Georgia Rehab Blog

Can the good life turn you into a drug addict? According to a psychiatrist who testified on behalf of Michael Douglas’ son, it can. Cameron Douglas, the Oscar winning actor’s 31 year old son was arrested in August 2009 for possession of illegal drugs. In a hearing earlier this month, Dr. Robert Millman claimed that Cameron’s privileged background made him “reckless”.

Dr Millman told the court, “He has been sort of a reckless person since he was really young, endangering himself constantly. Not violent, just screwing up in every way - car accidents, motorcycle accidents, tattoos. I think a lot of it had to do with who his parents are.”

One might assume that the doctor’s comments were only meant to bolster Cameron’s defense which portrayed him as a victim not a villain. That they don’t reflect the doctor’s real view nor how he would deal with him in therapy. After all, the comments came in a court of law, not in a counseling session.

But his words reflect a common belief among psychiatrists… that in one way or another we are all victims of circumstance, rather than masters of our own destiny. How destructive this “victim mentality” is to a person going through drug rehab.

Many drug rehab in Georgia programs claim to address the root cause of a person’s addiction. But to the extent that the cause is assigned to someone else, the program fails the addict. Perhaps that’s why drug rehab at psychiatric facilities generally fails with relapse rates as high as 90%.

The good life doesn’t turn a person into a drug addict. Making bad decisions does. You’ll never help a drug addict turn himself around unless he accepts responsibility for his condition and unless you teach him how to live the good life once again, as an ethical, productive member of society.

Don’t waste your time or your money at a psychiatric drug rehab program. We can help you find effective drug rehab that is drug free and will help your love one beat addiction for good.

With best wishes for your success,

Fritz Alders,
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance  

A deputy chief of an addiction medicine department commented recently that a successful drug-rehab program involves a week-long detox phase. I beg to differ. This initial phase can only help a patient withdraw from an addictive drug. It is not nearly long enough to fully cleanse the body of drug residues lodged in the fatty tissues. Unless fully removed, these residues cause an addict to crave more drugs thus make successful drug rehab nearly impossible.

Relapse rates run as high as 90% in drug rehab centers which rely only on a week-long detox. How can such poor results count as a success?

If you’re looking for effective drug rehab in Georgia, call and speak to a drug rehab referral expert at Georgia Alliance today. We can help.

Wishing you much success,

Fritz Alders,
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Oklahoma is facing a “silent cancer” in the form of prescription drug abuse, so says the chief drug enforcement officer in the state.

“It isn’t always ugly or violent like the incidents frequently involving methamphetamine, heroin or cocaine,” Darrel Weaver, the Director of Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs said. “So rarely will you see it making headlines or featured on the nightly news. But prescription drug abuse has rapidly become one of the largest drug problems in the United States.”

In 2008 there were 613 drug overdose deaths reported in Oklahoma.

“Of those deaths one might think that methamphetamine and cocaine would rank highest among the culprits to end Oklahomans’ lives,” Weaver said. “But the startling and sober fact is 86 percent of those deaths were linked to prescription drugs.”

He said Oklahoma has witnessed a 76 percent increase in drug overdose deaths since 2001.

The increasing abuse of prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety medication has become the greatest source of this devastating problem, which is affecting other states equally. More and more people are relying on medications to regulate anxiety, depressions and other issues. In fact, there are more people addicted to prescription drugs than illegal drugs.

So I ask you this question. Does it make sense for a facility which purports to offer drug rehab in Georgia to dispense prescription drugs to the addicts they treat, the very drugs which account for the largest increase in drug abuse and addiction in our Country? I think not. A drug free program is the only way to beat addiction for good.

We know a number of effective drug rehab programs that can offer you or your loved one drug free rehab. Call us for a free referral today. We can help.

With regards,

Fritz Alders,
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

 Forty four years ago William Benitez founded Narconon, one of the programs we refer our Clients to. Mr. Benitez was a former drug addict who had just served his fourth sentence at the Arizona State Prison. Upon his release, he searched for a real solution to his addiction. His search led him to a technology that promised to eliminate cravings and to help its graduates live happy, productive drug free lives.  He called the program Narconon, meaning no-drugs or narcotics.

With this program, cravings are eliminated by removing drug residues stored in the fatty tissues of the body through a detoxification process which combines sauna, vitamins and exercise. Nobody but Narconon offers this state of the art procedure. It effectively breaks the chains which bind the person to his addiction, thus offering a real possibility to live drug free for good.

The program also addresses the reasons why a person became an addict and offers him tools to pull himself out of his past lower condition, as it gives him even more tools to confront and handle life going forward. Your loved one learns how to control his environment rather than to be controlled by it. With a renewed sense that life can be good again, happiness is restored. And happy people don’t use drugs.

I would like to thank Mr. Benitez for his work and acknowledge Narconon for the vital role they have played in the success of Georgia Alliance, Georgia’s leading rehab referral organization. Over the years, thousands of addicts and their families have learned the truth about drug addiction and found effective drug rehab in Georgia.

I wish you and yours much success.

With warm regards,

Fritz Alders,

Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Friends tell me that I have a knack for doing the right thing in the wrong way. It’s compliment, I think. I imagine doing the right thing is always, well, the right thing to do.  Anyhow, let me get to my story and I’ll knit the headline together with the point I want to make here.

I had dinner a couple of nights ago with a screenwriter in Hollywood where I’ve been staying for a few months. A friend of mine introduced us. She’s been worried about him for a while, I came to find out. You see, he’s been drinking heavily.

We talked about the movies, his recent trip to Mexico and the new publication on the film industry which he’s trying to get off the ground. As the conversation rolled on, I watched him drink an entire bottle of wine. The wine barely affected him. This can’t be the first alcohol of the day, I thought. He’s a drunk, I painfully realized.

My frieds say I have another knack: I can pierce the social veneer and get to the person hiding behind it. Easily. I don’t mind invading a person’s space, so to speak, if I sense that their space is hostile and forbidding to them.

Snesing that my new friend was in trouble, I set out to pierce his veneer and to get to the heart of the matter. The veneer crumbled quickly. He suffers from depression, he told me. Went to a doctor just the other day for it. Gave him anti depresssants. He took one. By this time, as his story splayed before me, I cringed. I knew one of two things would come next. He was at a crossroads of truth. Either he would discover the danger of taking drugs to “solve” his alcoholism or he would not.

I asked him what happened when he took the anti-depressant. His eyes grew big, almost wild with amazement. “I collapsed in the bottom of my bath tub for an hour with the shower running full stream on me, feeling nothing, unable to move. I’ll never take another one again.”

“Oh God thank you”, I thought. I can do something for this lost soul. I know I don’t have a lot of time. If he doesn’t handle the real problem and soon, he will once again become desperate, and desperate people are prone to do the wrong thing.

If you’re trying to handle addiction, the wrong thing to do is hook the addict on potent, mind altering medications with well known side effects which as his doctor admitted can cause suicide. That’s the wrong way to do the right thing.   

In 30 minutes of intimate conversation, we discovered the source of his depression for real.  I got him to see how something could be done about it. Gave a few simple suggestions to take back control of his life. He got it, and he’s reaching for real help. Help that will rid his body of drugs and alcohol for good.

When it comes to beating addiction, doing it the right way is the only way to go. We specialize in helping our Clients find the right way to do the right thing. If you or a love one need drug rehab in Georgia, please call us today. We can refer you to a program that can help you or your loved one beat addiction for good.

Here’s to your success,

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

Mark Twain once said something to the effect that he could judge a book by reading its first 3 pages and its last 3 pages. If it didn’t have a good beginning and a good ending, it wasn’t worth reading.

I thought about Twain’s comment when I read a release today from one of those fictional newswire services with a name as pretentious and transparent as Transnational Affilated Newswire. It announced the release of a new program to monitor patients who had finished their drug rehab program at a high priced California center which is quite proud of its luxury appointments and seaside setting.

So now they’re working on the last 3 pages, I thought. Nothing wrong with that. I think it’s the least you can do for patients who paid you 50 or 60 thousand dollars for a relatively short stay and who statistically speaking are likely to relapse and once again become addicted.

And here’s the point. This sudden interest in aftercare is a certain recognition that many of their patients in fact relapse. That no matter how good the story begins, for far too many it ends sadly. To be fair, this is the case with most drug rehab in Georgia as well.

But our job is not to be fair to any particular drug treatment center but rather to find one which offers you or your loved one the greatest chance of beating addiction for good. So if I can alter the old adage a bit: don’t judge a book by its cover nor by its first 3 pages. It’s the ending that counts.

Ignore the lushly landscaped grounds, ignore the richly decorated rooms, ignore the breathtaking view of the Pacific ocean which lies below your cliffside clinic, what should matter to you is just this: do they get results? What does the end of the story read like? Is it a happy ending for most or is it not?

Before you or your loved one enters a drug rehab program, you need to find out how many of their patients beat drug addiction or alternatively how many relapse. The top program we refer Clients to boasts nearly an 80% success rate, which means two years after completing the program their patients are still  drug free. I don’t know of any other program that comes close to this success rate, no matter the price, or no matter how the cover looks. 

At Georgia Alliance, the leading drug rehab referral organization in Georgia, we know where you can find effective drug rehab. Please call us. We can help.

I wish you much success.

Fritz Alders
Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

“Fritzie,” my parents used to say, “There’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.” It’s a basic lesson. Simple really… but an extremely important one. One which works its way into the essence of our organization, Georgia Alliance. You see, we have to be right. You could say we’re in the business of being right.

When a Client calls Georgia Alliance, we know one thing: their life or the life of someone they know is going wrong. Dead wrong. And they’re desperately looking for someone who can help them make it go right.  We’re generally given once chance to get it right. We have to be sure of that shot before we take it.

If we refer a caller to a good drug rehab program, all is right with the world. If we don’t…well, they have more Hell to pay.

Anyone who’s ever tried to find an effective drug rehab program has discovered this oddity about rehab: it appears that there’s no right way to do it. After all, would there be so many treatment options if the “right “treatment existed? Endless numbers of centers tout endless number of rehab approaches. Most are far more effective at marketing their program than handling the addicts they lure.

Just today I read an article (it was actually a thinly disguised advertisement) for a drug rehab center in California. This Center tailors its treatment to a patient’s individual situation, the article boasted. Of course, at a sky high price.  Sure sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s not. Such a program relies on the skill of the practitioner, a skill which can vary dramatically from practitioner to practitioner.

 Believe me; you don’t want to leave the life of your child, your husband, your wife, your friend up to the fate of the person assigned to their case. You want a drug rehab program that works no matter who works it.

The “right” treatment is inherently effective. It’s right, because it’s proven to work when delivered to a  cross section of addicts over a long period of time. The cure rate is high; the relapse rate low. Most centers market their program or the beauty and comfort of their facility rather than their results. And that’s because in most cases they get lousy results.

Sadly, few drug rehab programs work. Most addicts relapse and become addicted again. The programs that work are obscured by an assault of high priced marketing.  But there is good news.  You can find effective drug rehab in Georgia exists. Well, maybe you can’t. But we can. Like my parents always told me: there is a right way to do it. I know it and you will too when you call Georgia Alliance for our help.

I wish you the best.

Fritz Alders

Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

A workable definition of addiction is being physically or psychologically dependent on something.  With that definition then, is an addict cured when a drug rehab program takes him off his drug of choice and replaces it with another drug. One of their choice?

No. All drug use is risky, even if a drug is legal and prescribed by a doctor. There is risk to an addict’s body, risk from side effects, many of which are unpredictable and dangerous. And more importantly, there is great risk to an addict’s mind, his most important weapon against further drug abuse.

Some legally prescribed drugs are physically addictive. The cases of high profile celebrities who’ve become hooked on painkillers is warning enough to avoid any program that uses these powerful, unpredictable drugs. But a more insidious problem is created by the use of replacement or maintenance medications such as antidepressants.

And this takes me back to the definition of addiction, “being physically or psychologically dependent on something”. To beat addiction for good, an addict must regain his confidence that he can live without drugs. If a clinic puts him on a prescription or two or three, an addict is brainwashed to believe that he can’t live without drugs. Which makes him an addict forever. And from there, he’s once again on a path that’s narrow and full of pitfalls. One step can take him over the edge and deep into the abyss of illegal drug addiction again. Which probably explains high relapse rates the failure to permanently cure addiction, which often run in the 80% range.

While I’ve not see recent studies, I believe that such high relapse rates stem from an unproven notion that drug addiction is a disease and that this disease can be cured with drugs.

Addiction to drugs cannot be cured by causing further addiction to drugs. This is so important, it’s worth repeating. Addiction to drugs, by definition, cannot be cured by causing further addiction to drugs. You must keep this in mind when looking for a drug rehab program for you or a loved one.

At Georgia Alliance, we take this to heart and refer our Clients who need drug rehab in Georgia to a drug free program exclusively. It’s pretty simple. We want our Clients to beat addiction for good. To be drug free forever. Drugs are only used in a few cases and for a very limited time, where an addict must be weaned off a powerful drug such as heroin. 

Wishing you the best,

Fritz Alders

Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance

One day, I’ll tell you about two life altering incidents, both involving people I love dearly, which defined my mission in life and set me on my current course with Georgia Alliance, the leading drug rehab referral service in Georgia. But that’s a longer story than I have time to write about today.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about another dear friend of mine, I’ll call him Pastor Bill (not his real name). About a year ago, I was working with Pastor Bill at the Company I managed, which at the time was the leading supplier of churchwear to retailers in the South. I asked him how he was doing. Pastor Bill is an optimistic, cheerful sort of guy so I expected the usual: “I’m as good as gold, Fritz. What about you?” But that’s not what I heard.

Pastor Bill told me about his brother who was in the hospital again with complications from Diabetes. The particular complications involved his feet which were suffering from restricted blood flow. If his brother’s Doctors couldn’t correct the problem, they were going to have to amputate his feet.

Things looked grim for Pastor Bill’s brother. The doctors had been unable to help him so far and they didn’t offer him much hope. Pastor Bill’s face was etched with worry, his eyes teary as he related the news to me.

“Pastor Bill”, my voice rang out with enthusiasm, “I’ve got good news for you. I know what to do. Everything’s going to be just fine.” As you might expect, he looked at me with disbelief. After all, his brother had seen “the best.” Well, that probably wasn’t true, the best surely would have given him the same solution that I came up with, but suffice it to say that many doctors had reviewed the case, and nothing was being done to resolve it.

Years earlier, my daughter fell ill with a horrible brain illness. She went from a bright, happy fifteen year old with a rosy future to a complete invalid, wheelchair bound, unable to walk, to talk, or to eat, all in the space of a year. This is one of the stories I’ll share with you in greater detail in a future blog entry. By the way, it has a very happy ending. 

Though they were eventually able to diagnose her malady, none of my daughter’s doctors offered a cure. Instead, we were told that she’d be like she was, a complete invalid, for the rest of her life. I couldn’t think of it and I wouldn’t think of it. Nor would I agree to such a pathetic result.

After the shock of such a dire prognosis wore off, I struck out to find a solution and did. I shared the treatment, one that is as effective on diabetic complications as it is on brain damage, with Pastor Bill. That was about a year ago.

I spoke to Pastor Bill Friday. He was in a procession of cars and limos driving to a graveyard to bury his sister.  I thought about his brother, but dared not ask about him. I didn’t have to. Sensing my concern, Pastor Bill said: “you know, Fritz, every time I see my brother walk I think about the time you told me about that treatment. If you hadn’t been so certain that we could do something about his condition and if you hadn’t found me an effective treatment, my brother would not be able to walk today.

There was a moment in my life where I realized that it was my calling, my mission, maybe even my responsibility to help people find… well, help. Effective help. The truth is there are many wrong ways to handle a problem and few, sometimes very few, right ways. And unless you find the right way, the problem doesn’t solve. Often, in fact, it worsens as repeated failures to resolve a problem make the problem seem invincible.

I’ve taken it upon myself, at least in my areas of expertise, to help people in need find effective help. That’s basically what we do with drug rehab in Georgia. We find effective help. 

Pastor Bill’s story and mine have taught me that help is possible, no matter how grim or how impossible the situation seems. To find the right help, you just have to be led in the right direction. But therein lies the problem. Too often we’re guided in the wrong direction. Sometimes by mistake, sometimes on purpose (the sad reality is that many who show us “the way” worship at the altar of the almighty dollar and are more concerned for their living than they are for your life).

You, my friend, have been led in the right direction. To someone who cares. My team is committed to finding you the right drug rehab program so that you can beat addiction for good. I’ve got good news for you. I know what to do. Everything’s going to be just fine. Just give us call and we’re on it. 

I wish you well.

Fritz Alders,

Managing Partner, Georgia Alliance