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| By Police Magazine |
Police officers deal with addiction constantly. Drug addicts
are responsible for a great deal of crime in the beats they patrol, so officers
are quite skilled at dealing with addicts on the streets.
Unfortunately, law
enforcement agencies are not as adept at dealing with addicts in their own
ranks.
But that may be changing. There are
positive steps being taken to help law enforcement organizations see that an
addicted officer as not a throwaway employee but a valuable human resource who
can be treated and redeemed. With the help of strategic partnerships and
programs aimed at treating addicted officers, treatment centers are opening
their doors to first responders, helping them get better and return to work.
The Addicted Officer
Statistics show that 20% to 25% of
working police officers are chemically dependent on either alcohol or drugs.
Addiction tends to manifest itself
differently in officers than in the rest of society simply by the nature of law
enforcement work and societal expectations. Officers most likely won't resort
to petty theft or drug dealing to feed their addictions, but that doesn't mean
that their addictions aren't destructive and dangerous to their careers,
families, and even their lives.
Friends, family, and co-workers are
most likely to see an addicted officer gradually slip into dysfunction and
despair. If left unchecked, the addiction will do damage to the officer's
career. Co-workers of an addicted officer may say that the officer is moody,
lazy, or a pain in the ass.
It's usually not long before command
takes notice of the addicted officer, and not in a good way. "Supervisors
may see an officer who is a poor performer, late for his or her shift, or who
just looks bad in the uniform," says Sgt. Andy Callaghan, director of the
Peer Support Program of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5.
Callaghan has 24 years of police
experience and believes that addiction among law enforcement officers is
closely related to post-traumatic stress disorder. "Many officers who have
PTSD turn to alcohol or prescription drugs to self-medicate," says
Callaghan.
Off duty, addicted officers' lives will
most likely be wrecked. They may spend their days off struggling to keep it
together with their families and trying to hang onto their health. But when the
weekend is over, it's back to work where they try to keep their careers from
falling apart. It's a spin cycle that will end in either loss of job, freedom,
or life.
Drug of Choice
Up until a few years ago alcoholism was
by far the most common chemical dependency problem faced by officers. Today,
the most common monkey on the back of officers is the painkiller.
Officers get injured, and with the
injury can come prescribed pain medications to bring relief. And that's where
the addiction often starts.
Callaghan has seen a marked increase in
officers addicted to painkillers and sleeping medications over the past few
years. He says that it is common to have support groups made up of half or more
officers in the group addicted to prescription drugs.
Seeking Help
Not only has the drug of choice changed
for officers, so have the ways the profession looks at addicted brother and
sisters.
That means the options available to
officers who need help with drug addiction are ever increasing. Thanks to
strategic partnerships with law enforcement executive organizations, department
bosses are being taught to accept the fact that some officers become addicted
and need help.
Sean Riley, founder and executive
director of SafeCallNow.org, has seen encouraging signs for addicted officers.
His organization lives by the golden law of self-disclosure as the first and
best step for an officer who needs help. "Getting the problem out front
and dealing with it, is the best hope for an officer to get better and return
to full duty," says Riley.
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