-ATIN-  05/03/2009  - At ASAM - American Society of Addiction Medicine annual conference - in Dallas a few years back I remember having a very interesting conversation with a senior executive of CRC Health Corporation, the nation's largest addiction treatment provider, as well as the nation's largest disspenser of methadone.

He was talking about meeting General Barry McCaffrey, the former drug warrior who then was on his way to becoming among the most sought after former miltary "talking heads" plying the Washington cable news circuit. Barry Karlin, CRC CEO and founder, who built the company through a series of debt fueled acquisitions, had just hired McCaffrey to join the board, as well as to to work a bit as the face of CRC, accompanying Karlin to public press events where his status as Drug Czar under President Clinton was used as a draw.

Both of us thought it absurd that Karlin hire McCaffrey, considering he did little to advance the cause of treatment and demand management, being a symbol, in fact of the militarization of the War on Drugs that accompanied continued harsh punishment of the nation's addicted. And, apparently, accorrding to the senior CRC exec, McCaffrey didn't appear to care much for addicts themselves.

"In the car together, he [McCaffrey] asked me if I was 'one of them,' to which I repiled no," the exec told me, adding that McCaffrey appeared to be distinctly pleased, nodding his head in approval, it appeared to the exec, that the he was "not one of them." McCaffrey was no doubt asking because as a CRC board member he would know that the vast majority of CRC's employees, like the rest of the 200,000 or so strong addiction treatment industry, are in recovery from addiction.

We were talking about how addicts are subject to widespread and ignorant stigmatization. "Someone with cancer that is not in rfemission is going to be just as unproductive an employee and will have to take work off to be treated," he said. "But when he comes back with the cancer in remission, he's welcomed back as a member in good standing. Someone who goes to addiction treatment and comes back with their disease in remission is looked upon as someone who has committed a transgression, not someone who has a disease in remission."

And in the addiction treatment industry, where tolerance should reign because probably well over 80 percent of employees are in recovery and, presumably there is widespread understanding of addiction as a dis ease, the sentences are even harsher. "For an addiction counselor it is considered standard that they wait two years before they can continue in their profession after a relapse of their addiction," Doug Tieman, CEO of venerable treatment provider Caron, told me, pointing out that he didn't know of any other field that was so hard on its addicted.

Tieman should know how harsh the reaction to addiction can be in the treatment industry. Highly publicised - he made the hugely read, gossipy New York Post Pg 6 column - Tieman's experience came when he was arrested for DUI last year in Palm Beach right after hosting a successful fund raising gala for Caron. As Tieman is credited with engineering a huge turnaround of Caron that has made it the fastest growing and most dynamic of the "prestige non-profits" - Betty Ford, Hazelden, Father Martin's, etc.. -  his job was in little danger. But while the center's board backed him big-time, Tieman said he often had a tough time of it: "You learn who your friends are."

Ted Jackson, Editor and Publisher, TREATMENT MAGAZINE: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

click below read  WHEN CEOs Relapse in TREATMENT MAGAZINE:

http://www.treatmentmagazine.com/special-reports/173-when-ceos-relapse-a-big-business-risk.html

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