It’s sobering to consider. America’s drug and alcohol habit costs taxpayers more than $294 billion a year. In health care, law enforcement, lost productivity, and crime. The other tolls don’t get a price tag. The life shattered. The hope lost. The shame that chases the high.
The White House sees one source of relief in faith based treatment programs, where addicts learn that the surest path to recovery is also the one that leads straight to salvation. The President’s proposal would give hundreds of thousands of addicts a voucher good for treatment at the facility of those choices. It’s possible that church-based groups could make up the majority of that choice. Critics charge that letting go and letting God isn’t enough for full recovery. Saving souls, and getting sober. What works best.
Guests:
Lance Dodes, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and author, “The Heart of Addiction: A New Approach to Understanding and Managing Alcoholism and Other Addictive Behaviors”
Keith Humphreys, associate professor of psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine
Tonja Myles, founder of the Set Free Indeed program at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.