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Senior Hope
Assists Elderly Addicts
By Sara Foss, Gazette Reporter
June 1, 2008
Bob had been through court-mandated programs for alcoholism before, but the message never took — as soon as the programs were over, he started drinking again.
Then, after an arrest for driving while intoxicated in 2005, the 54-year-old Albany County resident decided to try Senior Hope, a substance abuse treatment program in Albany for people older than 50.
For Bob, who was accustomed to treatment programs that catered to a mix of ages, being with his peers was a breath of fresh air.
“The people in here are more serious,” said Bob, a retired state audit clerk who asked that his last name not be used. “They seem to want to stop drinking. Before, in other classes, you’d get people who were there because they had to be there. They didn’t want to stop. They weren’t as sincere.”
The staff at Senior Hope, he said, convinced him that he had a problem simply by pointing out that he had been through several other treatment programs.
“I started realizing my drinking was causing trouble with me, with everything,” he said.
Senior Hope is one of the only drug and alcohol treatment programs in the state that focuses solely on older adults. All of Senior Hope’s clients are 50 and older; the average client is 67.
senior support
A 57-year-old woman, who asked that her name not be used, echoed Bob’s comments. She arrived at Senior Hope in February, after a brief stint at a detox program at St. Peter’s Hospital. She had checked herself into St. Peter’s because her drinking — never a problem when she was younger — was getting out of hand, the result, perhaps, of the strain of caring for ailing relatives and her son’s deployment to Iraq.
“My friend a glass of wine eased what I was going through,” she said.
At St. Peter’s, she didn’t find what she was looking for. She was shocked to find that many of the younger people in the detox program had no intention of getting clean; many of them were even arranging to pick up drugs and alcohol while they were still enrolled in the program.
“They were there because they got in trouble with the law,” she said. “It was just different for me. I had to change. … You have to want to make the difference. I decided I didn’t like myself. To get back to being the me I used to be, I needed to change.”
Senior Hope was founded in 2002 by Dr. William Rockwood, a retired professor of biology at Russell Sage College, and his wife, Adrienne Rockwood, who served as vice president of Family and Children’s Services of the Capital Region.
“Older adults tend to be more treatment compliant and ready to comply,” said Adrienne Rockwood. “They’re at a point in life where they’re ready to turn it around.”
Generation gap
The couple said they decided to establish the clinic, which offers individual, group and family counseling for seniors battling addictions to drugs and alcohol, because of the dearth of treatment services for older adults; generational differences, they said, make targeted services more effective. Younger adults are more likely to be addicted to drugs that older adults know little about or to be addicted to multiple substances. Older adults may be less comfortable with profanity.
At Senior Hope, staff understand the need to speak loudly, slow the pace down and focus on age-relevant issues, such as coping with the death of a spouse.
“A lot of people who are retired may be dealing with grief and loss,” said Nicole MacFarland, Senior Hope’s clinical director.
“One of the things we hear from our clients is that they don’t speak the way younger people speak,” William Rockwood said. “They say that younger people use different drugs.”
So far, Senior Hope has served 450 people from throughout the Capital Region. William Rockwood said the organization hopes to expand by adding satellite offices and moving into its own building; right now, Senior Hope shares space in an office building on Western Avenue.
The office has a homey feel. Clients often bring baked goods to the clinic; coffee is always available. When people arrive, they greet each other like old friends.
Most of these clients, William Rockwood said, are struggling with alcoholism, but some are addicted to drugs — one 70-year-old female client was seeking help for an addiction to heroin, and addictions to prescription drugs are not uncommon — and staff anticipate that the number of clients seeking help with drug addictions will only increase as the baby boomer generation ages.
In 2010, the number of adults age 65 or older is expected to be 299.9 million; by 2040, that number is expected to grow to 377.4 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“This generation is not going to be asking for treatment,” William Rockwood said. “They’re going to be demanding it.”
At ease with ‘family’
About two-thirds of Senior Hope’s clients became addicted to drugs or alcohol earlier in life; about one-third developed an addiction later, in retirement or after a personal loss.
Tom, 77, began drinking heavily after he retired full-time in 1995.
“I was having more than I should, and my family was concerned about me driving the car, and this is where we came,” he said. “Once retirement hits in, you have free time and the wherewithal to do what you want to do.”
He learned about Senior Hope through a friend who was wearing a button that said, “Ask me about Senior Hope.”
“I said, ‘What is Senior Hope?’ ” Tom recalled. “He said, ‘It’s kept me sober for 16 months.’ ”
It wasn’t easy to come to Senior Hope; Tom said he didn’t think of himself as an alcoholic.
“I always thought of an alcoholic as sitting on the corner with a brown bag,” he said. “There are very nice people here, very successful people here. It’s not a bunch of stumbling drunks.
“I got to know the other clients,” Tom said. “We became like a family. We supported one another. … We were all 50 and older, rather than young teenagers with all the facial jewelry; we had that in common. I felt at home with older people.”
Tom said he’s had “a couple slips” since finishing the treatment program, which is why he still visits Senior Hope on a regular basis.
“I do come in and keep myself on track,” he said.
The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services estimates that approximately 630,000, or 19.4 percent, of the state’s 3.7 million seniors will need treatment services by 2015. The agency notes that older adults are less likely to seek help in specialized treatment settings. In 2006, approximately 42,687 seniors were admitted to OASAS-certified non-crisis treatment programs. Right now, OASAS estimates that more than 500,000 seniors are at risk of addiction.
Getting back on track
Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, OASAS commissioner, said older adults have different needs from “someone who’s smoking marijuana at 18.” She said the state recognizes that services for seniors are needed, but “we can’t always build senior-only programs” because people in other age brackets need services, too. Rather, treatment programs that serve a mix of ages need to be tailored to help seniors and provide the specialized services that they need.
“Is [the addiction] affecting their job? Or are they retired and doing it because they don’t have other activities?” Carpenter-Palumbo said. “We’re looking at hospital records. If somebody comes in because they fell, did they fall because their hip went out? We have to ask about medications. We have to look at what they are taking and are they prescribed appropriately.”
Widowers older than 75 are one of the fastest growing groups of people with a substance abuse problem, she said.
Carpenter-Palumbo said OASAS is studying Senior Hope and the state’s other outpatient treatment centers for older adults in New York City to see how well they’re doing.
At Senior Hope, Rockwood teaches a course that details the impact of drugs and alcohol addiction on health. In this course, Bob said he got an eye-opening look at how alcoholism was destroying his body.
“He tells you how alcoholism eats up the body, how it screws up the brain,” he said. “I realized that I was courting time.”
When Bob was younger, “I wasn’t going to quit drinking.” Sometimes family members made comments about his drinking — “They might walk by and say, ‘Drinking again?’ ” — but there was never a full fledged intervention. He said he stopped drinking briefly in his late 40s after suffering a debilitating stroke that forced him to retire but resumed drinking when he felt better. Now, he returns to Senior Hope for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The 57-year-old woman said she’s grateful she discovered Senior Hope.
“I just know this is working for me,” she said. “I like me now, and that’s important.”
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