Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is What's at Risk with Mike Christian on WBZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, Mike Christian, here of What's at Risk. First up
on tonight's show, we have an encore edition of What's
at Risk with doctor Michael Gordon. Noted addiction medicine specialist.
Doctor Gordon talks about the prevalence of addiction in America
today and his book The Twelve Step Pathway, The Heroic
Journey of Recovery. And in our second segment, we welcome
(00:32):
Rosemary Jollie, Penn State professor and author of the recently
released book The Affluent Eye. Rosemary discusses an approach to
human rights that challenges the tired narratives and sparks vital
conversation in today's diverse and interconnected world. Well, hello, everyone,
We're here with doctor Michael Gordon. He opened the first
(00:55):
detox program in Madison, Wisconsin, under the decriminalization of our
Alcoholism Statute in nineteen seventy two. He became medical director
of the Anderson Alcoholic Rehabilitation Hospital in Janesville, Wisconsin in
nineteen seventy four, and later joined the Center for Psychiatry
and the staff of the Broner Psychiatric Institute in Atlanta.
(01:17):
Doctor Gordon is now semi retired but remains in practice
as the medical director of the Burman Center. Doctor Gordon,
thanks so much for joining us today. This is a
topic I know that our listeners will be quite interested
in hearing about.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Thank you for inviting me, and it's a pleasure to
be here.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Maybe a great place to start would be for you
to tell us about your background and your life's journey
and how you got to the spot that you're at today.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, certainly so. My background is I grew up in Chicago.
I went to the University of Illinois in Champagne or
Banna for undergraduate and medical school University of Illinois and Chicago.
Upon graduating from medical school, I had a family crisis
(02:06):
and things really fell apart for me during that time,
though I finally responded to the challenge in a positive
way and I found a spiritual connection. During that period,
(02:26):
became interested in the treatment of alcoholism and became acquainted
with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous of Alan on the
Twelve Steps and set my medical practice in addressing these issues.
(02:47):
I got into addiction medicine before that phrase existed. I
had a fifty year history in addiction medicine, which was
an immensely gratifying ex experience.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I'm sure you're able to help a lot of people
during that period of time.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I certainly saw a lot of people and help some
of them, I will say. And about twenty five years
into my journey as an addiction medicine specialist, I ran
into a patient who, interestingly enough, had agreed to be
admitted to this treatment program, which was a Christian program.
(03:28):
And he was very clear telling me that he was
not a Christian and he wanted me to know that.
So I asked him, Okay, well what do you believe?
He said, well, I'm here, I know I need help,
and I came here to please my wife. But actually
I'm a follower of Joseph Campbell. He said, do you
(03:49):
know who Joseph Campbell was? I said, well, I have
heard of Joseph Campbell, but I'm not well acquainted. So
I looked into Joseph Campbell. I read of One Thousand Faces,
which is the book that made him famous and also
the power of myth. Well, for the last twenty five years,
(04:10):
I've incorporated the Heroic Journey, which was one of Campbell's
main themes into my counseling and the Heroic Journey is
and what my book does. I just published a book
called The Twelve Step Pathway, A Heroic Journey of Recovery.
(04:35):
The book brings the Heroic Journey and the Twelve Steps
into a way of thinking that promotes addiction recovery. It
was the first in depth effort to bring these two
powerful forces together.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Maybe I can throw out just a few statistics for
our listeners, just to set the stage for this disc ussion.
But according to the National Center for Drug Abuse, one
in ten Americans over the age of twelve have alcohol
use disorder. Sixty percent of Americans increase their alcohol consumption
(05:12):
during COVID. Over twenty one percent of Americans have used
illegal drugs or misuse prescription drugs within the last year,
well over one hundred thousand drug overdoses, deaths from drug overdoses,
and deaths from alcoholism over one hundred and forty thousand.
What do you think is driving this? And I could
(05:34):
go on and on with the stats, as you know,
you're more familiar with them than I am. But for
our listeners, what is driving this increase in addictions? Seems
like across the spectrum. It's not just alcoholism, it's drugs,
it's prescription drugs, it's different, different types of things. What
do you think is driving that?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I don't know that there's one answer to that question,
but I will say that life is difficult and challenging,
and that people find relief in mood altering substances or behaviors,
mood altering behaviors which gives them temporary respite from the
(06:16):
stress in their lives. And unfortunately, for some people, when
that respite wears off, they want more and so they
do it again. So once you get in that trap,
you just there's no way out unless you undertake a
(06:36):
major effort and get the right kind of help. It's
tough out there.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Just doing a little research for this discussion. Genetics, environment, trauma, pain,
self esteem, lack of self esteem, mental health, changes in
brain chemistry, all of these can lead to the development
of an addiction. I'm sure a lot more than that.
But what can one do to see the signs and
maybe try to mitigate the risks as an individual, or
(07:03):
as a family or as a group.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Well, let me just comment on your list. The genetics
and childhood trauma definitely increase vulnerability to addiction. What can
a person do well? I think listen to other people,
for one thing, because as the disease of addiction develops,
(07:26):
and they do want to emphasize that it is a disease.
As it develops, people don't see what's happening. There's a mechanism.
It's a psychological mechanism called denial, and denial is an
inability to see what's actually going on, and it's a
way of protecting the ego from painful reality. So every
(07:52):
once in a while there will be a breakthrough and
somebody will wake up and say, oh my god, what
have I done? What is going on in my life?
I'm drinking too much, I've become addicted to opiates or
whatever it is. And those moments of window opens when
(08:13):
they can take action, they can say, Okay, I need
to do something about this. Most of the time they don't,
and things progress until something hopefully finally happens before it's
too late that gets them on a path of recovery.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean, they often say when someone hits bottom, rock bottom,
that's the point that they can make a change. I'm
not quite sure what rock bottom is, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Want to know. In my opinion, rock bottom is too
late for most people. We have a population of people
who are very chronic and living underbridges home and that
group of people has a low percentage of recovery. So
(09:06):
when people go too far, they may not be redeemable,
although of course many of them are. Hitting bottom is
a and by the way, the AA literature, if I'm
not mistaken, never uses the term rock bottle. That's it's
more of the popular culture that's inserted that term. But
(09:30):
hitting bottom is just getting to a point and say
I cannot live like this one more day. I cannot
stand what I have become. Something has to change. And
then the recognition that you know I've been trying to change.
I've been trying to gain control over this behavior. And
(09:52):
if I gain control, it only lasts short period of time.
I'm back at it again, whether it's drinking, drugging, gambling, sexual,
acting out, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And it sounds like you have at least you use
the twelve step program as a meaningful part of your treatment.
Maybe for our listeners, you can just give a quick
overview of what that twelve step program is.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Thank you, so I will try to be quick. So
the beginning of the program is acknowledging loss of control
and that whatever attempts that the individual has made have
been unsuccessful, followed by an agreement to try the twelve
(10:40):
step program, and the twelve step program. Following admission of defeats,
comes to a point of recognizing that help from a
higher power is possible. The higher power is not further defined.
(11:01):
They certainly use the word God a lot in their literature,
but always followed with God as you understand him. So
it's not a religion. There's no effort is made to
get people to believe anything really other than they need help. So,
having come to this decision to try this, the next
(11:25):
part is a self examination, and it's a thorough self
examination the pluses and the minuses, and then an event
of confession where the person sits down with another person
in the presence of a higher power and they go
(11:46):
through this self examination the results of the self examination.
Next comes transformation, where the person agrees to try to
be a better person, and that is followed by remediation
where people, if they have amends to make, they go
(12:07):
ahead and make them. The last part of the journey
is bringing their newfound knowledge to help others. And they
do this through a self awareness on a daily basis,
through spiritual awareness or God awareness, depending on how you
think of it, on a daily basis, and of actively
(12:32):
pursuing helping others. Now, all this happens in context of
connection with other recovering people through going to a meetings
or gamblers, anonymous meetings, whatever the case may be, working
with a person called a sponsor who will guide a
(12:52):
person through this process and just on a daily basis,
trying to be the best person that one can be.
That's the twelve Step program in short.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Well, thank you. That was a very clear encapsulation of it.
I appreciate it. I think a lot of people hear
about the twelve Step program, but they never anybody. They
never actually hear somebody say what the twelve steps are
and how they lead to each other. Now, you're a
medical doctor, how do you integrate the medical health side
of what you do and the advice that you give
(13:27):
and the treatment that you give with the twelve step program.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
That's a good question. I'm glad you asked that. A
person is complex and we have our physical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual components. The physical components are affected by addictions,
especially alcohol or other drugs, and so one of the
(13:53):
things that's necessary for a person who is interested in
recovery is just getting their health evaluate and seeing what
damage may have been done and what can be done
about it. So the medical aspect of this is very
important and really has to happen very early in the process.
(14:14):
Then there may be coexisting difficulties of mental health, so
a person may need treatment, which may require medication, and
that would have to be selected by a person who's
knowledgeable about these things. The other thing that a doctor
(14:37):
can do is prescribe what we call anti craving medications,
and there are a few of these, and they can
be absolutely life saving in helping a person navigate, especially
the early part of recovery where the craving to return
(14:59):
to drugs or alcohol or other addictions maybe intense and
difficult to overcome.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
So well, it seems like the treatment always includes some
portion or maybe a full twelve step program, but for
most individuals it's customized based on their particular situation, their
health status, the type of treatment that their doctors giving them,
a whole array of different things.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I assume absolutely and I should say that, for the
twelve steps are not for everybody. So there are people
who just don't respond to that approach, and there are
therapists who don't rely on that approach. They rely on psychology,
(15:50):
they rely on religion, they rely on other elements as
they can bring to bear into the pictures. So everybody
who covers successfully does so through a twelve step program,
although in my view is foolish to not utilize the
twelve step program because it has proven more effective than
(16:14):
anything else.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, that makes that makes sense now. I think many
of our listeners would be familiar with the hero's journey.
It's certainly throughout literature, throughout history. It's a common man
going out facing several challenges and coming back a hero,
if you will, or at least changed. And you might
see that going back long ago to Homer's Odyssey and
(16:38):
more recently maybe Star Wars and some of the Marvel
movies and all that. There are all some aspect of
the hero's journey there. How have you taken that and
integrated it with the twelve step program. What are the
key points of that?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, the hero's journey, first of all involves being challenged.
There's a call to adventure. That's the first stage. And
for an addict, the call to adventure really comes through
the consequences of their addictive drinking, using, or behaviors. So
(17:13):
the call to adventure might come waking up in a
jail cell, it might come waking up in bed with
a stranger. It may come with a threat to lose
one's job or an actual getting fired of family conflicts.
The call to adventure is the beginning, and after one
(17:36):
gets through the denial and says, Okay, I really do
have a problem, then the next stage of the hero's
journey is accepting the help. And the help in the
case of recovery, may just be going to an AA
(17:57):
meeting that's the first step. Or going to see a
therapist that's the first step, or going with one spouse
to a marriage counselor that's the first step. It just
depends on how it develops for any individual. And when
people reach out for help, they are promised help. So
(18:21):
if you go see a therapist here, she will say,
you know I can help you, and this is what
you need to do. This is the kind of help
I can offer you. If you walk into an AA meeting,
you'll be greeted by somebody who will say, welcome, We're
glad you're here. How many times does an alcoholic walk
into a room and say we're here, We're glad you're here.
(18:44):
I mean, it just doesn't happen, and so and so,
whichever way they turn, somebody is going to greet them,
whether they if they go into a church, somebody's going
to say, we're glad you're here. Although religion is really
more for the soul than it is for specifically for
(19:07):
addiction recovery, but there may well be elements at the
church that people find extremely helpful, and there may even
be elements within the church that are addressed specifically towards
a dictionary cover. So you recognize, okay, I need help,
reach out, get help, and then follow a process of
(19:33):
self examination that I outlined earlier. Self examination, confession, decision
to be the best person one can be, and then
follow that process on a daily basis, eventually getting into
a position where one really can help others based on
(19:54):
their own experience.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
From an article written by Craig Baddie and published on
the conversation in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph
Campbell studies many hundreds of fairy tales, folk tales, and
legends in order to unearth a common pattern in the
structure of stories. Hampbell defines this as the monomth, the
(20:26):
typical trajectory of a story across all cultures and religions.
The mono myth is known as the hero's journey. Hampbell
summarizes the monomithic character journey as a hero ventures forth
from the world of common day into a region of
supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered, and a decisive
(20:48):
victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious
adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man,
and for true addicts, it is a heroic endeavor to
break that habit and to move forward in life, and
then to pay it forward and help others doing the
same thing. I think that's where the correlation between the two,
(21:10):
the twelve step program and the hero's journey is so
intriguing to me.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
You're right, You're absolutely right. It is a heroic journey.
Heroic in the sense that it takes great courage and
they can't be done alone. I tell people, only you
can do it, but you can't do it alone.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, that's a that's a great way of saying it. Alcohol.
You've treated all types of addictions I assumed, and alcoholism
I'm familiar with, and I think it's a very insidious disease.
Is there a variation and treatments of different types of addictions?
Are one easier than another to treat or is it
more the individual themselves?
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Well, let me say that none of them are easy.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
We'll start there somehow. I knew you'd say that.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I think from a from the standpoint of the addiction
medicine physician, there are some significant differences in what medications
we may choose as anti craving agents. The relapse rate
is higher with some addictions than others. In that sense,
(22:20):
alcoholism might be the We may have the most success.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
With alcohol.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Than with any other addiction. It may be because there's
so much support available in the community through the twelve
step program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
One last question. I know myself, and I'm sure most
of the listeners know someone that is an addict on
some level in alcohol, from alcohol or drugs, or has
some sort of an abuse problem. What would your advice
be to us and how would we care for the
person that we know, especially if it's a loved one.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So several things you can do. You can inform yourself
about the disease of addiction and how it affects family members.
You can go to support groups for family members such
as alan On for the family member the alcoholic, narron
On for the family member the drug addict, and there
(23:21):
are many others. You can get counseling for yourself the
family member is suffering and doesn't have the advantage of
being able to self medicate and have those periods of
respite when they're not feeling not feeling the stress because
(23:44):
they've used drugs or alcohol. You can read books. You
could even read my book which the name of which
is The Twelve Step Pathway, a Hebroic Journey of Recovery.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, that's great advice. We've been talking to doctor Michael Gordon.
Thank you so much, a lot of illuminating and helpful
advice from you, and really appreciate your observations in the
discussion around addiction.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Thank you well, thank you. It's a pleasure having an
opportunity to share with you.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Who makes you know and one of you makes you small,
and the ones the mother gives you don't do anything
at all, go ass gods when she's tending to tall.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
We'll be right back after the news at the bottom
of the hour.