They tried to make him go to rehab, he said “no, no, no”
While the song, Rehab was written and recorded by a woman, Amy Winehouse, who died at age 27 from complications of substance abuse, it is a song more likely sung by a man. Men more than women are in substance abuse treatment, and often unwillingly. Men typically consent to treatment only as a part of legal plea bargains or other bargains with friends, partners, family members, and/or employers who insist: “Get help for your drug abuse or you are out of here!”
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Men who cope with unwanted emotions by abusing drugs or alcohol experience stress in substance abuse treatment. This triggers strong desires to re-abuse. It is a cycle wherein the cure provokes the disease.
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Substance abuse treatment is time consuming and eats into work and recreational time, it can also be expensive. Many men with substance abuse histories have debt, bad credit, and have burned bridges preventing economic help from loved ones. Many men have difficulty with logistics in getting to treatment and support group meetings due to revoked driver’s licenses. Men who cope with unwanted emotions by abusing drugs or alcohol experience stress in substance abuse treatment. This triggers strong desires to re-abuse. It is a cycle wherein the cure provokes the disease.
Drug abuse is bad, they get it already. They don’t need further counseling.
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In addition, men often look at substance abuse treatment as punishment rather than healing. Drug abuse is bad, they get it already. They may consider an awareness that substance abuse can lead to stays in rehabilitation institutions and outpatient counseling programs motivation enough to stop using. They don’t need further counseling. With such an attitude, substance abuse treatment becomes doing time. But addiction is a disease. And treatment is needed.
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As a substance abuse counselor working with men, I tried to remember that while I found the work interesting, and a way to pay my bills, many of my clients found the treatment to be punitive, boring, frightening, and a way to go further into debt.
Getting laid, having sex, or making love, call it what you will, can be a drug for men.
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Given their reluctance, and despite the obvious need for substance abuse treatment, I looked for ways to market it as worth the suffering. I acknowledged that many popular treatment techniques were not guy-friendly. For example, most men don’t have experience sitting in a circle talking about their feelings and vulnerability. Yet, most men are highly socialized and have experience in enduring emotional suffering, coping with fear, and taking risks. Another thing men like is to get laid.
We are in my support group and I have given each participant a pad and pencil.
Please write on the paper pads, that I just handed out, some ways in which combining substance abuse with sex made having sex better for you.
Okay now let’s go around the room and share the lists. Who wants to start?
Guys, thanks for sharing. Whew, it’s getting hot in here. Now come up with a list of ways that sober sex is better than drugged sex.
As these lists are shared, voice tones often changed from raucous to reverent or wistful.
A show of hands please. Who might be interested in a drug that felt like sex combined with compassionate loving? No, I’m not talking about MDMA (aka Ecstasy).
I would suggest to the group that many men had easy access to instruction on the mechanics of sex, but lacked support with developing the art of making love.
What are some of the ingredients for making of love? Honesty, good communication about feelings, caring about what someone else is experiencing. Good.
What else? Forgiving and being forgivable, being trustworthy and trusting, yes.
Are these things that are focused on in substance abuse treatment? Can substance abuse treatment be a lover’s school for men?
Might some of you look back and actually be grateful that a bunch of bad decisions lead you to a good decision to seek substance abuse treatment, because it lead you to “lover training,” that most men wouldn’t seek out some other way?
Getting laid, having sex, or making love, call it what you will, can be a drug for men. Unwanted moods can change even when the likelihood for having sex comes into awareness. Mood changes more as the opportunity draws closer. Then there is foreplay and orgasm, both of which altes mood, but without compassionate love, what often follows, are feelings of loss, emptiness, and disappointment. These moods are of course common stimuli for substance abuse and/or more loveless addictive sex.
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Loving, compassionate sex is, in fact, an excellent treatment option for men in substance abuse programs.
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A relationship fused by mutual sexual expression and compassionate loving can generate a full range of treasured moods, from ecstasy to serenity, and all points in between. In the context of a compassionate loving sex-fused relationship, one can transcend and transform difficult-to-feel emotions such as grief, despair, rage, angst, and ennui. Loving, compassionate sex is, in fact, an excellent treatment option for men in substance abuse programs; a healthy “drug of choice,” providing the mood alteration these men seek without the abuse and unhealthy addiction.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Thanks David, these are important issues. We need more light shown on men, addictions, and recovery.
Jed, thank you for the acknowledgement and for your ongoing leadership helping Men heal themselves and the planet, on their journey home. Dave