Health & Fitness
Mindy McCready's Suicide: A Familiar Story
If a recovering addict is not practicing a continued care program of moving, eating and thinking well, well, you know the rest of the story.
A Familiar Story
My Dad was a remarkable, humble, funny and intelligent man. He graduated from High School when he was 16 years old and by the time he was 21, he received his M.D. from the University of Virginia Medical School like his father and two older brothers before him.
Over the coarse of my entire life, I have yet to meet a person connected with my Dad who did not genuinely love him and his big, vulnerable heart.
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The other thing about my Dad–he was suffering from the brain disorder and disease of addiction.
In the Fall of 1962 my Dad’s attending physician at a Dallas Fort Worth hospital addiction treatment facility put a call into my mother. This was Dad’s third attempt, third hospitalization for treatment of addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. He was an impaired physician, he had developed, “the doctor’s disease.”
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Dad’s doctor had what he thought was good news for my Mom. He was calling to report that Dad was ready to come home and resume his life after treatment. My Mom hesitated, “Are you sure, he’s had so much trouble assimilating back into the mainstream. Can’t he stay a little longer to make sure he has the skills to stay sober and healthy–this time?”, she implored.
The treating doctor’s response still resonates around my heart, “Mrs. Bell, don’t you want your husband home again?” Dad returned home and six months later shot himself in the heart.
The Bad News
That was half a century ago and incredulously, not much has changed regarding how addiction is managed after what the culture calls “rehab.” Although brain science and treatment modalities are more sophisticated and integrated, my Dad’s story remains an all too common one in 2013 as seen in Mindy McCready's tragic death.
Addiction is the “smoking gun”–the microcosmic picture for all of what ails our healthcare system and hectic way of life. Addicts are the poster children of what it looks like to succumb to so much of what is unhealthy and seductive in our consumer culture.
Addicts are treated at preposterously expensive facilities to free programs–all sharing the same outcomes–80% of people who seek treatment, relapse. The reason is because there exists no structured follow up, continued care infrastructure for people to be accountable for the skill sets they learn in their often excellent crisis care treatment: Get and stay healthy.
Asking addicts to stop their drug/behavior of choice for 30 to 90 days under observation without a life-long skill set for staying healthy including a continued care program for mind, body and spirit, is anything but healthy.
It’d be like giving an end stage kidney disease patient dialysis for three months and then releasing him for a slow, certain death without it. Mrs. Bell knew it and somehow, “in the back of his mind”, Dr. Bell knew it too.
The Same News
Addiction is a chronic, recurring disease requiring the life-time management of being healthy. I know, some rehab gurus will seduce you into the “cure” with compelling marketing, books and happy shiny people, but scam artists will be scam artists even when donned with advanced degrees. And hey, if it costs gobs of money, they must know what they’re talking about...right?
Nope, very often dead wrong.
The truth is that addiction recovery is what needs to happen across the board in health care. We need to teach people to take care of themselves–for life–and thrive instead of giving people consumer products to cover up symptoms.
What an addict needs to do is acquire a skill set to get and stay healthy and mainstream living is anything but that. Let's make it mainstream! If a recovering addict is not practicing a continued care program of moving, eating and thinking well, well, you know the rest of the story.
The Good News
The addiction recovery community is also the poster child of what natural, healthy living can be. What addiction recovery is really all about is what our suffering, ailing healthcare system is dying to learn how to do: Practice wellness, one day at a time, for a life time. Live long, drop dead. Remember, there is no cure–no one gets out alive–the best health insurance policy in the world is taking great care our ourselves: Today. Today’s the day!
Dr. Herby Bell is a Recovery Coach, owner and director of Recovery Health Care, an integrated approach to addiction treatment in Redwood City, California. For more information please call 650 474 2121 or email:herbybell@me.com
