Before I began my interview with client advocate Kim Davis, I took her up on her offer to fetch some coffee from the lounge. I had just met her in her office at the Center for Alcohol and Drug Treatment (CADT) a minute earlier because I was interested in learning about how centers such as this help people cope with and recover from addiction.
What happened next proved to be far more enlightening than any ordinary interview could have been. As we entered the lounge, just after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 2, an apprehensive-looking young man, probably in his late 20s, asked us if the coffee we were pouring was decaf.
“I only ask because I’m kind of an anxious person,” he said, before stating that he had finally managed to convince himself to visit the center of his own free will -- a decision that was not easy.
“It took all the gumption I’ve got,” he said, “everything I had in me to finally admit to my alcoholism and come here.”
But there was a problem. He was in the wrong building. As a new client, he had to go the CADT’s assessment clinic first. That destination was only five blocks away, but this was a man who was obviously very nervous and had barely gotten himself through the door, only to find it was the wrong one.
That’s when Davis started pulling some strings to arrange an immediate evaluation for him and apologetically forsook our scheduled interview to personally deliver him there and get him on the right track toward recovery. That was my first glimpse of how much these client advocates really care about the people they serve.
“Treatment’s all about engagement and meeting (clients) where they’re at right now,” Davis said when we were finally able to cross paths. “Today was the day … I just felt like if we didn’t (evaluate him today), he just would not return.”
Davis went on to explain that a critical element in clients’ recovery is their support system -- friends, family and even co-workers who are close to their lives -- but not everyone has a good support system. That’s what the center is for. It is supposed to offer support to people who may not have any, or at least not enough.
“We’re nudging them in positive ways, not in harmful ways, to get them closer and closer (to recovery),” Davis said. In 2012, the Center for Disease Control recorded that more than 9 percent of U.S. citizens above the age of 12 admitted to using illicit drugs within the past month.
In 2013 in Duluth alone, 807 people were taken to hospital emergency rooms for drug-related admissions, as shown by USDrugTrends.com. That does not include alcohol-related admissions, which would make the number much greater.
The problem of substance abuse is nothing new, nor is the idea of treatment facilities. But how many people actually know what happens in those facilities? How do treatment centers assist people dealing with addiction? According to Julie Seitz, the clinical director of the CADT (which is one of seven substance abuse treatment affiliates in Duluth), the methods have changed over the years.
“When I got into this field a few years ago, everybody had the same treatment plan,” said Seitz, who has been working with the center for 16 years. “You did the 12 Steps (of Alcoholics Anonymous). If you relapsed, you got kicked out, and we just don’t believe in those philosophies.”
Now, Seitz said, the treatments are more adaptable in order to offer the best possible treatment to every individual. Twelve years ago, the CADT implemented a much more collaborative approach, which allows for the clients to steer the direction of the treatment.
“Our primary focus is about engagement, so making sure the clients are engaged, and that we’re working on what they want to work on,” Seitz said. To accomplish that, the CADT and other Duluth treatment centers have branched away from solely using Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12-step plan and now utilize concepts from a wide range of therapies.
“We don’t have any one particular model,” Seitz said. “We are client-directed, so we pull from cognitive behavioral therapy, solution-focused therapy, brief therapies, 12 steps, nontraditional 12 steps … there’s just all sorts of things.”
Seitz said that typically the treatment takes the form of three-hour meetings with small groups, but individual meetings and outpatient work are also offered. What makes their treatment effective is the fact that it is feedback-informed, so the clients have a lot of say in how it will proceed.
After every meeting, the clients are asked to evaluate their counselors with numerical ratings of their performance in several areas. They are also encouraged to give additional comments or feedback on any aspect of the treatment they wish. Seitz said that she has even had a client offer feedback about the lighting in the meeting room, citing that it was too dim for her liking. It is this attention to detail that provides clients with the most comprehensive treatment plans.
“I want to be good at what I do,” Seitz said. “I want to be better at what I do, and I can only do that by asking my clients how to do that.”
In the end, it all comes down to the clients, not the counselors.
“I’m just a catalyst to their change,” Seitz said. “They’re the ones doing the hard work. They’re the ones that are making the changes in their lives.”