Faith-Based Treatment of Addiction and Alcoholism: [RFK Jr. Says he’ll fix the Overdose Crisis]

“I think [Kennedy’s plan] would be an enormous step backward,” said Maia Szalavitz, an author and activist who used heroin and other drugs before entering recovery.

“We have spent the last 15, 20 years trying to move away from treating addiction as a sin rather than a medical disorder,” she said. “We’ve spent many years trying to get people to take up these medications that we know cut your death risk in half, and he seems to want to go backwards on all that.”

The vast majority of researchers, doctors and front-line addiction treatment workers agree that scientific data shows medications like buprenorphine, methadone and naloxone are game changers when it comes to treating the deadliest street drugs, including fentanyl and heroin.

The Biden administration made medical treatments more accessible and affordable. Many experts believe those programs are factors in the dramatic national drop in overdose deaths that began in 2023.

Kennedy’s approach to addiction care is controversial, because it focuses on the moral side of recovery rather than modern, science-based medication and health care.

His campaign film included a scene that appeared to blame methadone — a prescription medication that has been used to treat opioid addiction since the 1970s — for some of the high-risk street-drug use visible on the streets of San Francisco.

Kennedy has mostly said that he doesn’t like taking drugs, and he focuses on 12-step and faith-based therapy, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown.

That appeals to a lot of groups who supported Trump in the election. But we know what is fundamental for recovery and stabilization of people’s lives and reducing overdose is access to medications,” Felbab-Brown said. “Unfortunately, many of the 12-step programs reject medications.”

She’s worried that the Department of Health and Human Services will start focusing on spirituality-based approaches rather than science-based medical treatments for people who suffer from drug or alcohol addiction.

Source: RFK Jr. says he’ll fix the overdose crisis. Critics say his plan is risky

“What we need to do about addiction,” says Rebekah Kennedy, an activist who is in recovery from Opioid addiction

“I’ve seen this beautiful model that they have in Italy called San Patrignano, where there are 2,000 kids who work on a large farm in a healing center … and that’s what we need to build here,” Kennedy said during a town hall-style appearance on the cable channel NewsNation last year.

According to Kennedy’s plan, outlined in interviews and social media posts, Americans experiencing addiction would go to San Patrignano-style camps voluntarily, or they could be pressured or coerced into accepting care, with a threat of incarceration for those who refuse care.

But the San Patrignano program has been controversial and was featured in a 2020 Netflix documentary that included images of people with addiction allegedly being held in shackles or confined in cages. The current farm leaders are not happy about the documentary.

He plans to build rehabilitation centers throughout the country, where people can get help and where kids can find themselves again.

Szalavitz, the author and activist who is herself in recovery, said that the Italian program doesn’t include science-based medical care. She said that Kennedy’s fascination with the model is due to a lack of medical and scientific expertise.

It’s great to have people with personal experiences of something like addiction in policymaking. But you don’t become an addiction expert simply because you’re someone who struggled with addiction,” Szalavitz said. “You have to engage with the research literature. You have to understand more beyond your own narrow anecdote. Otherwise you’re going to wind up doing harm to people.”

Kennedy’s plan to build farms or camps doesn’t seem to include facilities that offer proper medical treatments for seriously ill people facing severe addiction, according to Humphreys.

The leader of national drug policy research said that he clearly cares about addicted people. “But in terms of the plans he’s articulated, I have real doubts about them.”

RFK is out of the hospital. Tom Wolf, a San Francisco- based activist who is in recovery from Opioid addiction, wrote on the social media site X that he supported his candidacy for HHS secretary.

Some addiction activists — especially those loyal to the 12-step faith- and values-based recovery model — have praised Kennedy’s approach and are actively campaigning for his confirmation.

“I’m going to bring a new industry to [rural] America, where addicts can help each other recover from their addictions,” Kennedy promised, during a film on addiction released by his presidential campaign. “We’re going to build hundreds of healing farms where American kids can reconnect with America’s soil.”

Kennedy, who is 71 years old and was campaigning for the White House last year, proposed a new system of camps or farms where people suffering from addictions to drugs would be sent to recover.

Kennedy’s nomination to be director of the Department of Health and Human Services would give him authority over some of the biggest federal programs dealing with addiction.

Kennedy admitted to being a drug user while he was 15 years old. “I was addicted for 14 years. During that time, when you’re an addict, you’re living against conscience … and you kind of push God to the peripheries of your life.”

Kennedy told the committee that people with substance use disorders should have access to outdoor addiction treatment and not have to go “kicking and screaming.”

Do people think they are addicted to heroin or depressants, and what do they tell us about their lives? A study by Humphreys and Kennedy

The study found that less than 1 in 35 people with antidepressants have significant withdrawal symptoms. If you are going off the drugs then it is important that you be in a doctor’s care.

“Heroin anddepressants are different when it comes to addiction risk,” says Humphreys, who is an addiction researcher. “In my 35 years In the addiction field, I’ve met only two or three people who thought they were addicted to antidepressants versus thousands who were addicted to heroin and other opioids.”

“I know people, including members of my family, who’ve had a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than they have getting off of heroin,” Kennedy said in the hearing.

Though he lacks medical training, he has been a critic of antidepressant medications — a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.