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| Serenity Pray in Twi |
I recently spent several days in the Cape Coast area of
Ghana. This area was a primary port for
slave traders. I spent time in Cape
Coast last year with my primary interest being the history of the area. You can see more about the history of Cape
Coast Castle and the slave trade on my post from August 2013 titled, “The Door
of No Return”. This year the focus was
on recovery.
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| Dan and Agnes |
Dan and Agnes O’Laughlin
and I set out on a mission to check out the state of recovery in the area. There were some surprises; both good and not
so good. Anything written here is from
my own impressions and observations; I speak only for myself.
Our first stop was 12 Step Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Centre which is located on the Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital grounds. Although this was once a leading treatment
center for addiction in Ghana it seems to be in a, hopefully temporary, decline. As I understand it, the standard practice in
the medical field with regard to nursing is to maintain it as a “generalist”
profession. Nurses are rotated on a
regular basis from specialty to specialty; for example a nurse would spend a
set amount of time in pediatrics then transfer to psychiatrics then to trauma,
and so on. Instead of being a “specialist” in one discipline they become adept
in many areas and their skills can be utilized when and where needed. This in itself is not a bad practice.
I need to be very careful at what I say next because I am
interpreting from the cultural bias of one from the United States, as a person
in recovery, and as a social worker. My knowledge
of Ghanaian culture is limited and the scope of my understanding of how things
work here is narrow.
The previous administration at Ankaful recognized that
nurses trained in the field of addiction treatment and recovery needed to
specialize. The doctor in charge
acknowledged the stigma associated with addiction in Ghana is very high and recognized
that the nurses in treatment programs should have a passion for helping people
recover from addiction and have specialized training in the area of addiction
treatment. The practice from the previous administration was to keep recovery
and treatment specialists in this area and not rotate them as in standard
practice.
I know that other disciplines in the medical field will
argue this to be true for any area. I am
not here to debate that but rather to give an account of what I saw with regard
to policy and procedure at 12 Step Rehab.
The administration for Ankaful has changed in the last
several months. The new administration
is professional, caring, and competent.
The decision was made to return the specialized staff at 12 Step Rehab
to the standard practice of nursing rotation.
The nurses specializing in treatment and recovery were, with a couple of
exceptions, transferred to different areas of nursing and new nurses, with no
training in the field of addiction, were transferred in.
The results, as I perceived them, were staff with no
particular passion for treating people with addictions and no training in the
field and clients who were, more or less, left to tend to themselves; after
breakfast and morning “chores” most of the clients returned to bed. There are a couple of members remaining from
the old staff but I saw what appeared to be serious “burnout”.
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| Dan presents Big Books to 12 Step Staff |
Dan, Agnes, and I returned the next day and offered our
experience, strength, and hope to the clients in a group discussion. Some of the clients were very appreciative
and had many questions to ask about recovery.
Dan has made the offer for staff from the House of St. Francis and the
Hopeful Way Foundation to come and assist in staff training sessions. It is my hope that this setback for 12 Step
Rehab is temporary and the program will, in one way or another, find its way
back to being a leading center for recovery in Ghana.
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| Fr. Asantey |
Our next stop was the Mercy Center which is owned and
operated by the Catholic Church. This is
a widely recognized treatment center in the country. The Mercy Center is also host to one of the
few AA/NA meetings in the Cape Coast area. It is run by the Rev. Fr.
Asantey. At the time we visited the
Center was getting ready for an annual two month break from services. The last client before break was just getting
ready to go home. Although the Mercy
Center was very impressive and seems to have good results (the field of
treatment and recovery in Ghana would profit greatly from some research and
statistical record keeping) I believe it would benefit from more staffing
allowing for it to remain open all year round.
Next stop was the Ahoto Easy Does It Recovery Meeting. This meeting started in June of 2013 at a “leprosarium”
owned by the Catholic Church. The building
where the meeting takes place is referred to as a “leprosarium” but it is more
of a center where people who have recovered from Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) and
have visible outward scars can live free of the stigma placed on them by
society. It is a beautiful setting in the countryside. The grounds are also home to an orphanage for
children who have lost their parents to Hansen’s Disease.
The Easy Does It meeting was started with the help of a Nun;
Sister Rosetta. The meeting is held at
the “leprosarium” but attendees from outside the grounds do participate; it is
and open meeting. It started with nine core members but that number has dwindled
down to four (attendance does vary).
Each of these four members celebrated one year clean and sober within weeks
of each other. This is a very
inspirational group of people in recovery.
The support they show for each other and the love and care they give to
each other and to visitors is impressive.  |
| St.Rita's |
Our last stop in the Cape Coast area was a relatively new
treatment center called “St. Rita’s”. My
impression is that it is independently operated and run with a heavy 12 Step
influence. They currently have 9 residential clients
(one female!!) but expect to have room for 50 or more. The addition of a second
floor is in progress. The grounds around the center are beautiful. The center
has a “sliding-scale” fee program and hopes to be able to attract individuals who
would otherwise find the cost of treatment
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| The Grounds Around St. Rita's |
prohibitive. This addiction treatment center has, in my
opinion, great promise. It will be
interesting to see where St. Rita’s is in a year.
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| The ADU building |
In other recovery explorations I was
privileged to visit the Addictive Diseases Unit (ADU) at the Korle Bu Teaching
Hospital in the capital of Ghana; Accra.
The teaching hospital itself is very large and modern. To get to the ADU one needs to take “back
roads” to a rundown little building tucked away and out of sight (a bit telling
about the general attitude towards addiction in Ghana!). The ADU was established in 1991 and has been administered
by Mr. Logosu
Amegashie since 1993. Mr.
Amegashie is a highly dedicated professional with a passion for recovery and
helping addicts and alcohols find recovery for themselves. Given the stigma towards addiction to alcohol
and other drugs Mr. Amegashie’s staying power is high testament to his passion
and dedication to this field. He is a
wealth of knowledge about the spread of addiction and recovery in Ghana. Although he does conduct research and keeps
statistics he freely admits to the lack of scientifically validated information
about recovery in Ghana.
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| Mr. Amegashie and staff with Agnes |
I have also gone to 12 Step meetings
while in Ghana. There is a serious
shortage of meetings in the country.
Although meetings are starting to speckle the country they are still few
and far between. It takes effort, time,
and money (poverty is rampant in Ghana) to actually attend a meeting. I have attended meetings in Accra (about 20
miles from where I am living) and it can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2
hours to reach the meeting; depending on traffic. There is a combination NA/AA meeting in
Legon, a suburb of Accra, which just celebrated its four years anniversary. There is also
the Black Star meeting in Accra
which began in 1990 (then mostly attended by ex-patriots) and is a two hour AA meeting;
one hour concentrating on the 12 & 12 the other a discussion meeting. When I attended this meeting last year there
were 10 – 12 people. This year I counted
42 at one meeting. There is a Thursday night meeting in Ashaiman,
near where I stay, at the Blessed Clementina Catholic Church. This is very near the House of St. Francis as
is attended mostly by those in residential treatment at the House. There are a
couple of new AA/NA meetings that are trying to “get their legs” in the Accra
area. There is a sprinkling of meetings throughout the country that men leaving
treatment centers have started in their home towns.
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| Black Star Meeting, First Meeting Established in Ghana |
Ghana is about the same size as my
home state of Oregon. Oregon’s
population is about four million. Ghana
has a population of about 25 million. In
a two mile radius from my home in Eugene, Oregon there are more AA/NA meetings
available than are in the entire country of Ghana. 12 Step in Ghana is definitely in its beginning
stages. It will be interesting to see
where the “recovery movement” goes in the years to come. There seems to be a new willingness, on many
levels, for acceptance of the idea that addiction is a disease that can be
treated and managed rather than some sort of “ju ju” (magic or spell) a person
is subject to.
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| Magnus and Dan at the Bill Moore House |
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| Bill Moore Oxford House, Accra |
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| Koo Tufoo Oxford House, Kukurantumi |
All-in-all, I’d say that there is
great effort by many to support and grow the recovery movement in Ghana. I have tremendous admiration and respect for the
many individuals and groups that are dedicated and passionate about bringing
the chance for recovery to individuals, their families, and their communities
to Ghana. I feel so very grateful to be
a very small part of this and to have been able to meet many of the “movers and
shakers” of this movement towards recovery first-hand. My sincere and undying gratitude to the
powers of the universe that have lead me to be where I am exactly right here
and right now!!!
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