The Basics

This is a personal email I sent to a DO named Gammons after his abusive behavior as a pseudo-authority was anointed by the HPRP organization.

I have given Dwight several days to respond to my initial email and he has not attempted any form of communication. I did tell him upon my initial communication that i was going to blog about this whole thing unless he began a dialog with me. SURPRISE, Dwight is nowhere to be found.

My motivation for putting this out there is a bit complicated. There is some information that WE would not like to have known to everyone but what outweighs that fact is what really does need to get known. That is that the HPRP process and Dwight Gammons answer to no one, they enforce their Rules and Regulation capriciously and seemingly without guidelines.

Now I may be biased (duh), but that doesn't make what I am saying incorrect. We are not sheep to be lead around by other Sheep while they are pretending to know what is right or wrong, what fits and doesn't fit the agenda...sheep is Sheep damnit. Your position means nothing to me unless you have somehow maneuvered yourself to a position of pseudo-authority (Gammons). Or  the administrators as they try to figure out their fiefdom on the fly. 

HPRP in general and Gammons in particular are out of control. They have no business calling themselves anything other thugs. From one person to the next they have no idea what their goal is, other than to ensure EVERYONE they come into proximity with suffers.

How in the world do you get into a specialized field like this and wind up hating every one of your clients? What kind of bottom of the barrel student decides he / they need to have subjects as patients? To feel superior and enlightened rather than helping? In my opinion, a person with the personality characteristics of Dwight would be more satisfied testing the effects of shampoo on animals eyes. The benefits to Dwight would be the same, but at least no people would be hurt, or is that the motivation? Is the satisfaction derived from hurting people the / a motivator for him? Things that make you go "Hmmmmmmmmm?" 

 This whole process is absolutely ridiculous.

Dwight,

Primum non nocere (First do no harm....)

Since your relationship with my wife has been terminated it is time to get some things off of my chest.

I have been listening to her complain about you for quite a while now and for the most part have been trying to bridge the gap between what I have viewed as opposing forces in this recovery process. I am sure you understand what I mean, but just in case let me spell it out for you...

Addiction is largely an emotional issue and as such it is dealt with primarily  on an emotional level. When working on an emotional level there are several paths to take:

1. One could be working through complex emotional issues in a manner that emphasizes the fact  the person that has been labeled and addict is not damaged or different from the non-addict. This method emphasizes compassion, compassion strength and informed guidance are what helps to heal emotional issues.
2. The second one came about in the mid-80's and is known today as tough love. Tough love is actually a horrible misnomer. It was largely a creation of the Nancy Reagan Just Just-Say-No crowed. These are the same group of people that got mad at people for being poor, saw it as their own fault and were mad at them. The analogy between addiction and being poor, in this case is perfect. 

(If you need me to recommend reading on the matter, please don't hesitate to ask, I would truly enjoy helping you increase your skill set before I die from GBM)

These days tough love is reserved for television shows, we've all seen them (well, I haven't actually, they disgust me), on TLC or A&E. The moderator (or the family) feels as if a victory has been had, as long as the get an emotional breakdown from the addict. Just like a 30 minute television show your goal appears to be to contradict any and everything that is said until you find a chink in the armor of your victim. Then sensing some sort of malformed victory you use your position of pseudo-authority to weasel your deviant intellectual ideas into a position of intellectual superiority, I like to think of it as planting a flag of victory in someones back. A flag that says "Look how successful I was today, I found an issue and I began the excision process." Score one for the good guys, right?\

Is that where you received your emotional training component? Did you receive any additional training? Or are you simply a DO, that saw the opportunity to become a practitioner in a field where you would have a sense of superiority over your patients? Because that is EXACTLY what it looks like. I believe that you have no business other than doing whatever it is a DO is supposed to do, which is what exactly? Something like treating inability to sleep with St John's Wort, right? The holistic approach? 

You didn't really tell my wife that my terminal brain cancer wouldn't affect her if she was working your steps, did you? I am baffled. What a horrible uncompassionate thing to say to a human being.

For that alone you should be sanctioned....But there's more.

Did you really recommend her to be in-patient after she told you she doesn't believe in your god?
Actually, that is exactly what I would expect from a Christian. So no surprise there. Still offended that there is no appeal process and that the other members of the "Team" treating her disagree  with your assessment. After all, how can you "Let Go and Let God" without the god portion, right? I didn't realize that HPRP had a Christian component to it, I have looked through all the documentation and the intake literature and did not see any of it. So my assumption is, again, that this is your own personal bias.

For this you should be sanctioned.... But wait there's more.

Do you really yell at your patients while other patients are in the waiting room?
Rebecca has on several occasions listened to your so-called therapy as your voice gets raised and you seem to key in on what I would call line-of-the-day-mentality. You will yell something at an unknown patient like "I don't want to hear any words coming out of you" at a patient, then when Rebecca gets into your office you wind up yelling the same line at her at some point. Quite the coincidence. Do you have an Addictionist Phrase of the Day Calendar?

It appears that you hate the people that you are supposed to help. You have no courage to explore their issues, only to exhort them into submission through bullying and threats of HPRP repercussions. You should examine your career choice and reassess your decisions before you do more damage.

Remember that there is no cure for addiction, once the label is applied one only goes into recovery, (that is a large population for billing!) so I realize how difficult it would be for you  to give up the long term financial rewards of calling yourself an addictionist, but morally you owe it to the portion of the population you treat. Additionally, it must be a good feeling to go into your office 1/2 hour late every morning and sneer in contempt at your patients, walk in the door and feel superior to everyone that has been sentenced to your immoral, unethical, vitriolic help.

I have so much more to say but I realize that you're probably not strong enough to get to the bottom of this email, I understand and it's ok, and after all (my) life is short. So let me just wrap it up by saying that I have a measure of pity for you. I do hope that one day you find a way to do your job in a manner that makes it satisfying for yourself and helpful for your patients.

I would love to continue this dialog with you at some point.  I am not dazzled by your brilliance, simply  baffled by your lack of compassion, concern or caring for those that you CHOOSE to help.

Jeffrey LaBond

I am sending this to your St John eMail account, since for some reason you do not publish an email to Gammons Medical Specialists. (Odd choice for an addictionist.) My concern is that you ARE aware of this information, and if i need to Blog, or Post on Web MD or Vitals, I will ensure that this information is known to you.