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When treatment for addiction
fails, society pays the price. |
There's a clear correlation between drug addiction, alcoholism and
crime. Our jails and prisons are full of heroin and narcotic
addicts, many of them repeat offenders who turn to crime again
and again to support their habit. The cost of incarcerating these
addicts is, on average, about $25,000 a year. The cost of
prosecution for each repeated offense sends the number even
higher. And society picks up the tab.
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Addicts aren't bad people who need to be made good. They're sick
people who need to be made well.
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The first step toward more successful treatment of these offenders
is to begin to see them as patients, not criminals. They're born
with a disease that lasts a lifetime and they're likely to relapse
at any time. The disease is treatable, though, by combining
medical intervention and follow up with 12-step programs in
which one addict supports another.
Seeking a better solution, Lance Gooberman M.D. (now The NaltrexZoneTM) has developed a program
that offers a better chance for long-term recovery. It combines
opiate detoxification with Naltrexone maintenance therapy
and has been used on thousands of our patients. Once on
maintenance therapy, all NaltrexZoneTM patients are directed into
a 12-step program that we feel is absolutely necessary in addition
to medical treatment they receive here.
> see page 2