32. Recovery from addiction

 Posted by T. T. and P. R. in October 2019

Michael de Ridder is a German physician who once worked in the emergency centre of a hospital situated in a district of Berlin where many alcoholics and drug addicts lived. In Germany, even in the 1980s, alcoholics and drug addicts were regarded as unwanted people so that hospitals only focussed on treatment that would  get them to quit their addiction. On one occasion, Dr. de Ridder had an opportunity to visit a hospital in London, and he was seriously impressed by the fact that all of the addicted patients were respected as individual persons.

After he came back from London, he tried to introduce to his own hospital the practice of using a respectful manner when treating drug-addicted patients. Although there were many difficulties, his enthusiastic attitude moved his colleagues and hospital managers, such that the hospital gradually adapted its whole approach to these patients. There was even an arrangement whereby a doctor and a nurse agreed to be bused around the area to treat all patients who, for whatever reason, did not come to the hospital.

One day a young drug addicted patient, Dieter W., was standing at the bus stop with crutches to support him. He was a heavy addict, using heroin, cocaine, and alcohol, and he had been arrested many times by the police for drug trafficking. He got onto the bus, and showed a fist-sized abscess in the inguinal region that had been produced by frequent needling of veins for heroin injections. Dr. de Ridder had tried many times to persuade him to have surgery, and finally managed to bring him to the hospital.

Many years later, Dieter once again came to the emergency room. He showed his injured thumb to Dr. de Ridder. “Doc ... I am Dieter ... I came here not for heroin ... I have been clean like a newborn cat for two years now ... Can you believe it? ... I’m caring for elderly people in the Worker’s Welfare.” After minor surgery of the thumb, Dr. de Ridder brought him to a cafeteria. Dieter talked only a little. “Always ill ... I stole purses from old women for the next drug ... I hated myself ... Doc ... It was harder than the hardest ‘cold turkey’ ... I took methadone for a while but I’ve reduced it. Now I only take seizures!” Dr. de Ridder gave him his card with his phone number.

In our present world, it is almost as if we have what might be considered as ‘pseudo-patients’ who have become addicted to the many culturally-created comforts of daily life, which are similar to the  chemically induced comforts of drugs. The degree of comfort produced by a drug diminishes  progressively when used repeatedly, and thus the amount of drug being taken has to be increased and an addiction is thereby created. Similarly, once addicted to cultural comforts, one cannot quit them, and will do any manner to get more comforts even stealing natural resources from future generations.

It is often said  “Once an addict, always an addict”. But, this is not necessarily true and Dieter W. demonstrated this fact. He recovered from heavy drug addiction largely by himself. Dr. de Ridder did not cure him, but his respectful attitude towards him probably served as a vital factor that was in part responsible for the miraculous return by Dieter from his serious addicted state. Our world is not hopelessly lost, even when all previous efforts to cure the ‘cultural addicts’ appear to have failed. We can still have hope in the mental power and sensibility that definitely exists in people everywhere around the world.

Further information:

• The above story was based on a monograph; Michael de Ridder, Welche Medizin wollen wir?, Deutsche Verlags Anstalt, München, 2015.

 • Special thanks to Prof. Munehiro Shimada, MD and Prof. Wolfgang Roland Ade, for introducing the above monograph and providing cordial help in the translation of the referred parts.

• Cordial thanks to Prof. Michael de Ridder, MD, for permitting the use of the contents in the above monograph in  our piece of writing to be posted to the website entitled “Love Future Neighbours”.