Pandemic Closing 12-Step Meetings and, Experts Fear, Causing Relapses

It is one of the slogans of recovery from addiction in 12-step groups – "Meetings make it."

But what if those meetings are cancelled? What if people addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling and the like are isolated and unable to socialize with others who understand their addiction and their struggles to overcome it?

Expects in addiction recovery across the nation are saying that meetings are crucial in maintaining sobriety, and isolation can be the gateway to relapse for those battling addictions.

Dr. Marvin Seppala, chief medical officer at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, is one of those experts, who told NPR, “We consider addiction a disease of isolation. Now we're isolating all these people and expecting them to pick up the phone, get online, that sort of thing — and it may not work out as well."

"That can really drive people to an elevated level of anxiety and anxiety certainly can result in relapse,” Seppala said.

For many of her patients, Dr. Helena Ramdoska, a psychiatrist specializing in addiction, urges attendance at 90 meetings in 90 days. Now, given the pandemic, that is virtually impossible.

While many 12-step support groups have switched to online meetings, Dr. Ramdoska told CBS Chicago 2 that attending in-person meetings is "crucial for their sobriety. Their support stems from there. Many people who are addicts, they don't have computers at home. They don't have internet access."

Without the support of meetings, she said, she has had to admit more of her patients to hospitals.

Former boxing champ and recovering alcoholic Mia St. John says her Los Angeles AA meetings have been cancelled.

"I've spoken to so many people at these meetings that tell me they relapsed. I relapsed! I relapsed and I'm not blaming anyone but myself," she told TMZ.

"I'm just here to say that people like me rely on our meeting to get us by. We rely on our sober friends to help us through and it’s a very difficult time, I realize, for everyone.

In Wilmington, N.C., Kenny House, Coastal Horizons Center vice president of clinical services, said, "Anxiety doesn't go away in a crisis, it gets intensified. Depression the same thing, and addiction and mental health concerns and opportunities for relapse versus opportunities for recovery are still there for everybody during this crisis and may be more intensified."

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