COUNSELORS NOTE ADVANCES IN ADDICTION TREATMENT

As the Association for Addiction Professionals observes National Addictions
Counselor Day today, local counselors say addiction treatment has improved
with better education, counseling techniques and medications during the
past two decades.

For a long time, most counselors were recovering addicts themselves.

"Thirty years ago, you could just call yourself a drug and alcohol abuse
counselor and get someone to pay you," said Charles Parks, a licensed
marriage and family therapist for Parks & Associates Counseling Service.

But across the country, states are requiring counselors to earn bachelor's
and master's degrees. The Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse
requires 175 classroom hours, 300 practicum hours, 4,000 hours interning,
and passing a comprehensive written exam for a counseling license, said Ned
Creswell, clinical director of the Alcoholic Recovery Center.

"The amount of information my students have to have to complete the program
has increased over the last 10 years," said Professor Robert Banks, who
coordinates the substance abuse counseling program at Amarillo College.

Although recovering addicts have valuable "been there, done that" insights
that can help others, the complexity of treating addiction requires training.

"There are so many other connections, things an individual must know to
help someone who's sick," Parks said.

In the late 1970s, the average addict was a 45- to 55-year-old alcoholic
who'd suffered loss of brain cells, a divorce or jail time, Parks said. Now
the addictions include drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and
methamphetamines, the average age is between 20 and 25, and the problems
are often psychological in addition to chemical.

"(Substance abuse) is a disease of perception," Creswell said. "You use
(the substance) to change your perception to one you prefer more. To the
addict, drugs and alcohol aren't the problem; they're the solution.
Recovery is helping them find another solution."

"An addict can have a whole mess of problems," Banks said. "They can be
depressed or schizophrenic (in addition to being chemically dependent) -
what counselors refer to as a dual diagnosis. If you start fixing the
mental health problem, sometimes the alcohol problem goes away. Or at
least, it's lessened so that the people are more likely to listen to a drug
or alcohol counselor."

Support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Al- Anon
and Alateen have been another resource for successful treatment.

"Statistically, they're better at treating it than anything we know of,"
Parks said. "I will not counsel someone not willing to go through a 12-step
recovery program; I'll refer them to someone else."

Despite improved treatment, some counselors regret the disappearance of
long-term inpatient treatment facilities from Amarillo.

"Twenty-eight-day inpatient treatment programs were the norm until the late
'80s when the HMOs came in," Banks said. "They try to make inpatient stays
very, very short, so they're not effective for a lot of people.

"The argument is that you don't need long-term treatment anymore. I think
for a lot of people you do."