Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Archer Hannah, Dr. David Gross

Aired April 28, 2002 - 11:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: One addiction that costs the nation more each year than all illegal drug use combined is alcoholism, and it's a subject of this week's "CNN PRESENTS." Martin Savidge follows one woman's personal struggle with drinking.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEGAN: I just stayed in my apartment for like two and a half weeks, and drank all day every day to where I was feeling ill if I didn't. I mean I was clearly doing it, killing myself, not slowly but I mean, alcohol would have.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Alone and unnoticed, Megan went on a two and a half week bender.

ARCHER HANNAH, MEGAN'S MOTHER: She had a huge test in school and was literally working, going to school, and studying, what turned out to be almost 24 hours. I called her the day she had the test and she didn't do well because she had stayed up for three days.

Like last Thursday and Friday, she called several times a day. Each time on Friday of last week that I talked to her, it was -- she was less and less coherent until I, at one point, asked her if she was drinking again, and she, of course, said no. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what's really wrong.

SAVIDGE: A six-hour car ride away in Atlanta, Archer called her cousin Sterling, who took Megan to the hospital. She stayed a week in detox. Hospitalization is high-priced care, the family scrambling for alternatives.

HANNAH: Does she have to be a resident of Florida in order to get that? Is it like a motel where they have a room and a bed, or do they have kitchen? So what will she need for herself, as far as wearing? Do you have a time limit that people stay generally? Elizabeth, I've got to come up with $470 by tomorrow. I've got to come up with $150 cash for Megan to go into her account. The rates are $335 a week.

SAVIDGE: After days of phone calls, the decision is made, a halfway house in Florida.

HANNAH: There's nobody (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what happened than Megan. That's what her therapist said in the Combine program. You pick up. You start over until I think this is another new start for Megan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Joining us now is Megan's mother, Archer Hannah, and Megan's psychiatrist, Dr. David Gross, who is joining us from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Thanks for joining us, both of you.

DR. DAVID GROSS, PSYCHIATRIST: My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: Well, I'd like to begin with Archer. This is not a fight that only involves the individual who is diagnosed with or recognizes that they are an alcoholic. But instead, it really is a group effort, a family effort. The whole family becomes involved, and it has to be incredibly exhausting as a mother to identify that your daughter is 27 and come to find out that, you know, she started her drinking at a very early age in her teenage years.

HANNAH: That's true, but I think that's not unusual. I think most children do drink in their teenage years unfortunately, and I think that a lot of parents are turning their back on that. I did, smoking was very -- I was very adamant about smoking and I paid less attention to the drinking, because I think that it's -- I think it's been thought of as a right of passage, and it should not be.

For Megan, I think that the Ritalin was the trigger for her. Megan was given Ritalin as a 6-year-old and had almost seizures with it and her eyes began to dart. We took her off it at 6 from a pediatric neurologist, saw her and took her off it.

But, we as a junior decided to try it again because school was getting harder and college was coming up and so we started it again, and Megan and Elizabeth and I all believe that was the trigger that made the difference.

WHITFIELD: So how do you make that connection and why do you think that Ritalin would have a direct, you know, impact on whether she would have another chemical dependency on something such as alcohol?

HANNAH: Because, I think, that Megan learned at a very early age, high school, that when she took -- as a young child, Megan said the Ritalin did what it was supposed to, except that she couldn't take it because of the seizure thing. But it helped her concentrate.

As a teenager, when Megan took Ritalin, it changed her moods and Megan learned very quickly if she took a pill, it would make her feel differently, make her feel she could fit in. If she took two, she might feel even better, and a half hour later, if she still didn't feel like she was fitting in as well as she thought she should, she might take another.

It was a mood altering thing, and she learned real early that she could change the way she felt with a pill. Of course, the alcohol just add that as another substance and it did change the way she felt.

WHITFIELD: All right, Dr. David Gross in Fort Lauderdale, hearing Archer Hannah talk about this, it sounds pretty alarming and almost like a new phenomenon that an earlier, I guess prescription involving something such as Ritalin could possibly trigger some sort of chemical dependency involving alcohol much later. How unusual did you find that diagnosis or that link to be?

GROSS: Well, the presence of an underlying non-substance abuse psychiatric problem, along with the substance abuse problem or the alcoholism that are common.

The difficulty is how to help the addictive problem to begin with, and I'm sure that Mrs. Hannah recognized that Megan from an earlier age had a difficult time stopping the alcohol use, and it would make her to be at risk for addiction to anything that had the ability to lead to pleasure responses that cause dependency. The difficulty is how to tease out the need to treat one problem and treat another problem that exists at the same time.

WHITFIELD: Doctor, how do you approach that?

GROSS: First you need recovery and thank goodness Megan has had the chance to get into recovery. You need to maintain the recovery and you need to give the brain a chance to respond to being healthy again.

Then after a period of recovery, which sometimes can be three to six months, you look carefully for the presence of any other psychiatric problem. So are there continued problems with mood instability, or are there continued problems with attention concentration?

And if there are, how do you approach treating it so that you don't put anybody at risk for return to alcohol or other drug dependency.

WHITFIELD: But Dr. Gross, you talk about recovery, you know, the first major hurdle it would seem is even identifying that there's a problem. Often times, a young person with peer pressure, et cetera, doesn't want to admit that there's a problem involving alcohol, and it's hard in some cases for a parent to identify it. So, how do you get the child to either work with the parent or the parent to identify, you know, that there is a problem? You've got a drinking problem. This is not your ordinary casual drinking or, you know, hanging out with friends, a beer. It's a problem.

GROSS: You're absolutely correct. You know, the teenage years are such a tumultuous time that how do you differentiate teenage kids partying and doing what teenagers do, and drinking that may be part of that from an addictive problem?

Ultimately, the only way that families can help is to get educated like Mrs. Hannah got herself educated, learned as much as she could, and then when you recognize the problem, get as many family members together to do an intervention, and try to convince the person to go into treatment. And sometimes if they won't go voluntarily, when there are issues of dangerousness, you have to involve the law and the courts to help somebody get into treatment and stay in treatment. WHITFIELD: And Mrs. Hannah, when you felt like you were unable to reach your daughter Megan, she is an identical twin, were you able to kind of use the twin as a conduit in which to reach her or how did that make it easier or...

HANNAH: Well, Elizabeth was always available, but Megan maybe -- I didn't hear the beginning of what Dr. Gross said, because of earphone problems. But Megan came to me. Megan knew early on. There was something very different with her brain and she would tell me that. There's something, this is not right. There's something. My brain is very different. I know I'm not normal.

But I didn't know how to pin that. We went to many, many doctors, you know, just everywhere. We've been in and out of hospitals and treatment, but I believe Elizabeth was always there, but Megan didn't resist me. We talked of intervention and I did talk to someone who was very, very good, recommended highly. It did not become necessary for us. Megan was more than willing to get the help that she needed.

WHITFIELD: And your family journey is much more involved than just a couple of minutes that we've been able to spend on it. So, of course, we're going to get a chance to see more of it this evening, beginning this evening on "CNN PRESENTS: WASTED." You and your family are profiled on that. It begins at seven o'clock later on this evening. And Dr. David Gross, I want to say thank you for joining us from Fort Lauderdale this evening.

GROSS: My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: And, Archer Hannah, thank you again. So tonight again, the special "CNN PRESENTS: WASTED" starts at 7:00 Eastern. And if you miss it the first time around, you can watch it as an encore presentation at 11:00 p.m. And we'll be right back after this break.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com