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For drivers in New Mexico who believe it’s okay to risk drinking just a little bit, penalties are about to get a great deal stiffer. State Representative Brian Egolf has introduced legislation directed at persons convicted of drunken driving in New Mexico and ordered to utilize an ignition interlock device: They will no longer be able to purchase alcohol. Beyond traditional alcohol retailers, that includes convenience stores and even restaurants.

New Mexico ranks eighth among all states in the number of fatalities from automobile crashes related to alcohol consumption.  That’s actually an improvement, since it ranked fourth about a decade ago.

Egolf saw the need for the legislation because too many people with alcohol-related convictions are able to skirt current restrictions. He described watching a man with an ignition interlock device as he purchased a Coke along with three mini-bottles of whiskey. He then blew into his interlock ignition device, and once the car was started he poured the whiskey into his Coke, set the drink into his cup holder, and took off.

The court requires anybody convicted of drunken driving to have the device installed. Usually, for a first offense, it must remain in place for a year.  But many people tell the court that they do not have access to a car. There are many others who simply don’t buy the device.

The House passed it by an overwhelming vote of 59 to 5, and it was referred to a Senate Judiciary Committee which recommends its passage.  Among the 5 congressmen who voted against it, Congressman Antonio Maestas based his opposition on the law’s failure to require addiction treatment for drunken driving. It will simply create more criminals convicted of drunken driving in New Mexico, he says.

The executive director of the D.W.I. Resource Center located in Albuquerque stated that the bill may not have any effect on reducing the numbers of people injured or killed from alcohol-related auto accidents. She believes that people who want to drink will always find a way to buy alcohol.

There may be some irony in the director’s statement since the top headline displayed recently on the agency’s website indicated that traffic deaths have reached a five-year high. During the first nine months of 2012, about 40 percent of all                  traffic fatalities involved alcohol.

This law will also most likely be opposed by owners of restaurants and convenience stores responsible for checking driver’s licenses. It states that those who violate the law can be charged with a misdemeanor, but the fourth time someone sells alcohol to someone with a marked driver’s license the consequences will be prosecution for a fourth-degree felony.

Nevertheless, insists Egolf, even if the bill isn’t perfect, it will save families. He points to an auto accident that occurred the same week as the vote on the legislation in which the driver was suspected of drinking, injuring a pregnant woman.

Many people who drink regularly refuse to admit that they suffer from drinking problems. However, once someone is convicted of a drunken driving offense, it’s time to recognize the need for some kind of treatment for alcohol abuse or dependency.

People who were buying their alcohol at a liquor store located in Santa Fe will have to take their business elsewhere.  The serendipitously named House of Booze has been closed by order of the New Mexico Alcohol and Gaming Division. The owners have agreed to sell their liquor license, and the business already has closed down.

According to a story in the Santa Fe New Mexican, the House of Booze was the site of liquor sales to intoxicated individuals on at least two occasions in the last year. Liquor was sold to a minor just four months later.

A statement issued by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission pointed out that “serving and selling alcohol in New Mexico is a privilege, not a right.” He emphasized the agency’s intention to oversee that owners of establishments utilize responsible practices to ensure that the public remains safe.

The House of Booze has paid a $10,000 fine, and the property was sold on the steps of the courthouse in foreclosure proceedings.  But what about the costs incurred by people who buy alcohol when they should not be doing so?

A person who buys alcohol while he’s already intoxicated runs the risk of an arrest for driving under the influence. The costs for an attorney and legal fees can run upwards of $5,000—and as high as $25,000 if you can afford to pay for the services of a really good attorney who will be sure to get you off.  But that isn’t the only cost.

Someone who gets stopped for drinking and driving loses the use of his car, which is generally impounded and towed. The cost of that can run as high as $500.

Once you’ve got that on your record, your automobile insurance most definitely will increase. You can expect costs to triple—so if you’re paying $100 per month, just to use round figures, your yearly cost changes from $1,200 to $3,600, or even more.

If the court requires you to attend a drunken driving program, expect to shell out another $2,500. Once you’ve completed that, you will have to spend another $250 to get your license reinstated. If you’re required to install a car ignition interlock device, the fees include $200 to install and $80 per month to operate—estimating a total of $1,160.

What about the cost of employment? Some people who are arrested for driving under the influence run the risk of losing their job. It’s then difficult to find other employment with the stigma of arrest trailing them. How do you put a price on a lost job?

Without even factoring in the cost of your job, and allowing just $5,000 for a cheap lawyer, you’ve spent over $11,500. Those are the costs assuming there was no accident and nobody got hurt. When you begin to think that the House of Booze was caught selling alcohol inappropriately on three occasions, and you imagine all the times when such sales went undetected, it’s easy to see that the House of Booze owners got off easy. 

 Alcohol abuse in New Mexico costs its citizens over $2.5 billion, according to a state epidemiologists’ study. If you know someone who could benefit from treatment at a residential alcohol treatment center, it’s time to get them out from behind the wheel—and steer them in the right direction. 

There’s a great deal that you might not know about alcohol and the law. Certain rights apply to those who are battling alcohol or drug addiction. Keep in mind that most of them don’t apply if the person is actively using. Most addicts are protected, however, in the areas of employment and job training opportunities, government programs, housing, education, and healthcare accessibility.

Those in recovery are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, because alcoholism is a medical diagnosis. You also have rights under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. If you’re having housing or workplace issues, you may want to check out the Fair Housing Act as well as the Workforce Investment Act.

The Workplace

An employer cannot refuse to hire you simply because you’ve been in drug rehabilitation as long as your disability does not get in the way of accomplishing your job duties. Employers are not allowed to ask you if you have a disability, and if they know you have a disability they cannot ask you how severe it is.  They are, however, permitted to ask if you drink or do drugs. They can also require you to undergo medical testing that might reveal abuse or dependency issues once you’ve been hired, but they must consistently administer such testing to all new hires.

You cannot be fired for admitting to alcohol use as long as you want to seek treatment. An employer may be required to adjust your work hours so that you can visit your treatment specialist and also attend 12-step meetings.  The employer also has to maintain full confidentiality about your condition. Of course, if your use puts your employer at risk with either clients or product safety, or if your use of alcohol adversely affects your job performance or conduct then they can fire you.

If you need time off from your job to work on recovery, you are guaranteed up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave within any given year under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Keep in mind that FMLA applies to treatment only; you cannot invoke FMLA if you are missing work because of your abuse. To be eligible for any leave under FMLA, you must be an employee of at least 12 months’ duration working at least 1,250 hours, and your workplace must include at least 50 employees working at your site or within 75 miles of your site.

Other Rights

• If you require job training, you cannot be denied training through government programs or through private sector programs that accept government funds.
• No mortgage company or landlord can deny you a mortgage or a lease based on the fact of your past drug or alcohol use. You will not however, be eligible for public housing if you’ve been convicted of illegal drug related activity within the past three years.
• You cannot be denied an occupational certification or licensure based on past alcohol abuse as long as you are not actively using.
• You may not qualify for food stamps or federal cash assistance programs if you are using. However, if you can prove that you’ve been in rehabilitation, then you should be eligible.  Some states have opted out of or otherwise modified this rule, so you need to check regulations where you live.
• You may not be able to receive federal student loans or grants if you’ve been convicted of a felony substance abuse charge.
• Some states ban convicted felons from voting. Whether or not there’s a ban and whether it’s permanent varies widely, so check your state’s laws on this matter.

In order to qualify for protection and benefits under these laws, you must be able to demonstrate via documentation from a medical doctor or an addiction specialist that you are “substantially limited” in some area of “your major life activities.” It’s unwise to divulge your addiction to someone who might be an uncaring bureaucrat. However, should you experience discrimination, it’s important to know your rights that pertain to alcohol and the law.

Baseball fans had a shocking lesson about drinking and driving in Colorado when the Colorado Rockies’ celebrated first baseman Todd Helton was arrested for drunken driving in February. The veteran sports figure, about to embark on his final season in professional baseball before retiring, has offered an apology to his community, his team, and his fans.

There are too many successful professional men and women who descend into alcoholism but fool themselves about their level of use. Many people drink on a daily basis, get into alcohol-fueled arguments with loved ones and coworkers, and suffer from physical ailments because of alcohol, but they say they are not alcoholics and they can quit drinking at any time. Once someone experiences an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol, the odds are pretty good that the drinking has gotten out of hand.

It’s true that many doctors ask their patients during a physical, as part of the social evaluation, if they have more than two drinks per week. Yet doctors, along with other professionals including lawyers, professors, and professional athletes like Helton, think nothing of going home and tossing back two cocktails—or cold ones—after a hard day’s work.  Does that automatically classify someone as an alcoholic?

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) spells out acceptable levels of drinking for men and women. The NIAAA reports that a man can have four or fewer drinks in any given day as well as fourteen or fewer drinks within the entire week. For women, that drops to three or fewer drinks per day limited to seven or fewer drinks per week.  Once a person reaches his mid to late sixties, he or she should cut back a little from those levels.

Why should women drink less than men? The obvious reason is because they weigh less than men, in general. However, women’s bodies contain a lesser amount of water than men’s bodies, and so whatever alcohol they consume results in a higher concentration in the blood.

Even if you stay within those limits, you may be at risk for problem drinking if you consume your beverages too quickly or if you drink when you know you really shouldn’t—for example, if you’re taking prescription medication or if you know you will be driving. Overall, the NIAAA wants you to consider how much you drink and also how often, your age, your health, and your family history.

All of this information tells us that there is no cut-and-dried formula to indicate that someone is a problem drinker or an alcoholic. But ask yourself these questions:

• Do you typically drink two drinks within a half hour?
• When you’re not drinking, do you experience a craving for your favorite adult beverage?
• Once you begin to drink, are you able to stop?
• Do you hide your alcohol, or do you lie about drinking?
• Do you drink alone?
• Have you developed a tolerance for alcohol—meaning that it takes more to get a buzz?

Ultimately, when a person’s drinking puts himself or others at risk—as Helton’s did, drinking and driving in Colorado on the eve of his final season in baseball—it’s time to put a stop to it. Feeling a mixture of emotions about a decision to stop is normal.  Once you’ve made the decision, finding the right place to help you stop can make all the difference in the world.  The next step is yours.

The company that distributes Budweiser beer has voiced strenuous objections to the placement of its product in the latest Denzel Washington movie, Flight. Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a pilot for a top airline, who is seriously in need of alcohol rehab. Whitaker takes command of a flight while hung over from using coke and alcohol. He seizes the opportunity to sneak some vodka into his orange juice even as he assures his passengers that they have safely come through some extreme air turbulence.

When the plane begins to shake apart a few minutes later, he takes command of the aircraft and brings it to relative safety despite a frightened copilot and his own impairment. You would think the real crux of the story is whether Whitaker’s lawyer will successfully quash blood test results positive for cocaine and alcohol drawn immediately after the flight. After all, one might ask, he successfully saved most of the lives on board his plane; nobody else could have landed it as he did; so why should he be prosecuted for drunken flying?

But the real heart of the story surrounds Whitaker’s inability to stop drinking even as he enters a relationship with a woman who is embracing recovery after a serious overdose. She has reached out to him as a kindred spirit, and initially he vows to stay away from alcohol during the stages of the post-crash investigation.

When he falls off the wagon, she is torn between her deepening affection for him and the need to continue with her own recovery. She invites him to an AA meeting, but he silently denies his need for alcohol rehab when he refuses to admit his alcoholism in a room full of addicts.

That fall he takes off the wagon is more like a full-out crash. Budweiser is not the only adult beverage depicted in this movie. Whitaker drinks everything that’s not nailed down, and throughout his various binges you’ll see not only Budweiser but also Stolichnaya, Ketel, and countless other brands. In one scene he opens a refrigerator stocked with all manner of alcohol in those little hotel-sized bottles. And he drinks all of them.

Anheuser-Busch understandably does not want to be depicted as the company whose product makes people crash airplanes and take lives. It should, however, rethink its attitude toward this movie. As a promoter of drinking responsibly, Anheuser-Busch should consider that its product is one of many used in a man’s struggle to overcome alcohol addiction and reach into himself to find the real truth of his character.

Denzel Washington has earned his place as a top movie star both domestically and internationally with portrayals of characters battling gritty real-life scenarios. He played a quadriplegic in The Bone Collector who considers suicide as an end to a seemingly endless existence. In John Q, he portrays a father frustrated by the refusal of his health insurance company to pay for his son’s medical treatment. In Training Day, he won an Oscar showing us the vicious, dirty side of a cop—who is ultimately beaten by another cop with an overwhelmingly positive commitment to life and public service.

So in this movie, Washington’s performance demonstrates that a man can still reach into his inner core and find the truth. The movie’s producers prove that people in alcohol rehab can live full and happy lives. One would hope that the people who make Budweiser would take away that message and run with it—a message that’s worth repeating:  People in alcohol rehab can live fully and happy lives.

Many people trying to kick addiction feel shame at some level—for the behaviors that come with addiction and for letting their loved ones down. It helps to understand that addiction is a medical diagnosis just like other medical illnesses. It’s classified as a behavioral disorder because the biochemical malfunctions of the brain result in poor decision-making on the part of the addict. The victims of this illness need to receive treatment more than ostracizing or even incarceration, but an important factor in this is the addict’s ability to recognize his need for treatment at a drug or alcohol abuse rehab center. 

There is a difference between abuse and dependency. Substance abuse involves a pattern of misusing some kind of substance to get high. Substance dependency occurs when the person’s pattern of use becomes so compulsively repetitive that he suffers withdrawal symptoms if he does not use.

The Dopamine Ping

Normally, the brain releases dopamine when we do satisfying things like eat and have sex.  For a regular person, the flow of dopamine means the experience of pleasure and a feeling of satisfaction. Then the neuron that sent the dopamine out reabsorbs it, a process called reuptake. That’s the end of the normal response.

Someone abusing alcohol or drugs, however, cannot break away from using substances even if he hits rock bottom because he is biochemically susceptible to those neurochemical responses.  The alcohol or drug stimulates increased production of dopamine and also serotonin, both of which contribute to positive moods and a general feeling of well-being.   

For an addict, the normal dopamine cycle is disrupted by the drugs used. The drugs attach themselves to the dopamine neurons and prevent them from completing the reuptake process.  Other drugs, including stimulant medications, act on the brain to produce more dopamine. The dopamine keeps pinging the brain with little blasts of pleasure. The addict can’t resist it.

Over time, the drugs used affect the flow of dopamine. The brain becomes desensitized to the quantity of dopamine produced by the drug.  The person must use more of his drug—or a wider variety of drugs—in order to maintain the same pleasurable level of dopamine response.

The effect of the dopamine flooding the brain, mostly in the frontal lobe area, creates an endless cycle of pleasurable use that the addict can’t resist. Drugs also interrupt a person’s normal developmental progress and emotional functions. When someone begins using drugs or alcohol at a young age, their emotional maturity may be affected or even arrested beyond a point where it will ever return to normal.

The Curse of Cravings

It’s much more complicated than that, but you get the general idea.  An expert at an alcohol abuse rehab center can explain the process more fully, but this describes why some people fall victim to the medical diagnosis of addiction while others do not. That’s why the addict must manage his addiction for his entire life, like any other long-term medical illness.

Think of a person with diabetes. He can go to the doctor and get an explanation for the way his body processes insulin and find out what medication and diet he must follow to improve the process. But whatever the doctor prescribes, the diabetes will never go away; the person needs to manage it his entire life. It takes not only the diabetic but also his family members to aid in proper dietary management.

The same holds true for the addict.  Even as this is a disease that affects the whole family, it involves the whole family in the addict’s achievement of recovery. It takes instruction and therapy from a drug or alcohol abuse rehab center. For more information contact Vista Taos Renewal Center at 1.800.245.8267.

In this space we recently wrote about Denzel Washington’s turn in Flight, a 2012 movie about an airline pilot who desperately needs help in an alcohol treatment center. While many people raved about the movie’s realistic portrayal of a man’s seemingly impossible mission to move toward sobriety, others criticized it because its climax hung on a basic point of character rather than the process of accessing  recovery. If you’re curious about movies that serve up screen time about the vagaries of recovery, why not hunt down one or more of these great movies:

Clean and Sober (1988, starring Michael Keaton, Kathy Baker, and Morgan Freeman). This film opens with Keaton’s wheeling-and-dealing real estate agent Darryl waking up from a night spent partying; the woman he snorted cocaine with lies dead beside him. While he tries to convince the police that no drugs were involved in her death, he’s also evading questions from work about where a huge sum of money went—yes, he embezzled it—and he decides the safest place to be is in a drug and alcohol treatment center. There he meets a few addicts in recovery, including a fragile young lady (Baker) and a crusty drug counselor (Freeman).

28 Days (2000, starring Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortensen, and Steve Buscemi). This failed to score at the box office like Bullock’s other hits, earning only $62 million internationally overall, but it has been played in many a rehab center. Bullock portrays Gwen, an alcoholic journalist who wrecks a car after her sister’s wedding and chooses 28 days in a rehab center over jail time. She enters rehab certain that she’s just cooling her heels—that she is certainly not anybody who really has an alcohol problem—but the other residents, including a former baseball star (Mortensen) with multiple addictions and a teenage girl struggling with her craving for heroin give her a wake-up call.

Days of Wine and Roses (1962, starring Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, and Jack Klugman). Lemmon plays a public relations man who charms an innocent secretary and turns her on to the fun of drinking. After all, if someone likes to drink, he’s likely to hang out with other people who like to drink also, right? The problem is that drinking becomes the third person in their relationship. As the drinking worsens, Lemmon’s character gets fired and does a couple stints in a sanitarium—the place where alcoholics used to go before alcoholism came to be recognized as a behavioral health disorder at clinically established alcohol treatment centers. Only one of them remains sober at the movie’s end.

House of Sand and Fog (2003, starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley). Kathy Nicolo (Connelly) is a woman struggling with recovery and abandoned by her husband who fails to take the action necessary to save her house from a tax sale. An Iranian immigrant (Kingsley) buys the house, and Kathy spends all her energy insisting that the house is still hers. This movie is not overtly about addiction, but if you’re seeking recovery—or you know someone who is—you’ll recognize the obsessive, selfish behavior demonstrated by Kathy that ultimately destroys the people around her.

Leaving Las Vegas (1995, starring Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue). Cage portrays Ben Sanderson, a jobless Hollywood screenwriter who decides to go to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. There he meets Shue’s character, a hapless prostitute who enters into a bizarre relationship with Sanderson. This film netted Cage an Academy Award and was adapted from a book written by John O’Brien, an alcoholic screenwriter and novelist. Many people believed it was semi-autobiographical, and he shot himself two weeks after learning that it was being filmed.

Most people fail to recognize the difficulties experienced by those in recovery or in alcohol treatment centers during the holidays. The common misconception is that everybody enjoys the holiday season, and that addicts get a break from working on their recovery .

That’s so far from the truth. People in recovery must work harder than ever on their goals at this time of year. Most people let their hair down a bit, but addicts generally endure depression and anxiety, and their sense of self-esteem can suffer a real nosedive.

‘Tis the (Sad) Season

Take a look around you as we float past Thanksgiving. By the end of November, television commercials show people laughing around wine bottles or flirting over liqueur glasses. The soap operas take forever to get through their end-of-year story lines, and the characters toast one another endlessly. Magazine ads display glossy bottles of pricy liquor, tempting thirst quenchers dotted with chilled condensation or swirls of frost. As the football season wraps up, happy fans clink foaming mugs over big games won and records set.

The reality of the season is even worse. People party their way through the holidays.  From mulled wine to spiced eggnog, it’s all right out there as a reminder of everything the addict can’t have.

Someone struggling for sobriety in an alcohol treatment center generally has spent many holidays celebrating just like the people in all those ads, all those TV shows, with all those friends and families. The holiday season might be the first time in an addict’s recovery experience that the loss of his favorite pastime really reaches out and slaps him in the face. It’s hard to say no at Christmas because everybody else is saying yes, okay, just one.  But the addict can’t have just one, because one is too many, and a thousand is never enough.

Our Families, Our Adversaries

People who are going through treatment during the holiday season walk beneath a double-edged sword. Certainly they long to come home and be with their families at Christmas. They are the people who make our home—the place, as Robert Frost said, where they have to take you in. But for addicts, some pretty severe dramas have taken place at home, and visiting there might very well rip open some pretty painful wounds.

Many people in treatment for alcohol or drugs struggle with family dynamics that contribute indirectly to the addict’s problems.  That’s not to say that an addict can blame his use on someone else; but conflict, blame, and codependency nevertheless have ruled over too many family get-togethers. The addict knows that this year’s gathering might not be any different. If someone is actively using in the household, it will be an even bigger challenge. The addict longs to be at home, and simultaneously he dreads that visit.

Love and Resentment

Consider another dilemma that takes place during the holiday season. People delay the need to seek treatment at this time of the year. Family members feel ready for a confrontation, but this just isn’t the right time.  

Instead, the addict and his family go through one more holiday season struggling with harmful patterns of abuse and codependency. Before the season is halfway over, they resent one another for the pain that’s been caused.

As the holidays approach, remember that it really is possible to have fun without intoxication. No matter what holiday you’re celebrating—Christmas, Hanukkah, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, or even the Fourth of July—both the addict and his family can commit to parties without partying. The addict should attend 12-step meetings regularly. If you hope to have any kind of peace on earth, you owe it to one another.

Service providers at drug and alcohol treatment centers are excited about the opportunities spelled out in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will hopefully expand the availability and scope of addiction treatment. Mental health  and substance abuse services generally fall under the category of behavioral health. While many insurance companies have refused to provide adequate coverage for such care, implementation of the ACA may change all that.

The truth is that 8.9 million American adults not only suffer from substance abuse but also experience co-occurring disorders. What that means is that some type of mental health illness is going in conjunction with the person’s medical diagnosis of addiction. For example, if someone with bipolar disorder cannot or does not get mental health treatment, he might self-medicate with illegal drugs to improve his symptoms, with an accompanying risk of addiction.

Many people who abuse drugs experience profound physical disorders of some kind, either a long-term disease process or a physical disability. Quite often, the user will experience respiratory problems because he engages in poor health habits such as smoking cigarettes. Many complain of stomach disorders and dental problems associated with drug ingestion.

The converse of this scenario also applies: If someone falls into a pattern of habitual alcohol or drug use, he will begin to neglect his physical needs. He may no longer be able to afford his regular medications, whether they are for mental or physical health maintenance, because he spends his money on his substance of choice. He will neglect his nutrition and sleep requirements.

The Affordable Care Act offers hope that staff in drug and alcohol treatment centers will be able to provide a full cadre of services to the abuser, ensuring both his physical and mental health. Our figures need to improve, because right now less than 8 percent of those 8.9 million people are receiving both medical and mental health services.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) reports that an integrated approach to treatment ensures better outcomes with a higher percentage of patients staying healthy and remaining free of drugs. With the Affordable Care Act, more people will have the insurance to cover those benefits.

There is still a concern among many substance abuse treatment providers that private insurance companies will find loopholes to get out of paying for covered services. The federal Mental Health Parity Act passed in 2011 requires health insurance companies to subsidize services for mental health on the same level as medical or surgical benefits.  The Affordable Care Act means that employer-provided health insurance plans must offer inpatient and outpatient benefits for substance abuse treatment.

In the case for residential treatment, however, managed care organizations typically process such requests with great reluctance. Usually the professional at the drug and alcohol treatment center who will be providing services must identify the substances abused by the addict as well as how they are taken and how often they are used.  Additional factors such as risk-taking behaviors, social and family stressors, and suicidal tendencies are reviewed. Most often, even if there is a level of risk associated with undergoing treatment while the addict continues to live at home, the managed care provider will insist upon outpatient treatment.

Ultimately, the most significant aid to treatment that comes from the Affordable Care Act will be the integration of substance abuse treatment with services for co-occurring mental health and medical diagnoses. The drug and alcohol treatment centers that expand to provide services to treat the whole person will be the ones that remain viable as we head into the future.

Read More About It

Kessler, Andrew, in The Partnership at DrugFree.org. Commentary: The Affordable Care Act Could Benefit Treatment of Co-Occurring Disorders. http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/addiction/commentary-affordable-care-act-could-benefit-treatment-of-co-occurring-disorders-3?utm_source=Join+Together+Daily&utm_campaign=e2ab59fdb3-JT_Daily_News_Affordable_Care_Act_Could&utm_medium=email

News outlets throughout the Southwest and in fact nationwide are reporting on a new prepaid credit card called the “Next Step” card. It’s a card intended for use by adults in recovery. It cannot be used at bars, liquor stores, beer or wine distributors, pawn shops, or ATM machines.

The company offering the card was founded by a group of three recovering addicts:

• Eric Dresdale has a BA in business management and has worked primarily in real estate. He is also known for his involvement in charitable organizations.
• Louis Fisher is proud of his military background and has since funded and organized a variety of entrepreneurial projects. He also works closely with several charitable organizations that target recovery.
• Ryan Jaffe’s background is in marketing and sales, and he works regularly to help addicts who are crossing the bridge from treatment centers to recovery.

The founders came up with the idea for the card because “cash in hand” typically has been an addict’s trigger for use. A trigger is something that makes someone automatically want to use a substance. For example, give a cigarette smoker a cup of coffee and he will automatically want to light up. With substance abuse, the triggers can be many things, but most experts agree that cash triggers a desire to use.

Others dispute that cash is a trigger. Dr. David Festinger and his colleagues writing for The Partnership at Drugfree.org argue that there is insufficient research to support this theory. While there is acknowledgment that having cash on hand has on occasion brought someone to a point of relapse, they say that most people in addiction treatment utilize their cash funds wisely to pay bills or buy food.

However, many addiction treatment centers restrict the use of cash by the clients they are treating. In some cases, even a T-shirt decorated with cash or gold is frowned upon. Clinicians have found that addicts who are in treatment together will, during periods of socialization, enjoy talking about past deals they made, how they scored, and what they would do if they had money. Glorifying cash and drugs does not help someone who’s trying to recover.

How does the Next Step card work? The person in recovery cannot set up his own card. He must have a family member or friend who is willing to establish a primary card, and that card will control or limit the funds for the Next Step card. That means that the addict has to be in a stage of recovery so that he or she has gained the trust of this other person.

It’s also not free. There is a $10 fee to set up the card, and then the user incurs a monthly fee of $15. Transactions are limited to 40 per month for adults, and parents of teens can set up the card so that the teen can use it once per day up to five times daily. The card will not work at package stores for beer, wine and liquor; at bars, taverns, pubs, nightclubs, and cocktail lounges; gambling establishments; dating or escort services; tattoo  or piercing parlors; or ATMs. It will not offer a cash-back option at point-of-service establishments.

The company cannot, of course, guarantee misuse by vendors who will help the addict circumvent the restriction by inflating a purchase price and then giving the addict cash back. The card will not stop someone from purchasing alcohol at a store where the primary business is not alcohol; for example, at a supermarket, the store’s primary products are groceries, but many sell alcohol.

Some people believe, however, that the Next Step card is a real way for the person serious about recovery, working in tandem with a caregiver who supervises his card, to transition back into society and get a feel for controlling his own finances once again. Many people believe that the founders are taking advantage of an opportunity to just make some bucks; but if you consider the cost of the card against the fees charged for house arrest, it might just be justifiable. What do you think?

Resource:

Festinger, David et al, for The Partnership at Drugfree.org. Commentary: Charging Into Recovery – Is Cash Really a Gateway Drug? http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/addiction/commentary-charging-into-recovery-is-cash-really-a-gateway-drug?utm_source=Join+Together+Weekly&utm_campaign=cda10d62b1-JTWN_Charging_into_Recovery_Gateway_Drug_102612&utm_medium=email

See also Nextstepcard.com