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New Seaside group holds promise
Dual
Diagnosis Anonymous offers peer support for mental illness and
addictions
If
we're honest, we acknowledge them: every family has its
cherished son, daughter, sister, brother, uncle, cousin battling
the intertwined personal disasters of mental illness and
substance addiction.
With luck, help and constant struggle, our loved one wins the
daily battle to live with dignity and success despite these
handicaps. Far too frequently, help and fortitude come too
seldom or not all. Good human beings can become litter beneath
freeway underpasses, in homeless shelters and jails. In many
other cases, such stereotypes fail to encapsulate the day-to-day
existence of people who may blend in but still suffer in silence
with the pain and stigma of debilitating brain diseases.
There's no one single answer to this complex tragedy, but Dual
Diagnosis Anonymous is a valuable start toward a response. It is
good that a DDA chapter has come to Seaside, as we reported last
week. It is one of 82 chapters in the state. DDA is paid for by
Oregon taxpayers; citizens may also donate directly through
ddaoforegon.com
As our story explained, DDA was based on the Alcoholics
Anonymous peer-support, faith-based 12-step program, in which
addiction sufferers accept responsibility for their activities
and conditions. But it goes further, adding five steps, in which
the participants admit to having mental illness in addition to
their addictions and accept responsibility for taking their
medications.
Obtaining a lasting buy-in from a mentally ill addict to the
concept of responsibility is an enormous initial obstacle, as
anyone with experience of this situation knows. And even
assuming the sufferer is willing to stick with a program, the
vagaries of America's health-care system mean that professional
treatment and ongoing management of recovery usually aren't
adequately covered by insurance, if at all. Is it really any
wonder that so many with mental illnesses end up self-medicating
with alcohol and illicit drugs?
This makes peer support groups like DDA all the more essential,
serving as a sort of life raft into which previously floundering
victims can clamber. For some, this will be a path to use toward
sustained stability, while others will at least find an island
of respite and no-nonsense sympathy.
America and most other nations do a lousy job of standing up for
these vulnerable, often-victimized, inconvenient and
occasionally troublesome citizens. We need to do better.
Welcoming and helping DDA is a small part of the answer. |
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