Drug addicts finding their way back at Odyssey House

Press, 25 February 1986, Page 19

Drug addicts finding their way back at Odyssey House

Since the time of the Greek poet, Homer, nearly 3000 years ago, the word Odyssey has referred to a “long journey back.” Nowhere are people more aware of that than at Odyssey House, a drug rehabilitation centre in Christchurch. The residents there have experienced the highs and lows along the slippery road of drug dependency before turning and bracing themselves for the long, painful journey back. The Odyssey programme was developed in the United States. In recent years it has found success in Melbourne and Sydney, and then in Auckland. Early last year its welcome influence was felt for the first time in Christchurch. It’s a tough haul for those who gather their courage and opt to go through the programme. They have to be committed to clawing their way back for something like two years. There’s no set time for the course, but that’s how long it takes the average Odyssey House resident. To find out what the programmes involves, DAVID WILSON spoke to two of the people who have made the journey back ...

Lucy is a slim, attractive, 21-year-old blonde who appears outwardly relaxed and confident. Geoff, an Australian aged 27, might just have walked off Bondi Beach in Sydney — he’s a sixfooter, suntanned, and has the broad shoulders and self-assured look of a surfer.

You would never pick either of them as reformed drug addicts. But they have both been down that lonely road to the brink of self-destruction - and made the long journey back. Now they are two of the cornerstones of the Odyssey House rehabilitation programme in Christchurch. Geoff was hooked on heroin from the age of 15. It could be argued that fate dealt him a rough hand in that respect. He was badly injured in a motor vehicle accident while still at school and as a result was in and out of hospital several times for operations on his foot. He was given a narcotic painkiller, and became dependent on it. Long after he no longer needed it medically, he still craved the “good feeling” it gave him.

An accident of fate, maybe, but Geoff had been started down the slippery spiral of drug addiction. In his case the slide into self-degradation lasted eight years before he discovered the Odyssey House programme. Even then, it was hot, so much that he found it, but more that he was forced into it.

“I became involved in a lot of criminal activities and was constantly in trouble with the law because of my addiction to heroin,” he said. “I became aware of the Odyssey programme through a social worker in Sydney, but at that stage I wasn’t really interested in getting help for my addiction. “Then I got into trouble with the law again and in 1980 the court ordered me to undertake

the programme. It was that — or prison,” he said. Lucy (she preferred not to have her real name used) had a different kind of introduction to drug-taking. She drifted into it through smoking cannabis while still at school. By the time she had reached the sixth form she was into “homebake” — and heroin when she could get it. In the academic sense Lucy falls into the classic mould of an under-achiever in relation to her level of intelligence. “I didn’t have any trouble in doing the school work I was set and always found time to be disruptive in class,” she said. It is widely agreed by psychologists, that young people with a high IQ who do not get sufficient stimulation from the education

system are particularly vulnerable to the temptations of drugs. Lucy’s school recognised that she had a problem and she was given help by a guidance counsellor. Despite that, however, her growing dependency on drugs led to her spending less and less time at school until, finally, she was suspended. She worked for the Government for a year and then supported her habit through the unemployment benefit. She was fortunate, compared with many drug addicts, in that she picked up only one conviction before family pressure pushed her, at the age of 19, into seeking the help of Odyssey House in Auckland.

“My mother was the influencing factor behind me coming into the programme,” she said.

Invariably that first nervous step along the journey back is not taken voluntarily. “It was a long time before I had the right attitude to the programme,” admitted Geoff. “I joined it primarily to avoid going to prison, and I spent the first two months looking for ways to manipulate the system to try to get out of both going through the programme and going to prison.

“Eventually I got into trouble again and was sentenced to complete the Odyssey House programme. That gave me the motivation to carry on.” Seeing others at varying stages of progress in sorting out their previously tattered lives was also a much-valued inspiration to him.

Lucy confessed that she, too, went into the course, not because she wanted to do anything about her addiction, but only “to get my parents and others off my back.”

Like Geoff, she was not positive about the programme for a long time. Both frequently felt wretched in those early weeks. It was all so alien. Being forced to snap out of the languorous, couldn’t-care-less way of life they had drifted into, was a horrendous experience.

“It’s a real shock to most addicts to find they are faced with a daily routine and responsibility, no matter how small,” said Geoff. “Some find it very hard to adjust to.” Drugs and alcohol are most definitely out from day one at Odyssey House. Smoking is the only “addiction” for which concession is made.

These rules are rigorously enforced and staff and residents are regularly urine-tested to make sure they have taken no drugs. A positive test means out — immediately. It’s a tough time for newcomers. Being told what to do and being made to do it by people they don’t know and have no reason to trust, causes frequent resentment.

That’s where another strict rule is applied — violence is not tolerated.

Residents learn self-control by writing down particular '■ grievances and discussing them in groups with an objective arbiter present. “They are encouraged to deal with their feelings in a controlled situation,”, said Geoff. “That’s not easy for people who, for years, have been used to bottling up their emotions.”

To make it even harder, for the four to six weeks’ duration of the pre-treatment stage they are allowed no contact with anyone outside the house. Not even with relatives.

“At that stage you feel it’s utterably inconceivable that you will ever reach Level 1, let alone complete the programme,” said Lucy. “There’s no set time in any one level,” she points out. “You

get what you earn.” Both Geoff and Lucy at various times during their treatment - even in Level 3 — felt like throwing up their hands and quitting when additional responsibilities were put their way. “When I got past Level 3 I started to feel good about myself and the change in some of my attitudes,” said Geoff. “It dawned on me that throwing all that away would be such a waste. “I began to realise that I was sick of being in trouble with the police; sick of sticking needles in my arm; sick of having no selfrespect. “You get to the point where you have to make a conscious decision that there must be a better way of life than the one you’ve fallen into through drug addiction.”

Before residents can progress to Level 1 of the four-level treatment, there is The Probe. This is an intensive group in which residents are questioned by representative members of each stage of the programme, and by a staff member. They must convince the group, in their own words, that they believe they are in need of treatment and that they believe in the Odyssey House programme.

That may sound simple enough to the normal, well-adjusted individual, but for people whose physical and mental self-esteem has hit rock bottom and who mistrust everything that moves, it takes a gargantuan effort not to turn and run.

“I certainly wasn’t 100 per cent motivated in the early stages,” said Lucy, who is now a senior Level 4 resident. “But it felt good to be accepted to Level 1 because it meant I was moving on in the programme."

She is inclined to believe the “good feeling” was prompted more at that stage by the knowledge that she was one step nearer getting out, rather than the achievement factor. “When residents come into the programme they don’t trust anyone because they have been ripped off so many times in the past,” said Geoff. “It’s difficult for them to trust people with their feelings. There are issues

they find it painful to talk about. “An important step in the programme is getting them to trust people with their feelings — to let go of the need to suppress their feelings,” he said.

At Level 1 the residents for the first time are accepted members, with a voice in the Odyessy House community. Emphasis is placed on attitudes and behaviour and learning to use the Odyssey method of treatment. All activities, whether they be work or therapy, are done in group settings. The Level 1 begins to talk about feelings and to trust the group. They are allowed phone calls to immediate family once a week. '

When they have successfully answered the question “Can I use the Odyssey method?” they can move on to the next stage.

At Level 2 the resident becomes a semi-authority figure — and that’s another seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

Since drug abusers have great contempt for authority, they do not begin to deal with this problem until they are placed in a responsible position of authority themselves.

Emphasis is placed on the organisation and administration of tasks.

At this stage residents are allowed to re-establish relationships with their families (if they wish), with phone calls, mall and visits once a week at Odyssey House.

At Level 3 they are given responsibility for the well-being of those under their authority. They are learning to be responsible for people and become a . strength within the Odyssey House community by guiding newer residents through the rehabilitation process. - '■ They become group leaders and act as bridges between professional therapists and new residents, who are more inclined to communicate with them because they have “been there, done that.”

Emphasis is also placed on Level 3 residents forming positive relationships and they are allowed, and encouraged, to leave the facility unescorted for the first time. They are allowed an 18-hour pass outside the

house once a week. The "journey back” reveals new horizons and challenges all the time, but even at this stage of the rehabilitation they are met with trepidation by the Odyssey traveller.

“I was in Level 4 for some time before I went out,” said Lucy. “And didn’t go until I was confronted with the fact that I hadn’t been out.

“I just didn’t like it outside. I didn’t like people. I didn’t feel secure.” ‘ 4

Geoff agreed that the feeling was not unusual. “Re-entry to the. outside world can be every bit as difficult as the initial introduction to the programme," he said.

“The residents have had such a protected environment. They have become comfortable with the people in the programme and leaving that environment can present them with a daunting feeling of loss of security.” But they learn to overcome that, too, and by Level 4 they assume staff positions within the Odyssey House community. They are allowed evenings off with a curfew. Group therapy is continued and they may also enter private therapy if necessary.

The first six months at this level are spent living and working in the Odyssey community. It is their time to give back to the community and to the residents in treatment what they themselves have received from Odyssey.

Any drop-outs from the programme mainly occur in the early stages and it is almost unheard of for someone who has completed the programme to get into trouble again. They have learned, the hard way, to take responsibility for themselves — and for others: ’ Geoff and Lucy are living testimony to the success of the programme. Lucy is going to university part-time later this year and intends to complete a BA degree.

Geoff has established himself as a successful member of the Odyssey House permanent staff and is manager of the Christchurch programme, having previously been brought from Sydney to help establish the course in Auckland.