Pat George recently interviewed on Business Authority Radio with host Neil Howe talking about some of the issues and misconceptions of the drug and alcohol treatment industry. Valley Hope Association is a successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation business with locations throughout the country. Based in Oklahoma, Valley Hope also has locations in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas.

 

Here is a piece of what he had to say on the show:

                             Let's talk about some of the misconceptions, you touched on some there that I think some people think when it's just a drug problem, somebody's addicted to drugs it is the drugs on the street, which is the heroin, the coke and whatever else. But really it is a huge prescription drug problem.

Pat George:        Huge and both at the state level and the state level they're trying to get their arms around it. Some of the states have drug tracking whereas up until three, four years ago I might have three different doctors prescribing me a painkiller, none of them aware of that. I go to maybe ten different drug stores, pharmacies to get my prescriptions filled. Now many states either have or are in the process of instituting drug tracking through technology that would identify that Pat George already has one drug prescription for hydrocodone. If I go to the dentist, my dentist is not going to write me that description or if he does then the pharmacy will be able to quickly through the state data bank see that I already have a prescription and not go there. It's sad that many of the opioid addicts that we treat here at Valley Hope, and I'm sure nationally it's the same, got a start in the medicine cabinet from their home or their grandparents' homes.

                              Countless cases of a teenager that is robbing grandma's medicine chest because she has a prescription for painkillers. I've just recently had personal interaction with a young couple in their early 20s that have become addicted to painkillers. They know that they need help and I ask them their source and it was both sets of grandparents that were treating an arthritic condition with a type of painkiller, that they basically were blackmailing their grandparents into filling these prescriptions a lot more oftener than they would need them so they could satisfy not only their addiction but also use that as income. We are seeing an alarming number of those type of cases where the prescription drugs are abused.

Neil Howe:          Pat, there are two main questions that come up when I search online and those are ... And I want to get to these, we're running out of time here. I want to get to these main questions because they're big questions. First of all is how do you get somebody to rehab when they don't want to go?

Pat George:        Well, and that's a great question and something that we deal with all the time. Me personally I've made no secret of my challenge, my battle with addiction and has been in a public place I don't mind publicizing that for the reason that it could help somebody. I get many calls from loved ones, parents, spouses, significant others that have a family member or friend that they know is slowly or rapidly killing themselves. Unlike the shows, Intervention, there's a proper way to do it. But I always encourage people just to be honest. You know what? They might get mad, but why are you doing this? Why are you confronting them? Is it because you have some spite or is it because you love them? Just as if I had another chronic problem, a heart disease and you notice that I was maybe panting when we go exercise or walk you would caution me.

                              "Hey, why don't you get a checkup by the doctor?" So there's no better way than to directly confront it. I'd prefer that if you have somebody that's been through the process it's always helpful just like me being part of many family interventions, I can talk about ... I was sitting on that side of the table, 25 years ago that was me. If my mom and a few other friends of mine didn't love me enough to confront me I would be dead, there's no doubt about it. There were people in the room when I was confronted that were in recovery themselves. That's a way to do that, there are many many resources available. Just in most communities, Alcoholics Anonymous has 800 numbers nationwide and there's a number of those support groups that would be willing to be part of that process. Then the other thing that we pride ourselves on here at Valley Hope and many treatments do is that we have trained professionals to answer the phone, to help answer questions and to make it less threatening.

                              We've been working nationally to remove the stigma. I knew I needed help, but I couldn't quite verbalize that. I couldn't quite raise the white flag and say, "Help." By bringing it up it's scary, but I can tell you from my own point of view that I appreciated those that have the courage to come to me and say, "Hey, we love you enough. We think that you've got a problem and we want to help you."

Neil Howe:          The second main question, once people decide or have been convinced that they need help and they need to check in is about the money. Obviously, it takes a lot of money to be able to treat these people, but what are the solutions? I know there's insurance or some government programs. What kind of solutions are there for people that needed the rehab?

Pat George:        Great question Neil. There's a broad spectrum of help available from both the local and state-funded facilities. I've done national work, every state offers some level of treatment. Then everywhere in between, you have the high-end facilities that run anywhere from 30 to 60,000 for 30 days of treatment to those ... Valley Hope is a non-profit charitable organization and we have 700 employees and they want to get paid, and we have lots of need to constantly upgrade our facilities that we do. But we like to think of ourselves as being available to anyone, and we treat people that don't have any means to those of very high net worth. An average treatment period at Valley Hope, we actually have a traditional program that we call it that's 25 days and the cost of it is a little under $11,000.

 

                              So if you think of a hotel room that you pay two or $300 for, that's what we're charging. Plus you get meals, doctor care, nursing care, counseling. But one of the things I'm most proud of is that we provided over $20 million in charity care last year. A lot of times if you have some means we'll use charity care to help cover part of the cost. You mentioned insurance. More and more carriers cover for treatment. There's over a billion dollars extra was allocated through the Federal Government and we see that figure only going up as there's more and more attention being drawn to addiction. As we talked about the cost, well the same as the savings. I think policy makers are realizing that an investment to help people suffering from addiction is a wise investment.

 

To listen to the whole interview, visit: http://rehabclinicsnearme.org/drug-abuse-risks/