Published December 29, 2005
Part 2 -- Meth affects us all
Meth addiction recovery requires change in lifestyle, says drug court counselor
Twelve steps touted as most effective program
The Appalachian Judicial Circuit started in 2002 the drug court, a forced intervention program designed to treat the addictions of first-time drug offenders without sending them to prison.
Such intervention consists of probation, monitoring, periodic drug screens, and counseling.
It is the latter of these measures where Marian Fladland's expertise lies. The drug counselor describes the drug court as a "team" consisting of judges, probation offices, law enforcement officials, the district attorney and counseling resources.
Fladland has been a group counselor for Appalachian drug court since its inception. She started working with the local court circuit in 1999, when she was asked by Judge Brenda Weaver to help conduct a community based curriculum of education and prevention, which developed into the drug court.
"Drug court is the most productive form of intervention they've had up here," and it is cheaper than prison, said Fladland recently at the Ellijay office of her private drug treatment business, Assessments and Counseling, LLC.
Fladland started working with drug offenders in the early 1990s in Cobb County, where she still works with probation and defendants to convince the court to require treatment and counseling instead of jail - "sort of like drug court except they don't call it that," said Fladland.
Three nights a week Fladland makes the commute to Ellijay for group counseling, where she works with drug court participants from Pickens, Gilmer, and Fannin counties. She said currently 11 of her group members are from Pickens County, and a total of 14 people throughout the circuit have successfully completed the program since it was started.
A state-certified counselor, Fladland also works with multiple offenders with DUI charges who are required to go through counseling. And she counsels family violence offenders.
Fladland confirms that the drug of choice in the Appalachian Circuit is methamphetamine, with a current "epidemic of smoking," the fastest way to get the drug's chemicals into the brain.
And recently the problem has gotten worse. "Over the years the severity of addiction has changed," she said. "And the level of addiction is such that interventions need to be immediate."
Herself a recovering addict who has been sober for 18 years (she stresses that all "former" addicts are recovering even if they don't use drugs anymore), Fladland has a profound understanding of how the disease of addiction affects the choices and thought processes of users.
Utilizing the 12-step program for her groups in the tradition of Narcotics Anonymous, Fladland said treatment is difficult to describe in words because "it is more than any one thing." But quitting drugs amounts to a complete change of lifestyle.
She said most of her clients have been using drugs since they were adolescents, and have forgotten how to live without drugs or alcohol.
"They've missed out on stages of development that, normally, you learn from just going through life in general," explained Fladland. "They've had drugs involved in life the entire time, and now they're trying to deal with life without the use of drugs, and be happy about it. Quite frankly sometimes they're not. They get angry, and don't know how to deal with anger."
The drug meth, in particular, results in behavior that is highly destructive to the user and to society, Fladland said. That is mainly because it is so addictive.
"The drug becomes the most important thing in their lives," she said. "It's more important than food."
Addicts use meth because it makes them think "everything is better, and if you think it, it makes it so," said Fladland.
The addiction is a disease without a cure - "that's research-based fact," she noted - and it affects the brain in a way that makes the sufferer believe they do not have the disease. The disease "hijacks" one's brain and alters its chemistry, said Fladland.
The brain's dependence on the substance is why suddenly stopping its use can be such a shock to the addict. "You're trying to reprocess the pathways in your brain that were never completed, because you had the drug," Fladland explained.
People start using drugs for a variety of reasons, but not because they have the problems they exhibit after years of addiction. "This is not something people do to themselves on purpose," said Fladland. "The problems they have now occur because they began using drugs."
The problems Fladland refers to include the tendency for addicts to be manipulative, to lie to family members and friends, to steal, act violently, or alienate themselves from society.
"Most of the time if you take away the drugs you've got a normal, every day, good person," she said.
One of the reasons drug court is effective is because it instills discipline, which addicts do not have, Fladland said. If they do not change their behavior, drug court personnel will know because of frequent monitoring and drug screens. And then, if they are found to still be using drugs, they go to jail.
"The reason why people can do what we do, is because we follow the rules," said Fladland. "[Addicts] don't get that part. If they decide they refuse to change their behavior, then society is going to find a solution for that; it's prison or jail."
Fladland breaks down the process through which people develop the decisions and behaviors by which they live, and how difficult it is to break out of those patterns whether one is an addict or not.
"Everybody has a need to live, feel important, to love and be loved," she explained. "And your belief system is set up based on how to meet those needs. Then you develop a set of rules that guides those beliefs, and that results in behavior that equals the consequences of your life."
If one is not happy with those consequences, the first thing he or she must do is change their behaviors, she continued.
Furthermore, those behavior changes - such as going from using to quitting drugs - are only temporary unless one also changes the rules they live by.
The 12 steps, which Fladland used along with her religious background to achieve her own recovery, are designed to help addicts change those rules, beliefs, and behaviors.
"This works better than science and psychology," Fladland said, gesturing to a poster listing the 12 steps on the wall of her group meeting room. "This has proven to be the most effective way to help alcoholics, if they want it."
A key theme of the 12 steps is that the addict must learn to accept and understand the fact that he or she is not all-powerful, and their lives have become unmanageable, Fladland explained. The addict must learn to turn their lives over to a higher power; "to let go," she said.
The 12 steps are intended to be more of a spiritual than a religious program, though many of those who successfully complete it tie what they learn to religion.
Starting with step four, Fladland said, the addict "begins to clear away the wreckage of their past." This is done by admitting they have a problem, discussing with others the mistakes they have made, and working to remove their most harmful character defects and shortcomings.
"All this is about looking inside yourself and trying to identify," said Fladland. Steps eight and nine require the addict to make a list of people in their past they have hurt, and then approaching them to make amends.
The last three steps are the "maintenance steps." When the addict or alcoholic reaches these, they are expected to practice the first nine steps in their daily lives, and to share the message with others who have the same disease.
"If you recover and you don't share it, it stops with you," said Fladland.
"[The 12 step process] is considered a design for living," she added. "And if you're a normal person, this makes sense to you."
Fladland admits that very few people who start the program make it all the way through without relapsing back to their addiction. She said she has counseled many people who have been in and out of her office multiple times, but such is the nature of the disease.
Plus, it is up to the addict how sincere their desire is to quit, she said. "I can give people this program, but what they do with it is up to them," said Fladland.
When she first started out in the treatment field in Cobb County, Fladland was a volunteer with no intention of ever becoming a paid counselor or owning a business. And she discusses her job as though it is just something she does, rather than a full time occupation with which she makes a living.
She did all the counseling by herself when she started doing work in Pickens. "I was starving myself to death and going home with 20 dollars a day," Fladland said.
Now she has a full office staff with five additional counselors. She has nine groups which meet every week in Cobb County and the Appalachian Circuit.
When asked where her passion for helping addicts comes from, Fladland hesitated and pondered as though she had never thought about the question before. She said in addition to having been in the same situation as those she counsels, she has been surrounded by alcoholism and drug abuse her whole life.
"I just wanted to help," she said. "I can't tell you how this all happened because it just did. It was not a goal."