Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Depending on who you talk to, national success rates for methamphetamine addiction treatment range from less than 10 percent to 40 percent of all meth addicts who seek treatment.
"The problem with meth is it's more powerful, it grabs them quicker," said Barry Cullison, certified alcohol and drug addictions counselor at the Bowen Center, Warsaw.
Recovery, he said, often depends on the addict's level of meth use.
"Meth just destroys everything," he said. "It's quickly addictive, it destroys brain cells and attacks every other part of the body as well."
So how is meth addiction treated?
"We have a specific program for meth - a cognitive behavior approach," Cullison said. Treatment means users must change the way they think, feel and deal with daily problems.
Still, he said, "It's a process. Relapse happens."
Approximately 60 percent of participants will go through the treatment program two to three times, he said.
Cullison also said successful therapy looks at other issues in a person's life that may have caused them to start using methamphetamines.
"We all have problems," he said. "Some of us deal with them, others drag their baggage around with them."
One of the most difficult aspects of meth treatment, he said, is "changing the old people, places, things - the old playground."
If the addict returns to the same friends, relationships and environment they had before treatment, he said, chances are he or she will start using meth again.
"We have to begin the process of changing the way they think. You've got to get a person committed to their own program," he said.
Cullison said the number of meth users seen by the Bowen Center is increasing ("we've got more and more coming in") and treatment methods are constantly being evaluated.
"We point out to them that what they've been doing was escaping reality," he said. "There comes a point where you're trapped, and if you don't reach out and ask for help, you're doomed."
