Pat George – President and CEO Valley Hope Association Drug and Alcohol Rehab Centers

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                              I’m going to throw some numbers out there. Last year we touched 17,000 people so that’s just Valley Hope. There’s many, many treatment centers out there, many fine ones. Some maybe on the edge of not being quite so fine like anything. In patient, out patient, online, significant others that we had a direct influence on number 17, just under 17,000. If you just take that half of those people got into sustained recovery, so 85 hundred and the cost … I’ve seen this in several places over a lifetime. If you help somebody with efficient and correct treatment and they are able to maintain their recovery over a lifetime the savings … The economic impact is about a million dollars a person. I was computing that to the influence that Valley Hope did. Our greatest impact is that we’ve helped somebody stay alive and helped keep families intact.

                              That transposes into many generations that we help. $7 billion of economic impact, $7,500,000 based on the people that we helped last year, how that positive impact over their lifetime.

Neil Howe:          I mean it truly is amazing Pat, just the numbers that you mention there. That’s what some people don’t realize, is not only does it cost to go through rehab and yeah, there’s some money generated in that industry. But really it’s the lack of productivity from just you yourself, from 17,000 people that when they have these problems they’re not really being productive. It is a drain on the economy in that sense.

Pat George:        Oh absolutely. The cost to their families multiplies that and showing up late or showing up in an altered state of consciousness or hungover, it takes up the time with their managers, their coworkers are affected. Often times just creates a hostile work atmosphere so there are all kinds of costs besides the direct cost either out of their pocket or insurance or disability benefits. It’s staggering and I think this is just starting to be learned that an investment over the short-term and to do treatment right, I’ve been fighting the insurance industries and I have many friends there and they know I have a passion for this. But one of them told me five years ago, and I didn’t like the answer but it made me as a business guy understand what he was saying. I said, “There are all kinds of data and science that show that if you help this person with this chronic disease of addiction that the healthcare costs, the cost to … Public cost, avoiding accidents and not ending up in jail far exceeds the initial cost of doing treatment right.”

                              He looked at me and said, “We don’t think in those terms because the average person changes jobs nine times during a lifetime and each time they change jobs they change insurance carriers. So we’re looking at a two to three-year window.” That was kind of a sad … I understand it from a business standpoint but that has changed some recently just because of the awareness of the cost. With ACA and we all know that the Affordable Care Act has its problems. But one of the things that it did is make insurance portable so insurance companies are taking a more long-term look at, “How can we do effective treatment, not just a token treatment that says, “Oh yeah, we provided seven days of treatment and it didn’t work.” Well, it didn’t work, that’d be like me needing three stints and I only get two. Like, “Well, that didn’t work.”

Neil Howe:          So Pat, let’s change directions a little bit here and talk about the problems. Why are drug and alcohol addiction such a problem in the United States right now?

Pat George:        We’ve had a perfect storm and a lot of attention has been drawn because of the increase in opioid use. You go back about ten years ago and it seemed pretty innocent that [inaudible 00:19:53], the healthcare arm of the federal government started measuring how well your pain was controlled. It actually affected the pocket book of our healthcare industry and doctors in particular, and so if I’m being graded on how well I controlled your pain after surgery and it affects my pocket book, well I know how to control pain. I just prescribe this type of [inaudible 00:20:23], an opioid, and I do it innocently. I know that when I take this pill physically I feel a little bit better. If I have a propensity for addiction and I’m carrying a load of emotional strain as well I’ve noticed that when I take this pill I feel a little bit better mentally. In 30 days when the physical pain is gone, I still have some mental duress going on in my life.

                              The thing about opioids is that they quickly form a physical addiction to them. Doctors started prescribing more and more pain medications, many of them with an opioid base which is very addictive. We have found that perhaps opioids in themselves are maybe the only drug that if you don’t have the addiction gene so to speak, that you can still form an addiction with opioids or it’s a lot more common and it takes just a matter of days instead of years forming an addiction to alcohol, maybe in 90 days I’ve gone from being very productive at work. What’s sad is we see young people that, I’ve read countless stories of Johnny who was an A student and competed on the football team and got his knee hurt and then six months later he’s addicted to an opioid. We started seeing and recognizing this and it became alarming because of the number of suicides.

Neil Howe

Neil Howe is a 3-time #1 Best Selling Author, Online Media Strategist and business radio talk show host. He covers the most Innovative Business Leaders in Small and Local Business helping them share their stories with the world.