Back in 1971, Robert Steele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois visited Vietnam in their capacity as United States congressman. They returned with some unexpected news, estimating that about 15 percent of the US troops serving in Vietnam were living with an active heroin addiction. President Nixon responded by creating The Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention and authorized studies to follow these addicted military members when they returned home to determine how they fared in treatment and beyond.
Heroin Addiction and the Vietnam War
Studies of returning Vietnam vets showed that initial estimates of rates of heroin abuse were low. About 20 percent of servicemen returning home said that they were living with heroin addiction. Those who were identified as addicts stayed in Vietnam until they detoxed and, when they returned home, they checked in regularly with those running the studies. The findings were unexpected; servicemen who detoxed in Vietnam, where they started and lived out their heroin addiction, and then returned home had extremely low rates of recidivism. That is, few servicemen who started and ended their heroin addiction in Vietnam began using the drug again when they came home. In fact, an estimated 95 percent of returning heroin addicts from Vietnam remained free of heroin after treatment.
Environment Is Key
What conclusions can we draw from this interesting finding? Perhaps the lesson to be learned is how important environment is to recovery. Changing our environment helps us to change our behavior, and leaving behind the environment in which addiction was fostered and maintained may help patients to build a new life in recovery with a lesser chance of relapse. It may be beneficial, for example, for patients to choose rehabilitation in a different state or city than where they actively abused their drug of choice – and then stay in that new place to rebuild their lives. Removing themselves from the environment of drug abuse may make it easier to change their outlook and view for the long term.
Of course, environment is not the primary factor in all cases. When the behavior of addiction is motivated by an attempt to heal untreated emotional wounds from the past, long-term psychotherapeutic care will be necessary. However, environment is a recognized factor in the development of drug dependence; perhaps it is also a factor to be addressed during treatment.
Heroin Addiction Treatment
If you would like to learn more about our heroin addiction treatment programs here at Michael’s House, contact us today. Located in Southern California, we can provide you with the healing environment you need to leave addiction behind forever. Call now.
