Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.11.2013, Side 16

Worldwide, drug and alcohol rehab is closely
tied to celebrity culture. It’s thought to be for
people like Amy Winehouse, who died pre-
maturely due to alcohol intoxication just three
years after releasing her hit single “Rehab”
in 2007, and Lindsay Lohan, who reportedly
wants to open a rehab centre in her name, giv-
en her extensive experience in such facilities.
Alcoholism | Rehab
Rehab is not for your average Joe. In
fact, only 10% of people in the United
States who need treatment for drug and
alcohol addiction receive it, compared
to 70% for diseases like hypertension,
major depression and diabetes, accord-
ing to a report released by the National
Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University.
In Iceland, however, the story could
not be more different. Iceland’s Centre
for Addiction Medicine, SÁÁ, which
has been running the nation’s drug
and alcohol rehab for the last 36 years,
diligently advertises that its practices
have touched every family in Iceland
through the years.
In fact, the number of Icelanders
who have sought rehab treatment for
alcohol and drug addiction—12.8% of
Iceland’s living male population over
the age of 15— is another of Iceland’s
per capita world records, according to
Gunnar Smári Egilsson, who recently
stepped down as SÁÁ’s director. Of
Iceland’s alcoholics, he says 70% have
sought inpatient treatment at SÁÁ’s
Vogur Hospital and 60% of those
have been sober for one year or lon-
ger, which he thinks must be another
world record.
With more than 250 people on the
waiting list for Vogur’s 10-day inpatient
rehab programme, SÁÁ can’t keep up
with the demand. It may be four to six
months before those on the waiting list
get one of the hospital’s 60 beds, with
first-timers being given priority.
Meanwhile, as SÁÁ fundraises to
expand its Vogur facilities, countless
recovered alcoholics have been shar-
ing their personal stories in the media
to raise awareness—just like a cancer
survivor might do for cancer treatment
in the States. In the last two months,
for instance, everyone from the direc-
tor of a successful ad agency to a re-
spected lawyer and former Supreme
Court justice have written columns in
Iceland’s daily newspapers, testifying
to their successful treatments and en-
couraging people to donate money to
the cause.
So just how did alcohol rehab,
something that is fairly uncommon
and which often carries a stigma in
countries like the United States, be-
come so common and openly accepted
in Icelandic society?
A Loophole In The System
The story of alcohol rehabilitation in
Iceland begins more than 40 years
ago, when attitudes towards alco-
holics were anything but favourable
and daytime drinking was limited
to white-collar drunks and homeless
people.
“At that time, alcoholics were ei-
ther arrested and transferred to a
prison for alcoholics in the country-
side, or referred to psychiatric treat-
ment at a mental hospital where they
were given hot and cold baths and
electroconvulsive therapy,” Gunnar
Smári says when I meet him last
year at Von (“Hope”), the building
that houses SÁÁ’s outpatient centre,
Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, so-
cial events and more. “The idea that
people could recover from alcoholism
was a foreign idea.”
Then, in 1975, an Icelander went
abroad for treatment at Freeport Hos-
pital in New York. At the time, Ice-
landers had to go abroad for all kinds
of medical procedures that were not
available in the country so it was not al-
together unusual that the Icelandic So-
cial Insurance Administration agreed
to pay for the treatment.
“In two years, 300 Icelanders went
to Freeport through this loophole in
the system,” Gunnar Smári says. “The
most well known bums in town went
and were able to recover. This led to a
great awakening, and SÁÁ was really
founded on a call from the nation to
give more people access to this kind of
rehabilitation.”
Financially, he says, it also made
sense. Treatment was covered by in-
surance, but patients had to pay their
airfare and, although Flugleiðir (now
Icelandair) agreed to cut rehab patients
a deal, it was not cheap.
Bringing Rehab To Iceland
Among the first to go to Freeport was
Hendrik Berndsen, who goes by Binni
and runs a f lower shop in downtown
Reykjavík called Blómaverkstæði
Binna. In an article titled “Enginn
trúði á þessa róna” (“Nobody Believed
In Those Bums”) published in SÁÁ
Blaðið, a free fundraising paper de-
livered to homes, Binni recalls SÁÁ’s
formative years when a small group
of people took it upon themselves to
bring rehab to Icelanders.
“Society looked down on alcoholics,
seeing a drinking problem as a weak-
ness rather than a disease. Alcohol-
ics in the mental health system were
looked down on, by other patients and
not least by themselves,” says Binni,
who was admitted 20 times to Iceland’s
main psychiatric hospital, Kleppur,
before finally seeking help at Freeport
and recovering.
When he came back, people could
hardly believe their eyes. “People
called and asked, ‘what can we do for
this one or that one,’” Binni says in the
interview, “and so we started shipping
people out.” For a year and a half, he
says he made 60 trips accompanying
alcoholics to Freeport—mostly white-
collar drunks like directors, CEOs,
MPs, undersecretaries and the director
of the Social Insurance Administra-
tion—clocking more f light hours than
a f light attendant.
Binni and a few others then found-
ed the Freeport Club to support those
returning from treatment and to get
them into AA meetings. This group
then founded SÁÁ in 1977 with the
purpose of bringing rehab to Iceland
and Binni became its first vice-chair.
After bouncing around between
temporary facilities, and even trans-
porting robe-clad patients mid-treat-
ment, as Binni recalls, they set out to
build a more permanent home and
proved themselves to be not only pio-
neers in addiction treatment, but also
in fundraising.
SÁÁ, Binni says, became the first
organisation to get companies in Ice-
land to raise money for their cause.
“We got Frjálst Framtak’s [the com-
pany “Free Enterprise’s”] Magnús
Hreggviðsson to make calls. We is-
sued bonds that we sent to every home.
People could decide how much they
wanted to pay and over what time pe-
riod. Búnaðarbankinn [one of Iceland’s
main banks] used this as guarantee on
SÁÁ’s loans,” Binni says. “Then the
media turned against us. Many jour-
nalists were drunks at the time, as you
can imagine, and they succeeded in
arousing suspicion.”
When that fundraising method
failed, SÁÁ came up with another way
to sell their bonds. Then director of
Sjónvarpið [Icelandic TV]—who Binni
describes as “one of us”—had given
SÁÁ a primetime slot for a fundrais-
ing programme, so Binni and Magnús
f lew to Los Angeles to convince the
stars of ‘Dallas,’ a popular show in
Iceland at the time, to make an appear-
ance.
With the help of the Icelandic film
producer Sigurjón Sighvatsson, who
was studying film in LA, they were
more than successful in their mis-
sion, secruring not only actors from
‘Dallas,’ but also a number of others,
including actress Melissa Gilbert who
struggled with drinking and played
Laura Ingalls in Little House on the
Prairie, another popular show in Ice-
land at the time.
“This led to a change in the atmo-
sphere and fundraising took off again,”
Binni says. “It was like mudwrestling
to establish Vogur.”
Checking In At
Vogur Hospital
A little more than a year after Vogur
opened, Þórarinn Tyrfingsson became
its head doctor and treatment coordi-
nator. “Like so many others my age and
a bit older, who struggled with alcohol
addiction, I drank myself into the
field,” he says, chuckling from across
his desk at Vogur.
By the time he checked into Vogur,
he was working as a general practitio-
ner. Following his treatment, he went
on to become an “Icelandic brennivín
doctor,” as he calls himself, overseeing
what he describes as “10-days of de-
tox and motivation that gives patients
hope and assurance that they can find
a cure for their evils.”
He emphasises that SÁÁ views
alcoholism as a disease and that the
treatment at Vogur is evidence-based
and all in the hands of doctors. It’s
also no accident that the sign greeting
people who come for rehab does not
just say Vogur, but Sjúkrahúsið Vogur
“Like so many oth-
ers my age and a bit
older, who struggled
with alcohol addic-
tion, I drank myself
into the field.”
16The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 17 — 2013
Rehab Nation
They tried to make me go to
rehab and I said, "Yes, yes, yes!”
— Anna Andersen
Nanna Dís
30,000 estimated alcoholics in Iceland - 22,000 alcoholics have gone to treatment - 10-12,000 alcoholics
are in recovery - 900 have sought treatment, but haven’t recovered - 8,000 haven’t sought treatment
Source: SÁÁ