn't stop binge drinking. Panicked three days before the end of the term, he says, "with a knot in my stomach, I called my parents, said I had a problem and told them I had to go home."

He began individual counseling for alcoholism with Bob Muscala, a nurse in private practice in Edina, Minn., who has worked in the addictions field for 40 years. Hoff had two slips during his three years of therapy, but unlike with the standard 12-step program, his stumbles didn't force him to go back to zero and start counting his sober days all over again. "It didn't make me shut down and say, 'I'm done, let's start again with my old behavior,' " says Hoff, who is now back in school. "When I admitted the incidents, no one said, 'Well, you're an addict. You're never going to stop.' "

NIDA is funding collaborations with drug-treatment programs throughout the U.S. that are aimed at bringing both youth and adult treatments in line with practices that are known to work — for teens, that means family therapy, selective groups or individual therapy that prevents prolonged teen interaction in waiting rooms or other common areas. "There has been an incredible acceptance of evidence-based treatment" in programs that have joined NIDA's initiatives, Volkow says; however, many more community-based programs are still using interventions that have not proved to work.

Meanwhile, some individual treatment providers, like Muscala, continue to do their part, reducing drug use in the U.S. patient by patient. Matt Thomas, who has been in counseling with Muscala for about a year, just celebrated 10 months of sobriety at age 41.
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Offline Troll Control

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2010, 08:50:22 AM »
This article actually reinforces the conclusions of the Surgeon General's longitudinal clinical study of distressed teens.  The simple, short version:  Aggregating distressed teens increases maladaptive behavior.

This has been known for decades now and it is also another main reason why "programs" will never be effective.

Quote
In addition, researchers find, the harm of many teen drug-treatment programs may come not only from the negative influence of new relationships but also from the degradation of positive bonds with family. In a 2003 paper, Jose Szapocznik, chair of the epidemiology and public-health department at the University of Miami, found that teens who used marijuana but still had healthy relationships with their families saw those relationships deteriorate — and their drug habits increase — when they were assigned to peer-therapy groups. Among these teens, who were in treatment for a minimum of four weeks, 17% reduced their marijuana habit, but 50% ended up smoking more. "In group, the risk of getting worse was much greater than the opportunity for getting better," Szapocznik says, adding that in contrast, 57% of teens who were assigned to family therapy showed a significant decrease in drug use, while 19% used more.

What happens when you go from four weeks of peer group "therapy" to sixteen months or more?  The whole "program model" is bunk.  "Programs" make kids worse.  All available clinical research shows this.
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Offline Whooter

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2010, 09:15:00 AM »
Interesting article but to keep it in perspective, the group that was studied were kids who smoked pot and had a good relationship with their family.

In a 2003 paper, Jose Szapocznik, chair of the epidemiology and public-health department at the University of Miami, found that teens who used marijuana but still had healthy relationships with their families saw those relationships deteriorate — and their drug habits increase — when they were assigned to peer-therapy groups.

Many kids in programs today are struggling with family issues and not responding to local services.  Their issues typically go beyond just smoking pot.


...
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Offline Troll Control

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2010, 09:27:19 AM »
I see you again didn't read the source material before posting your inanities.  There are several studies referenced in the article.  

Quote
Increasingly, substance-abuse experts are finding that teen drug treatment may indeed be doing more harm than good. Many programs throw casual dabblers together with hard-core addicts and foster continuous group interaction. It tends to strengthen dysfunctional behavior by concentrating it, researchers say. "Just putting kids in group therapy actually promotes greater drug use," says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Programs make kids worse.  Plain, simple conclusion, supported by clinical studies.

It's also easy to understand that if kids with healthy family relationships get worse, then kids with unhealthy family relationships experience even more troubles.  

The point being, separating a kid from their family is harmful.  Programs separate kids from their families for 12-24 months in general while aggregating them with other drug-using teens and/or teens with psychological problems, which these studies show makes their problems even worse.  That can't be spun away by programmies.
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Offline Whooter

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2010, 09:38:44 AM »
Quote from: "Whooter"
Interesting article but to keep it in perspective, the group that was studied were kids who smoked pot and had a good relationship with their family.

In a 2003 paper, Jose Szapocznik, chair of the epidemiology and public-health department at the University of Miami, found that teens who used marijuana but still had healthy relationships with their families saw those relationships deteriorate — and their drug habits increase — when they were assigned to peer-therapy groups.

Many kids in programs today are struggling with family issues and not responding to local services.  Their issues typically go beyond just smoking pot.


...

The above was quoted from the article and paper (and also from your post).  Sorry, DJ, I am just clarifying what the paper said.  

There are independent studies which support that programs are 80% effective when they are away from families for long periods of time 14 to 16 months.  These are kids who are struggling with family issues and are not responding to local services.

We need to look at each research independently and understand the population being studied.  The population cited above in my statement had healthy relationships with their families.  Its important to point this out.



..
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Offline Paul St. John

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2010, 09:43:27 AM »
Whooter, I don't think that anyone who reads the article would miss your point, but to illustrate it more clearly, the article states that those with worse problems- drug addiction, etc. often do benefit from the group therapy, but it is done at the expense of those with lesser problems.

The people with not as bad problems, rub off on those with the larger issues, and the people with the larger issues, rub off on those who don't have that large of issues to begin with...

The picture I get in my head here, is that there is no net loss of bad stuff, but rather it is just redistributed.

In the facility that I went to, there was one heroine addict, one crackhead, about half a dozen coke users, one guy who only smoked pot once, but failed the drug test, his dad had been giving him since he enterred high school, and then there was the majority, pot smokers, who drank on weekends, and had experimented with psychedelics here and there, and then there were also, really young people who I never thought belonged there at all.  These were just people who smoked pot occasionally.


They always said in Daytop, that you don t start your real drug career, until after you leave Daytop, the first time.

I am embarressed to admit this, but in my last week at Daytop, I cut myself.  I had listened to people talking about cutting themselves in group for so long.  They romanticized the shit out of it.  I though that it was stupid as hell.  I remember thinking that they only did it for attention at first.  The more I listenned, it was clearly an addiction.  It was something vey personal that they had for themselves, that Daytop could not take from them.  Hell, Daytop expected that type of shit.

I just remembered this last night.  I tried it.  I cut myself.  This one girl made it sound so fucking seductive, and I did it one day, without knowing what was motivating me to do it.  I know that I was feeling terrible at the time, but I don t think that it is anything that I would have ever done in my life, if I had not been going to these stupid groups.

Paul St. John

PS It is also noteoworthy, that I heard time and time again, that people had come in with very minor drug problems, then developed very strong ones when they left, and came back "ready for treatment"
« Last Edit: July 17, 2010, 09:56:02 AM by Paul St. John »

Offline Troll Control

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2010, 09:46:08 AM »
Quote from: "Whooter"
There are independent studies which support that programs are 80% effective when they are away from families for long periods of time 14 to 16 months.

No, there aren't.  There has never been a longitudinal clinical study of any "parent choice" program.  We both know that.
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Offline Whooter

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2010, 10:32:06 AM »
Quote from: "Dysfunction Junction"
Quote from: "Whooter"
There are independent studies which support that programs are 80% effective when they are away from families for long periods of time 14 to 16 months.

No, there aren't.  There has never been a longitudinal clinical study of any "parent choice" program.  We both know that.

No I didnt say : "longitudinal clinical study of any "Parent Choice" program".  They may exist but I have not read any as of this date.

I stated there were independent studies performed which support that programs are 80% effective...

I would also be careful to conclude from this that all programs are 80% effective because each program incorporates a different model and programs can vary greatly.  So you need to read which programs were included in the study.



...
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Offline Froderik

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2010, 10:47:17 AM »
Did a lot of drugs before the 'gram, and even more after the 'gram...

TRUE.

/thread
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Offline Troll Control

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2010, 11:06:58 AM »
Quote from: "Whooter"
I stated there were independent studies performed which support that programs are 80% effective.

This is an awfully big statement.  "Programs are 80% effective" implies that all programs are 80% effective.  You'd have to cite some research to support this type of claim. I don't believe this is true and I think you're trying to mislead people.
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Offline Whooter

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2010, 11:15:52 AM »
Quote from: "Dysfunction Junction"
Quote from: "Whooter"
I stated there were independent studies performed which support that programs are 80% effective.

This is an awfully big statement.  "Programs are 80% effective" implies that all programs are 80% effective.  You'd have to cite some research to support this type of claim. I don't believe this is true and I think you're trying to mislead people.

Further down in my post I stated:

I would also be careful to conclude from this that all programs are 80% effective because each program incorporates a different model and programs can vary greatly. So you need to read which programs were included in the study.



...
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2010, 11:17:24 AM »
Quote from: "Whooter"
Quote from: "Dysfunction Junction"
Quote from: "Whooter"
There are independent studies which support that programs are 80% effective when they are away from families for long periods of time 14 to 16 months.
No, there aren't.  There has never been a longitudinal clinical study of any "parent choice" program.  We both know that.
No I didnt say : "longitudinal clinical study of any "Parent Choice" program".  They may exist but I have not read any as of this date.

I stated there were independent studies performed which support that programs are 80% effective...
Industry-financed studies are pretty suspect as to their credibility, particularly when there are no peer reviewed articles supporting same findings appearing in academic research journals.

If Aspen's studies were so great, how come no journal would publish them? Aspen publicizes them, however, on pretty much every one of their programs' websites. They must think that parents can be convinced that "publish" and "publicize" are synonymous!  :D

Quote from: "Whooter"
I would also be careful to conclude from this that all programs are 80% effective because each program incorporates a different model and programs can vary greatly.  So you need to read which programs were included in the study.
Riiiiigght. And that would be Aspen Ed programs, amicorrect? Whose aggressive marketing tactics even gives some EdCons due pause and concern...
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Offline Froderik

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2010, 11:29:28 AM »
Man, fuck all this shit....what a tiresome debate....where do y'all get the goddam ENERGY????
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Offline Whooter

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #13 on: July 17, 2010, 11:34:47 AM »
The programs have had no problems in the past allowing people inside to study their process and report their findings.   I am sure if someone stepped forward and offered to finance the study they would be more than happy to!  

But if a study needs to be done and no one will finance it then you need to finance it yourself.

The study was overseen by a third party to insure no conflict of interest was occurring.

I do understand that studies which show programs in a good light will not be accepted here on fornits.  I am not trying to make believers out of you, But I think it is important to continue to allow the readers to see all sides of the argument so that they can get as much information as possible.



...
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Offline DannyB II

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Re: Group Therapy increasing Drug Risk?????/
« Reply #14 on: July 17, 2010, 11:55:02 AM »
Quote from: "Froderik"
Did a lot of drugs before the 'gram, and even more after the 'gram...

TRUE.

/thread

 :roflmao: I love this place...... Frodie
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