Yesterday I watched an older (2002) movie titled FAR FROM HEAVEN
It has a story line that addresses two different problems:

1. Discrimination of homosexuality and 2. Discrimination of skin color

What this brought to mind for me is how we as alcoholics, or drinkers of alcohol (whatever we call ourselves) we are discriminated against. Just reading the stories about how people can not even discuss with their doctors a very important health issue (usually because of insurance, but also because of societies views).

After watching the movie, I thought "Wouldn't it be good if someday we are not treated with disrespect just because of a natural biological problem (for lack of a better word)?"

Just throwing this out as a thought, I never realized how strongly we are discriminated against. Why do people HAVE to be "undercover" in AA meetings and in other paths of life.

Like I told my therapist, when I was in high school trying to decide what to be when I grew up, none of my choices were to be an "alcoholic."

I disagree. HIPAA puts the ball nearly 100% in our court in terms of what information gets released to who. Not even our insurance companies have the right to know this information unless we specifically grant it.

Fact is, most of us are too embarrassed to go sit in front of a Dr and tell him/her we have a problem with alcohol and need a medication to help with the problem.

This really is not a discrimination issue.

Q

I think alot of doctors are just convinced that abstinence is the only way and have not seen alot of evidence that anything else works - YET !
seen from the outside this is fairly understandable to think " well if only they stopped it would be solved " . little do they know .
unfortunately I had to chuck my last doctor because in his case his ideas were definately in the boot . He thought Alcohilics were feeble minded and had willfully ended up thus .
by the way Q , thanks for that doc . I was thinking how awful it would be to be in one of those trials and put in the placebo or Nal + abst group. Aiding medical research is great but how frustrating .

I have known more than one friend who used the health ins to help pay for a $20k stint in rehab for a child, spouse, self, then have premiums go through the roof, then if they try to switch ins. it's a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies do not like dealing with alcohol addicts.

I mentioned this before on MWO:

Nal is the one drug for alcohol that treatment that can't be hidden in med records for its true use. Aside from (very) low
doses for autoimmune disorders, Nal is prescribed only for addiction. Baclofen is a muscle relaxant; Campral is an anxiolytic and treats tinnitus; Topa treats migraines. So the ins co.'s must know if we get nal 50mg/day and they DO pay attention to these things. I LOVE my family practice Dr., and he is discreet about charting, but on this one it's good old River for me.

The problem I've found with doctors is that either they don't want to deal with alcoholics, or they have very firm opinions on how to deal with alcoholics. There is a huge amount of hubris in the alcohol treatment world that encourages doctors to completely disregard anything a non-doctor has to say about it.

This isn't entirely unearned. Doctors have had decades of alcoholism treatments come and go, and all of them have been only marginally effective. The idea that something as effective as TSM might come along seems unlikely enough that they're not risking much by disregarding anyone who brings it up as being misguided. I had a research head of the NIAAA disregard it as "one guy's opinion", and the guy here in Denver that's working on treating the homeless told me that he had no interest in something that "some doctor in Finland" came up with.

The majority will either collapse immediately because they don't feel like arguing a pointless case (some will give the "yea that makes perfect sense" defense against you spending too much time trying to explain it to them), or they will lose patience with you long before you can present enough evidence for it to matter. 10,000 success cases in Finland really doesn't matter to them. What's wrong with Finland, anyway?

As far as discrimination is concerned, there are still plenty of people who are perfectly happy with the explanation that alcoholics are a bunch of thrill seeking slack-wits who don't have enough will power to peel a banana. It's especially complementary to those who drank heavily in college and then just decided to stop. If they can do it, why can't you? I really think that it's difficult for people to let go of ideas that are complementary to them.

It's been speculated that one of the reasons that insurance agencies don't adopt TSM is because they wouldn't be able to jack the insurance rates up as much. I understand that most alcoholics are afraid to bring health problems to their doctors because they're trying to hide their condition, and that makes the unrated alcoholics more profitable for them.

Really I think this is the reason for every kind of discrimination, be it sexuality, race, addictions, etc. Some people can't feel good about themselves unless they think they compare favorably against someone else. If I'm brutally honest, there have been times in my life when I've unconsciously done the same thing, and still do. Any time we make a judgement about anything in another person's life. . .we are judging not just them, but ourselves as well. ("I'm worthy to judge this, so I must be better than this person.") This can be a tough concept to agree upon; after all, isn't that child molester a lower form of life than me? The answer to that is "No, he's not." He is a person borne about by a compulsion, just as we are. Just the fact that we've stood in God's stead, and judged that person (as opposed to assessing the act and finding effective ways to help the person overcome the behavior), is evidence that we're not one bit better than they are.

I honestly wonder if most of the problems of the world would be solved - or never exist - if the whole human race spent as much time and energy trying to be of help to one another as we do judging one another. It would be amazing! But then we do get a perverse sense of satisfaction thru judgement.

There is never any form of judgement or discrimination in Love - something I've always known, but my SO has helped me to realize, more and more. And the only way to help our fellow human beings is to love them with everything we've got in us, no matter what. Even those doctors and professionals who judge us, are deserving of our love.

Wow. Didn't see that coming!

Well said, G4M. I tend to feel that the word "love" is poorly defined, though, so I prefer to use the word "understanding" in its place in this sentiment.

I suspect that's b/c you come from a very intellectual POV - but really, there's much that most of us will never 'understand.'

But we all can love. . .which is not something to be defined, but is rather something that is done. Love is a verb.

Your coming on here to encourage, enlighten and educate alcoholics on this MB is an act of love. Dr. Eskapa writing his book to help those of us in the grip of addiction, was an act of love. Both of you have little or nothing to gain personally, as you are not alcoholics. Yes, you understood TSM, and that it could be a viable treatment for alcoholism. But it wasn't understanding that drove you to pursue this - it was a desire to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Love.

Sorry. . .I'm on to ya, Robert!

Same for me. In the end I'm paying $100 per month for Naltrexone from River and if you consider co-pays and whatnot, that's not much more than I'd pay to see a doc once a month and fill a prescription.

It's simply not worth the risk of having it in my records. I may need a security clearance someday (I'm a software developer and there are tons of jobs that require one) and alcoholism is a huge red flag unless you spend $20k and have a rehab clinic declare you under control.

$100 per month. I just consider it buying my liver back on an installment plan.