Medication isn't only solution to heroin problem

As someone on the front lines battling the disease of addiction with Paul Komarek ("Drug courts addicted to ignorance" Feb. 25), I was jolted from my chair when I read two assertions: "Studies show that medication-assisted treatment is the only way to successfully keep people from relapsing on illegal drugs," and "we've even learned that 12-step programs like AA and NA do not work for the population using heroin today."

Who is "we?" What "studies?" And it is the "only way?" Bold, myopic declarations such as these warrant serious investigation.

The op-ed rebukes drug courts, claiming they are addicted to ignorance. This position is dangerously reckless, and I plead with the writer to consider the weight of his pronouncements. I know hundreds of people who have a significant time of sobriety totally abstinent from opiates. They obtained it after detox, and they maintain it solely through 12-step programs like AA and NA. Total abstinence.

In a time when heroin and overdose deaths make headlines daily, and so much confusion on the subject whirls, we cannot afford careless claims like this. These aren't diabetics who need to moderate their use of tempting snack cakes in order to prolong their lives. These are people in the grips of a much more gruesome disease.

Every alcoholic and every addict deserves to know that these 12-step programs are available. And, most importantly, they deserve to know they work. Because of the foundation of anonymity in these 12-step programs, studies may never realize the fullness of lives saved through AA or NA. But without them, the writer may get more than he bargains for.

Jason Overbey, Westwood