Joseph Frawley, Patrick’s son and a doctor who runs the Schick Shadel Hospital in Santa Barbara, admitted that the Schick method isn’t foolproof. “Our problem is in appropriate selection of patients.” “Most of us feel there is a place for aversion therapy,” he said. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange, said there is no single treatment that works for all people. Schneider, medical director of family recovery services at St. This technique is markedly different from the abstinence, counseling and “talk therapy” favored by Alcoholics Anonymous and well-known detoxification centers, such as the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage and Hazelden in Minneapolis.īut Max A. Patients are confronted with the substances they are addicted to, while small electric shocks and drugs that induce nausea are administered. This method uses negative reinforcement to teach the subconscious mind to dislike the addictive drug-sort of a twist on Pavlov’s dogs. Frawley maintained that Kitty Dukakis could be cured by the Schick method. When a visitor asked him recently about plans for the company, he launched into a discourse about Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and her much-publicized substance abuse. of Irvine, the nation’s largest alcohol and drug treatment concern, has been losing money its stock has plunged, and it’s trying to stave off creditors who want payment of $25 million in overdue loans.įrawley, who refused to have his photograph taken for this article, will talk of little else but his method of treating addictions. of America, a Washington-based trade group, said insurers are justified in emphasizing outpatient treatment, because recent studies show that outpatient programs are as effective as inpatient programs for most addicts.įrawley isn’t the only company in the industry that’s suffering. “What they’re doing is trying to save dollars, not do what’s best for the patient,” said David Batt, Frawley’s vice president, treasurer and secretary.īut Robert Waldron, spokesman for the Health Insurance Assn. That’s bad news for Schick’s drug and alcohol programs, which require patients to stay for about two weeks and which cost $12,000 or more. That is partly because of the growing competition, but Frawley said the company has been hurt even more by recent cutbacks in insurance coverage for chemical dependency treatment.Įmployers and insurance companies are increasingly favoring outpatient care over inpatient programs, which often are more than twice as expensive. The number of patients admitted to Schick fell 18% in the last year, to about 2,000, and company officials admit a return to profitability isn’t right around the corner. 30, Frawley lost $1.2 million on revenue of $21 million, and its stock, which is listed on the Pacific Stock Exchange, has slipped from a 1988 high of $8.50 a share to $6.50. “It’s big business now,” said Alan Haveson, spokesman for the National Council on Alcoholism, a New York-based research and education group that estimates about $15 billion a year is spent on chemical dependency treatments.īut Frawley’s three Schick Shadel hospitals and three smaller Schick clinics in California, Washington and Texas-which originally adopted their names from the Schick razor company and have been around since before former First Lady Betty Ford even admitted she was an alcoholic, much less started her own clinic-are in need of some therapy themselves. of Addiction Treatment Providers, an Irvine-based trade group. Indeed, the number of drug and alcohol programs in the United States increased from 5,747 in 1982 to 6,866 in 1987, according to the National Assn. Drug and alcohol treatment would seem to be booming these days, with movie stars and athletes coming out of the closet with their substance-abuse problems and because of the nationwide charge started by former First Lady Nancy Reagan to “just say no” to drugs.
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