I like to think of myself as a pretty optimistic and idealistic person, though some might just call me naive or gullible. I tend to believe what people tell me, and assume that they have good intentions. This is certainly true for the patients at PSI, although some people on the staff are quick to remind me that many of them used to be big-time drug dealers and criminals, and have retained the tendency to lie and cheat. Now that I have been at PSI for almost the entire summer, I have gotten to see how strong of a grip addiction has on some of the patients here. As they say, addiction is a life-long illness. Even if you are clean, when you're an addict, there is always the temptation to use again and fall back into old habits.
The patients at PSI live at the facility for about a year, during which time they are working toward their recovery. Once they graduate from the program, unfortunately, some patients eventually find their way back to their old lives and addictions. From talking to several staff members at PSI, they believe all of the patients here have at least some chance of relapsing. The vocational educator was describing how it is nearly impossible to predict who that will be. Some of the people who she thought were best equipped to succeed in the community ended up relapsing almost immediately after they left the program. Conversely, people in the program who seemed unstable often ended up doing very well on their own.
One of the students in my Health Literacy class - one of my very best, in fact - was kicked out of PSI for using and attempting to sell drugs inside the facility. I was absolutely shocked when this happened, since she was so intelligent, engaged, and a lovely person all around. Literally the day before she was discovered, I had asked my students to respond to the journal question, "When you graduate from PSI, what could happen that would make you want to use drugs again? What can you do to avoid those triggers?" Her response: "There is nothing that could happen that would make me want to use again." What I didn't know at the time was that she had already been sneaking around inside PSI using and trying to sell, and blatantly lying to me in her journal response. I just couldn't understand how she could have me and other staff members fooled like this. She's the last person I would have guessed would relapse while still at PSI.
There is one staff member, the GED educator, who seems to have it figured out. He has been working at PSI for years, and says there is one quality that is a great predictor of who will relapse: arrogance. In fact, he goes so far as to say he has never met a patient who was arrogant that didn't relapse. That's a strong statement. Maybe it has something to do with admitting that you have a problem that is out of your control. Once you surrender to your addiction, acknowledge it is bigger than you, and admit you need others' help, you're more likely to gain that control back. What are your thoughts? Do you agree?
We deal with the issue of relapse numerous times in our courses. The problem is that some go into addiction treatment (patients AND doctors) with the mindset that it's a one-time issue when really it's a life-long issue where there will be relapses, but eventually there is the prospect of breaking the cycle.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I do think you could come up with a profile of emotions, attitudes, and/or mindsets that may foreshadow a relapse, but the possibility that certain personality types are more/less prone to relapse is kind of scary. I think we'd all like to believe that everyone is capable of being successful if they take the right steps.
ReplyDeleteCTI - From what I have seen this summer, that is very true. Many of the patients here have been in and out of lots of different treatment programs. I can only hope that this time will be the one that breaks the cycle for them.
ReplyDeleteCollin - I'd like to believe that too. Hopefully PSI will be a step in the right direction for the patients here.
As for the "modeling" question (is it possible to predict a result with some set of variables), it sounds as good as any single-variable model I could imagine.
ReplyDelete-Is it to say that if you are arrogant, you are more likely to relapse?
-Is it to say that if you are arrogant, you are more likely than not to relapse?
-Is it to say that if you relapse, you are likely to be arrogant?
-Is it to say that if you relapse, you are more likely than not to be arrogant?
-Is to say that the variables correlate, or is there also causation?
-Is this one variable far greater in magnitude that all other considerations are small, effectively noise, relative to this one quantity? Or will other variables conspire to be of equal magnitude, potentially, as this one variable?
The analytic part of me tries to discern these things about any model about human behavior.
I am really fascinated by models of how to predict human behavior. I am normally skeptical; I am used to charlatans who will make up any old model so as to get funding for their "research." I would argue that most models in economics fall into this category; none of them predicted what happened one year out before the financial crisis recently, yet still continue to make forecasts and models anyway.
In terms of the human side of it...I don't know if it's arrogance. I can't think of something better, but my imagination and experience are really limited. Is it true for any addiction? Or just narcotics addiction? What about people addicted to food, or video games, or anything that one can be addicted to in life? Is it arrogance for them, or is it a different aspect? Is it arrogance only for addicts in this program (ie, if you're in rehab, rehab only succeeds for the humble?)? What about if you're an addict, but not in the program? For those people, who may not be in a venue like that, is it also arrogance?
Dancing_Scientist, I think those are all good questions that you're asking. I can't speak for the staff member who made this observation to answer those questions. But if I had to guess, based on my experience working with people with addiction this summer, I would say that he most likely meant if you are arrogant, you are much more likely to relapse. I really can't even take a guess as to whether this model would apply to other addictions in life, as I've never interacted with any other kind of addict (to my knowledge). Same goes for addicts not in a program - the only formal experience I've had has been at PSI, so I can only really talk intelligently about people like them.
ReplyDelete