Jail or Pills - Not a Long-term Solution for Chronic Pain, Addiction and/or Unhappiness

By David H. Kerr                  February 18, 2015

According to the Vera Institute of Justice report, “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America,” 731,000 people are incarcerated in American jails every day.  See the article below.  According to data reports from jails and prisons, most of those incarcerated are addicts whose crimes were committed to support their growing addiction.  Some polititions will argue with pride that they have been tough on crime, putting all those who commit these crimes in jail or prison for as long as possible.  Now the streets are safe? 

The report states that “Three out of five people in jail are unconvicted of any crime and are simply too poor to post even low bail to get out while their cases are being processed. Nearly 75 percent of both pretrial detainees and sentenced offenders are in jail for nonviolent traffic, property, drug, or public order offenses.”

The report goes on to say that “Despite the country growing safer—with violent crime down 49 percent and property crime down 44 percent from their highest points more than 20 years ago—annual admissions to jails nearly doubled between 1983 and 2013 from six million to 11.7 million..”

Suggest mandated drug treatment rather than jail

Jail is not the answer for the disease and pain of addiction but legally mandated long term treatment may be for many hard core criminal addicts not ready to stop.  The data on the Drug Courts around the country backs this claim.

The active addict on the streets needs money to feed his/her growing habit.  Once his/her family is tapped dry it is likely that a growing number of normally law abiding people will have to turn to crime for their drug money.  No one wants to suffer the pain of cold turkey withdrawal from addiction, but without help the addiction lifestyle can grow desperate.   

Drug Kingpin opportunists have benefitted from our growing countrywide obsession for drugs designed to mitigate pain.  Heroin and prescription pain management drugs appear to be the number one choice and are saturating the market.  Some “street people” have become creative turning to the lucrative drug trade for money to feed their own heroin habit and that of dozens of others.  I have said that the addict is above average intelligence.  In spite of this, the relentless physical and emotional pull of the indescribable heroin “high” have caused the creation of successful “addiction networks.”  Smart dealers are capitalizing on the disease and the needs of addicts, victimizing both young and old.

Heroin Still King for urban and suburban folk

I have met with, understood and learned from tens of thousands of addicts since my work as a parole officer in 1965 and my work at the Integrity House addiction treatment program from 1968 to 2012.  Most of the people coming to me were heroin addicts and they were from the urban areas, the suburbs, the hood, and “high class” neighborhoods.  They were black, white, Hispanic…  Race and/or culture made no difference.  Most drugs and especially heroin, do not discriminate!  Heroin will take all that is human and precious from you and while you are feeling so great from the “high” don’t think your children aren’t watching as you lose weight, the desire to eat, and sink slowly into a desperate “me first” depressed lifestyle, ignoring everything that has been precious to you. I have seen this happen to thousands of people.

Our country continues through a major drug epidemic the likes of which we haven’t seen since morphine use became an epidemic in the U.S. suburbs in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s.  The alleged cure for the morphine epidemic came in 1898 when a German scientist distilled heroin from morphine.  The Harrison Act of 1914 made heroin use illegal but allowed for the dispensing of heroin from approved clinics.  This didn’t work.  In the mid 1920’s, all clinics were closed and now heroin is still an illegal substance, only available illegally from dealers on the streets.

The abuse of and addiction to opioids for pain today is very similar to the addiction epidemic in the early 1900’s.  Taking another opioid product like heroin is a guaranteed failure with likely dire consequences over time for you and your family, as people are discovering.

Some suggestions to those suffering from chronic pain:

1.    Change your lifestyle to include healthy food and eating habits and time for daily physical exercise and/or walks, mindfulness exercises such as Yoga, meditation, and prayer.

2.    Avoid taking ANY addictive pain killers unless the only alternative is to be bedridden or hospitalized!  This is particularly critical advice for those with a family history of alcoholism or drug addiction. 

3.    With your doctor’s recommendation, take aspirin or other nsaids for temporary pain relief but also begin a daily routine of healthy eating, exercise including walking, meditation, relaxation exercises, prayer, yoga and other forms of self discipline and what is now called mindfulness.

4.    You might have to learn to live with some degree of chronic pain.  It can be done.  I have been dealing with the pain of neuropathy for the last 15 years.  First, I had to realize that the pain would always be there in spite of the Lyrica that I take for it. I bought steel toe rigid shoes and I can now walk nearly 2 miles/day with minimal pain.  I am now used to the pain to the point that for the most part I just don’t even notice it.  I think that the mind/body eventually adapts to it. 

5.    If none of the above work, enroll in and complete long-term residential drug and/or alcohol treatment.

Finally it is clear that we need to expand prevention programs and residential drug and alcohol treatment programs to meet the needs of our growing chronic addiction epidemic and to avoid the more expensive alternatives of incarceration and/or the continuing abuse of addictive legally prescribed pain medication.