Many people who enter the Florida DUI School only do so to reduce their
charges and to help them get their license back. Some of these people
feel that the program is a waste of time, and that it won’t actually
help them with their addiction. But several of the graduates of the program
have been able to turn their lives around as a result of the support and
information the school provides. The Volusia County DUI Court recently
had its 19th graduation ceremony, featuring speeches by two highly respected
addiction researchers and authors, Kenneth Robinson and Gregory Little.
Alcohol use is widely accepted and approved of in our country, and addicts
are expected to be able to just say no, says Robinson. “At the end
of the day our culture says drinking is good. (Alcohol) takes a long time
to get its hands on you, but once it does, it’s a very difficult
drug to overcome.” Yet, “people can’t stop using so
darn easy,” he said at graduation. Back in the 70’s, Robinson
and Little focused their studies on addiction, and together developed
Moral Reconation Therapy, which is a cognitive-behavioral program for
substance abuse treatment. This program, as well as the book they co-authored,
“How to Escape Your Prison: A Moral Reconation Therapy Workbook,”
have been widely used throughout the US and the world.
One of the most recent graduates of the Volusia DUI School was Jason Payor,
who entered the program last year. He was a doctor who almost lost everything
following three DUIs and eight arrests in the last 10 years. He entered
the program with no expectations whatsoever, but at graduation had been
sober for 322 days. He is now back in school, studying addiction and recovery,
hoping to be able to help others battling alcohol or drug addiction. Of
the program, Payor says, “It’s given me motivation to dedicate
my life to helping other people with this disease that I have, because
it’s so beyond real and so non-prejudicial to who we are and where
we come from, how much we have and how much we think we know.”