Georgia Rehab Blog

People can change. But to change one must first believe that change is possible and then follow that belief with action.

In my spare time I volunteer with Criminon a non profit organization dedicated to addressing the cause of criminality and restoring the individual’s self respect. This group uses discoveries in the field made by humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.

The inmates I work with, I call them students, take a correspondence course. They study a booklet called the Way to Happiness, which is a non religious moral code, basically common sense principles to live a good life by. Time and time again, I’ve witnessed my students change for the better as they move through the course.

Many of my students are imprisoned for life. Yet I can assure you that once through the course, even the Lifers are changed men. I steadfastly believe that no matter how grim a person’s condition or situation, change is possible and with that change life can return to normal and be good once again.
A student’s journey back to normalcy always starts the same way: with hope and with some degree of expectation that they can be better.

Often their new found optimism comes from seeing a friend or cell mate who’s taking the Way to Happiness course and doing much better in life. But whatever the motivation, the inevitable change begins with a simple decision to change and at least a small degree of confidence that change is possible.

As you look for help with drug or alcohol addiction, realize the same two steps will work for you. Decide that change for the better is possible and then make it happen. When you call our free drug rehab referral helpline, the counselor will direct you to a Georgia rehab program that works, where the vast majority (more than 75% of the students) have beat addiction for good. The referral should ease your mind enough to imagine realistically that you can beat addiction. After that, it’s just a matter of following through. People can change and this two step process is the way to make change for the better and make the change stick.

I wish you much success in your journey back to normalcy. Please call us at 1 (877) 315-6907 for help.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance
A free Georgia drug rehab referral helpline

Drug addiction can be beaten. But you wouldn’t know that by talking to directors of many Georgia drug rehab centers. Their programs produce thousands of graduates each year. But most of their graduates relapse, becoming addicts soon after finishing treatment. Those who don’t relapse often become addicted to drugs prescribed to them in treatment.

These programs falter and fail their patients because they’re grounded on a fundamental proposition that addiction is a disease, a disease which is chronic and without cure. Such a theory though unproven has ironically turned most doctors at drug rehab centers into pill pushers and dope peddlers. What a paradox. You treat drug addiction with drugs, supplanting an addict’s drug of choice for one prescribed by a doctor or psychiatrist.

Imagine the effect of such a policy on an individual addicted to heroin. For years, he’s plied the dark alleys of the night looking to score his fix. Finally, with the help of family and friends who’ve intervened on his behalf he’s entered a Georgia rehab facility hoping and expecting to beat his addiction. Little does he know that the doctors there don’t share his hopes and dreams. You see, rather trying to vanquish his addiction, they will replace heroin with methadone, a powerfully addictive drug in its own right.

Ironically, the very poor results this method of treating addiction produces is used to justify the disease theory of addiction and the treatment of addiction with drugs. Many of these programs have relapse rates among its graduates as high as 90%. Heck, if I was a director of such a program and nearly all my patients relapsed, I might also believe that addiction is unbeatable. But I probably would just observe that what I was doing wasn’t working and try something else.

You see, addiction can be beaten. One program we refer the vast majority of our Clients to boasts a permanent recovery rate of nearly 75%. For the sake of those who have fallen to this devilish condition, we must rid ourselves once and for all of the defeatist notion that addiction is a disease.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Bad kids want to harm your good kid. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to get him to try illegal drugs. Once he’s done drugs, a good kid can rapidly become a bad kid and his life can become a shambles. I’ve seen this all too often in the Georgia drug rehab programs where so many once good kids wind up.

There’s nothing more satisfying to a bad person than to bring a good person down. Bad people, you see, feel better when they’re surrounded by other bad people. They’re inclined then to undermine the nature and integrity of good people around them. This is as true with kids as it is with adults.

If you want to keep your good kid safe, tell him what’s right and what’s wrong. Tell him what to do and what not to do. Tell him he’s a good kid not a bad kid. And being a good kid is all right and being a bad kid isn’t. He may not always listen to you, but that’s no excuse for not telling him the score. Because if you don’t tell him the score, about the good and the bad in this world, somebody else will, and that somebody else may just tell him that wrong is right and that bad is good.

Most parents want the same things for their kids. They want them to be happy, to be healthy and to be successful. Given a safe environment to grow up in, kids will thrive and achieve what their parents want for them.

But today’s environment is not particularly safe. We don’t live in the 1950’s. Kids are subjected to bad influences and peer pressure. With both parents typically working, kids have less support and defense against these bad influences.

Bad influences and peer pressure make it even more important to stay close to your good kid. Make it safe for him to talk to you about what bad kids are telling him. Counter the bad messages with good ones of your own. As a parent you can make a big difference in your good kid’s life. Or not.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance
A helpline for Georgia rehab programs

Down deep an addict is just like you and I. A regular guy, a sweet young woman. Addiction does not change an individual’s true nature. It may seem that way, but it’s a lie.

Addiction is a debilitating condition brought on by drug or alcohol abuse. But as terrible as it appears, the condition is like a shabby pair of shoes which needs but a fresh coat of polish and a good, strong buffing to restore its luster. The luster has always been there; it just needs to be brought out with a little hard work and a lot of love.

Last night I worked with a group of addicts who are participants at my favorite Georgia drug rehab program, one I commonly refer Clients to. They helped move my church from its current location to a new location. The move has been in the works for several days now. As the deadline loomed, we realized that without help, there was no way in hell we’d make the move on time.

I called over to the director of the Georgia rehab facility, the one I mentioned earlier, to see if she knew anyone who could give us a hand. She asked around. Several young men volunteered their services, despite being tired from a full day of drug detoxification and life skills education.

The guys were clean cut, polite, funny and hard working. If they hadn’t come directly from their drug rehab program, I wouldn’t have known they were addicts. They were just like you and I. After we finished for the evening, one of the guys told us about a young girl who had approached him earlier that day. She asked him for bus fare, he said. “I’m stranded here in Atlanta”, she explained. “I just need a few bucks so I can catch a bus and get home to my kids. Can you help me?”

The guy had been where he sensed this young girl was now. Panhandling for drugs.“I’m in rehab”, he replied. “I don’t have any money on me.” He chuckled as he told the story. “Man, I’ve used that line before. Hell I’ve used every line in the book before!” “Me too!” another guy shot back. “You can’t play an addict.” They all nodded their heads in agreement.

As they joked and laughed among themselves, I was struck by how much these guys are just like you and I. Playing the game of life, doing the best they can and having as much as they can while they’re at it.

But you wouldn’t know it by the way guys like these are treated at most drug rehab programs. Guys like these are treated in other rehabs like there’s something wrong with them. They’re sick and they’re treated as patients.

But addiction is not a disease and addicts shouldn’t be treated as patients. Drug abuse changes a person but it doesn’t change them forever. Drugs affect their way of life and the way they operate in life, but no more than that and that can change. They have a condition and they can do something about the condition.

If a Georgia rehab program doesn’t understand this critical point, if through ignorance it treats an individual as a patient not as a participant, the program is guilty of changing an individual into something less than he really is. Because down deep an addict is just like you and I.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

What if there were no drugs in the world? What if when we felt down and out or when we were in pain, we didn’t reach for a bottle of pills because there weren’t any pills? Would that be good or would it be bad?

My guess is you thought it would be bad. Who wants to live in pain, right? Giant pharmaceutical companies, a kind of pharmaceutical industrial complex, have manufactured a pill to take care of every pain and have sold us or at least tried to sell us on the miracles of modern medicine. They’ve enlisted hundreds of thousands of doctors who lend credibility to their profit driven cause.

How could we live in a world full of allergens without Claritin? How we could make it through the teen years without Accutane? How could we handle old age without Lipitor or the myriad other drugs loosed upon this population who’ve come to believe their very life depends upon taking a handful of powerful drugs each day.

How could we? Well, we did once. There was a time when there were no drugs in the world. But life expectancy was less back then the pill pushers would argue. True, but not because of the dearth of drugs. In fact, nearly a hundred thousand people die each year from legally prescribed drugs. Add to that the number who die from illegal drugs and what I see is a social tragedy which is bigger than what can be handled by Georgia rehab programs.

Two people I know committed suicide while taking anti depressants. So maybe we can’t do away with all drugs, but if as a society we learned to live without the ones that are just for our creature comforts perhaps people wouldn’t turn to drugs to take away the pain they feel. If so, there would be a lot less addiction in this world.

I think the world would be a better place if drugs did not exist. And that’s the considered opinion of one who works in the Georgia drug rehab industry.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Marijuana is the most widely abused drug in America. Though not considered as dangerous as heroin or cocaine, marijuana is nonetheless harmful causing both physical and psychological effects on its users. Yet come November some Californians will ignore this harm and vote to legalize marijuana use. This is a tragedy in the making, one which as an advocate of Georgia drug rehab, I cannot abide without putting in my two cents.

Proposition 19, “The Regulate, Tax and Control Cannabis Act of 2010” proposes to legalize the use of marijuana in California. Supporters argue that legalization will not encourage additional drug abuse. A significant percentage of the state’s population already uses marijuana, they point out. They believe instead that legalization will swell the state’s depleted coffers, taking profits away from criminal organizations and transferring them in turn to the cash strapped state.

I have no doubt of the positive economic impact of legalization. But I also have no doubt of grave social repercussions for Californians, particularly among teens. Alaska legalized marijuana use in 1975. Thirteen years later Alaskan teens were twice as likely to smoke marijuana as teens from other states.

As it stands now, one third of California high school students smoke marijuana. If passage of Proposition 19 causes a similar increase in marijuana abuse in California as it did in Alaska, as many as half of all high school students could wind up abusing marijuana. Students high on marijuana are less focused in school and less driven to succeed. Legalization of marijuana will also lead to increased criminality as drug addled users turn to crime when they can’t hold a job.

Marijuana is a gateway drug. Cocaine and heroin addicts will tell you that their habits first began with marijuana use. While not every marijuana user will become an addict, virtually every addict used marijuana before he went on to more powerfully addictive drugs.

Voting for proposition 19 ensures an increase in drug abuse, criminality and drug addiction. Whatever the state gains in tax revenue will come at the expense of the health and well being of its citizens. I would never vote for such a proposition in my state for fear of its negative impact on Georgia rehab.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

The battleground against addiction is in the mind, the fight between hope that things can change and a fixed idea that little can be done about addiction.

Though the fight rages on, it looks like we’re losing the war. A fixed idea that nothing can be done for addiction has settled in, our collective consciousness shaped by our failures to beat this awesome foe. But failure is not a foregone outcome. We can change our minds and win the war. Send in the elite fighters. Don’t wage the war from the perspective of trying not to lose; wage the war to win and we will win.

But to win, drug rehab itself must change. It must change its fixed idea that addiction is a chronic disease. This defeatist and unproven idea saps the vitality of those who are called to fight the battles, the addicts and their loved ones. As those who fight falter in their struggle, addiction saps the vitality of our very nation, and so grows ever more fixed the idea that nothing can be done about this scourge.

As a nation, we must ignore the defeatists. They have little to show for their ideas and the unworkable treatments which they’ve developed. On average eight in ten drug rehab participants relapse soon after release obviously ill equipped to handle life drug free. Told in the course of therapy that addiction is an incurable illness, is it any wonder that addicts so often succumb to the enemy.
Ironically, Georgia rehab programs blame the miserable relapse rate on addiction itself, which they claim is an illness that can be managed but never beaten. We must ignore this unproven theory which threatens to become a fixed idea.

It’s understandable against this backdrop that so many addicts and their loved ones give up the fight. But the fight is not lost unless nothing can be done about it. And that’s not the case. The truth is that effective Georgia drug rehab programs exist. One program we refer many Clients to can boast that three quarters of their participants remain drug free more than two years after graduating from their program. This program should be the model for all to follow and should replace a fixed idea that nothing can be done about addiction with the truth: we can win the war.

I wish you much success in your fight.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Half assed or half hearted, I can’t say for sure. But I can state with certainty that most Georgia drug rehab programs offer at best half of what an individual needs to beat drug addiction. Most drug rehab programs in Georgia offer life skills programs. Some are useless, based as they often are on psychobabble nonsense; others are of at least some help.

While life skills are part of the answer to beating drug addiction, they are far from the complete answer. Getting the harmful drugs out of an addict’s body with a thorough, deep cleansing detox is crucial to a successful drug rehab as well.

These drug residues which lodge in the fatty tissues are responsible for drug cravings which plague addicts and which make beating addiction so difficult. Once removed through an intense combination of nutrition, exercise and sauna therapy, drug cravings cease. And with them, one of the main chains that binds an addict to his drug addiction.

One drug treatment center we often refer Clients to has developed a proprietary program to address these harmful drug residues. Using their state of the art approach, program participants are left with a clear head and a bright new perspective on life. This half of the drug rehab program is a key reason they can boast the highest success rate in the Georgia rehab industry.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Finding a Georgia drug rehab program that works is next to impossible. This makes finding a good drug rehab referral helpline critical to a successful search for help with addiction. A good helpline will steer you away from the many ineffective programs out there and refer you to a program that works.

The vast majority of Georgia rehab programs is ineffective and has the poor statistics to prove it. Nearly nine in ten drug addicts relapse after being treated at a typical Georgia rehab program. Knowing that the helpline you’re working with has prequalified the best programs available is then quite important.

In theory, a referral helpline will help you make a more informed choice amongst rehab options that you can make on your own. The individuals who manage and staff a referral helpline purportedly sift through the apparent infinity of drug rehab programs and identify the effective ones among the myriad of ineffective programs. In reality, few helplines do the heavy lifting. Anyone with a 1 800 number and a website can start a drug rehab referral helpline. Which means that to find a drug rehab program that works you first must find a quality drug rehab referral helpline. In this article, I’ll discuss how to identify a helpline that you can trust.

As with most things, the key to solving this conundrum, finding the right drug rehab helpline, is to find the right people. Find a good helpline counselor and you’ll have found a good helpline, one whose referral you can trust.

In my experience a good helpline counselor will have most if not all of the following 8 characteristics. Identify these traits in your helpline counselor and you can be satisfied that you’ve found a good helpline.
1. Has experience in the drug rehab industry.
2. Has a thorough knowledge of commonly abused drugs.
3. Knows the types of rehab available and can easily explain the pros and cons of each.
4. Understands the youth scene and the pressures kids face.
5. Listens well.
6. Is compassionate.
7. Isn’t judgmental or critical.
8. Will make an unbiased decision and refer you to an effective program.

Finding Georgia rehab that works is tough. You need a qualified drug rehab referral helpline on your side. Without knowing what to look for, however, you won’t know if you’ve found one. Use the above 8 characteristics and your search should be easier. I wish you much success.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Have you ever known a person who’s right about everything? Of course not. Even the smartest person in the world makes mistakes. Apparently, even Einstein. People asked him for his opinion all the time. About all sorts of things. And just like the rest of us, once you took him outside his element, outside his expertise, he made mistakes.

Yet ironically, even those who should know better are often convinced of their rightness. Thinking you’re right, however, does not make you right. And doing the same thing over and over again because you think you’re right, even though you’re not, is crazy.

The Georgia drug rehab industry which I’m involved in has little to show for itself. The relapse rate among addicts treated at even the most expensive programs is abominably high. The show goes on despite the poor showing, and I often wonder why. Is it the profit motive? Why change what’s working, at least what’s working on the bottom line, right? After all, the business of business is, in fact, making money.

Are the people who provide ineffective drug rehab evil? With some, I could make that argument. A psychiatrist who tells an addict that his addiction is an illness and prescribes powerful and dangerous medications to his “sick” patient is evil, particularly if you think of evil as a higher degree of wrongness. Telling an addict he’s sick degrades him and makes him feel hopeless. Besides, no proof exists that that addiction is an illness.

Or is the sorry state of Georgia rehab due to the operators who want to be right so badly that they defend their programs even though it’s clear they don’t work?

A friend of mine was an alcoholic; he’s been sober for a decade. Yet if you ask him, he’s still an alcoholic. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. His 12 step program convinced him of that. Perhaps if this program produced an abundance of sober men and women, I might think more highly of their philosophy. But they don’t. Just 5 in 100 who take their program succeed with it and become sober for good. Yet despite their poor showing, they continue to practice what they preach. And fail at it.

Just because you think something’s right, doesn’t necessarily make it right. It’s the objective reality that matters. A drug and alcoholism rehab program should be judged by how well it works. It doesn’t matter if it’s staffed with the best doctors, or landscaped like the Ritz. It’s as right as it changes addicts into sober, ethical, productive individuals. Judge the rightness of a program by the relapse rate of its graduates. If it’s higher than 30%, go elsewhere.

“Just the facts Ma’am,” Jack Webb, the iconic police detective of a popular 1960’s crime drama, would remind his witness. “Just the facts Ma’am.” It’s good advice. Before you choose a Georgia rehab program, get the facts. You’ll make the right decision. I wish you well.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance