I participate in my own recovery.
Whenever a physical or mental health issue comes up, I engage the healthcare professional with questions without taking charge; I surrender that management job to healthcare professionals. I do the things I’m supposed to do, from taking a pill to reduce swelling to cutting down on caffeine which correspondingly decreases anxiety. In the business of mental health and addictions, this is becoming more common, and a number of organizations have adopted Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC). ROSC is not without its drawbacks and dangers to patients.
SAMHSA offered grants to treatment organizations to implement ROSC this fiscal year. A bit of industry press over the past few years has pushed this idea into the popular zone.
I’m a fan of peer recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous has been effective with millions of folks with problems since the 1930s. The New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (OASAS) is currently re-vamping the treatment and Medicaid payment structure for methadone clinics, and peer support is one of the items that is rumored to be available to patients in those clinics and may be paid for by Medicaid in 2011.
I scanned through a couple white papers by important people today (you can find a bundle of them on the Internet, just Google Recovery Oriented Systems of Care). One grid I saw compared traditional treatment methods with ROSC. The element I see that could easily get out of hand is the level of peer-control, which is the idea of patients telling patients how to recover from mental illness and addictions.
When patients see success in their life by participating in ROSC, evangelism could easily be the next step. Evangelism turns off more people than it turns on. Evangelists may not have enough time and experience in order to pass along truly effective and appropriate solutions to other people’s problems. Avoiding that syndrome is supremely important in order to do more good than harm.
Professionals need to know their patients. Whether a man has a prostate problem, depression or is addicted to oxycontin, professionals need to be involved.
It will be interesting to see what the news brings from ROSC regarding professionals losing touch with their patients when patients are taking increased control over other patients’ recovery.
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