We are always on the lookout for things that will help everyone in dealing with substance abuse and addiction. A great book is The Fifth Discipline, by Peter M. Senge (1). It is about deveopling learning organizations. While not directly dealing with drug addiction, it has a great deal of techniques and insight on how to view and deal with complex problems. What I found particularily useful is the concept presented by Mr. Senge, was a management principle of don’t push growth, remove the factors that limit growth.

This applies to the drug addiction and rehab field almost perfectly. When someone is trying to change a long standing habit such as addiction, so many times all the energy is focused on the change. However, one of the reasons that change is easier and more successful in a drug rehab is that it helps remove most of the factors that have been limiting this change before. A key limiting factor in drug addiction is one’s peer group. Most times to make a major shift in your life you have to change your group of friends. In rehab you are surrounded with a group of people wanting to change, not a group of people wanting to use drugs. It makes a huge difference in outcome.

Other factors that may fall into the same category would include old perceptions, where someone lives, and the type of employment one has. Changing these to ones that support a new healthier lifestyle will have far more effect on the success of drug treatment than just focusing on the change itself. The book is loaded with lot’s of other great ideas, that would help anyone overcome addiction.

1. The Fifth Discipline, Senge Peter M.,1990, p 95-98

This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2005 at 9:55 am and is filed under Drug Addiction, Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.