Alcohol and substance abuse treatment is not a “big money” field. I remember people calling it “the underbelly of healthcare”, because it seemed to be the last stop in the government money stream, with continuously decreasing support in government. 
Insurance companies even set an entirely different set of rules for treatment with ever decreasing reimbursement.
Increased funding and equitable insurance payment has become available for treatment lately, due to lobbying efforts and key new advocates in government. It hurts to lose effective advocates. One of those advocates in a position of power has been Tom McLellan, Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) who plans to resign in May. He says, ”There’s no deep dark secret here — I’m just ill-suited to government work,” according to Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly.
McLellan has been a leader in the science of treatment, and his organization developed a handy tool, the Addiction Severity Index (ASI). Anybody who has seriously looked for mental health or substance abuse help has taken an assessment. The ASI is an assessment on steroids, designed to assign a level of addiction to alcohol or drug use. It’s in the public domain (free), so it is in wide use, even required by some government systems. The ASI is a scientific advancement that helped establish assessments as required tools to measure outcomes of treatment.
McLellan can’t be faulted for not having an open mind. He is a researcher who knows what he’s talking about, even acquiescing in a recorded talk for NIATx that faith-based treatment was effective…an opinion based on scientifically analyzed data.
People traditionally work in this area of health care because they want to do some good. These good people lower crime (clean addicts steal less), and pull people out of the gutter to build lives. CEOs and CFOs of corporations, people serving ice cream, people from all walks of life are recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction due to McLellan’s and other scientists’ efforts.
There is a hole in government with McLellan’s wisdom exiting the ONDCP. What larger-than-life advocate will fill that hole?
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