Salvation Army Clitheroe
... behind closed doors.
- There are as many ways to measure statistics as there are to manipulate them. Keep in mind that Salvation Army Clitheroe is the largest provider of addiction services in Alaska, and receives the lion's share of state and federal substance abuse funding.
- In Detox, when a person was admitted there was a computer program that automatically printed all the forms that were required, with the personal data. One of these forms was the client follow-up survey. It was a simple form meant to get information about how clients did after receiving treatment in Detox.The form was shredded as soon as it printed. Detox numbers given publicly, with very few exceptions, are fiction. (One of my jobs in Detox was compiling the monthly censuses). Employees at Salvation Army Clitheroe have nothing but free time, so it cannot be argued that too much work was involved in putting together the numbers.
- Clients admitted to Salvation Army Clitheroe are chosen very carefully. Akeela, another Alaskan rehab, will literally take any client. The Salvation Army only takes clients who are easily managed, or who have money, or who are "connected" to the Salvation Army in some way. In Residential, various tricks were used to manipulate treatment statistics. There were quite a few clients who could be considered "treated" before they entered. One client had been a mild user of a few milder recreational drugs, for a short time in the past. That client had not used any drugs in the 4 or 5 months prior to coming to Clitheroe. Another client had had an involvement with the legal system as a result of being drunk. He had only been drunk several times in his life, did not use other drugs, and was not reasonably considered an abuser of alcohol. His position had enabled him to use time at Clitheroe to satisfy a legal obligation. On the other side, a number of people are admitted to treatment only because they have financial resources. Some of these people reliably will not stay clean, and their effect on statistics is balanced by the above cases.
- Having worked in Residential and Detox, I estimate that about 30% to 60% of Clitheroe Residential clients relapse within a few weeks of completing treatment. It is unusual for a client to just go through treatment and become clean and sober, unless they do not really have a history of abusing drugs or alcohol. The main exception might be people who had never gone to meetings before, but developed that habit while in treatment. That is especially true of young users of hard drugs (i.e., they generally relapse quickly unless they have a strong connection to N.A. or something similar).Some people do well in treatment. There are a lot of people who just need a few months of clean time and support, and common sense. Then they go years or a lifetime. Whether they get that in a treatment center or somewhere else is only a matter of circumstance.
- If you took a group of people entering Clitheroe Residential, and instead put them in a very dry hotel next door to a place with constant meetings, the success rate would be about identical.
He that complies against his will, is of the same opinion still.
- Samuel Butler