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St. Dimitrie Basarabov Program in Cluj-Napoca

Writer's picture: Anna TordayAnna Torday

During my time here in Romania, I had the pleasure of crossing paths with Floyd Frantz, an inspiring American gentleman. Floyd not only became a source of motivation for me but also for numerous individuals on their recovery journeys. From America, I found a connection with him as we shared common struggles in fostering the growth of the recovery community here in Romania. Floyd's advice has been a guiding light, making our collective efforts in building a supportive recovery community all the more impactful.


About: Floyd Frantz (Program founder, specialist supervisor of St. Dimitrie Basarabov Program in Cluj-Napoca)


“Psychologist, counselor in addictions, missionary of the Orthodox Christian Missionary Center St. Augustine, Florida, USA.

Floyd Frantz has an academic degree in psychology from Wichita State University, with extensive professional experience in addiction counseling. Floyd has worked in the US in both residential and outpatient centers (Valley Hope Association, Cushing, Oklahoma and St. Francis Regional Medical Center , Wichita, Kansas). He has over 31 years of active involvement and voluntary work in community programs based on the 12 Steps. He is accredited as an addiction specialist by the State of Kansas Regulatory Board (US).

In 2000, he came to Romania as a missionary and expert in addictions, a volunteer within the Christiana Association and initiated the St. Dimitrie Basarabov Program based on the Minnesota bio-psycho-socio-spiritual Model. Currently, he is involved in the development of addiction counseling services and addiction training programs in other locations in the country (especially in Moldova), Africa and Alaska. He is co-founder of the National Anti-Drug Program of the Romanian Orthodox Church under the patronage of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate. He wrote specialized publications translated into Romanian.”


About: St. Dimitrie Basarabov Program in Cluj-Napoca


“We see substance addiction as a treatable disease (according to the attitude of the World Health Organization since 1956). The perspective on the disease is not a certain one, but an integrative one: alcoholism is a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual condition that requires an intervention at the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual level.

The approach used by our program is based on the Minnesota multi-disciplinary model, brought to Romania by Frantz Floyd, the program director. This multi-disciplinary model that combines counseling with community resources and support groups (AA, NA, Al-Anon, DSA, JA, OA...) has proven to have the highest efficiency rate, according to the experience of the western states, of approx. 64%, as opposed to only 5% effectiveness of rehabs in Psychiatric Clinics, 28% success rate for programs based on cognitive-behavioral methods and 48% success rate for Alcoholics Anonymous groups. The defining elements of this approach are:

The disease concept of addiction; addiction is seen as a treatable disease.

The 12 Steps - set of spiritual principles that can be "translated" or integrated into specialized work; for example, recognizing helplessness in the face of alcohol (step 1) actually means admitting the existence of a problem with alcohol or another substance, etc.

The focus is on the group / community, and not on the individual.

Multi-disciplinary team (addiction counselor, social worker, spiritual counselor, family counselor, psychologist, doctor, etc.)

Involvement of the family in the recovery process in order to re-integrate the alcoholic into the family and increase his chances of staying abstinent.

Individual counseling in order to plan the treatment and customize it for each individual client; anticipating problems based on what we already know about the client's bio-psycho-socio-spiritual situation and preventing them or acquiring skills to solve them.

Using community resources to maintain abstinence; here we mean participating in support groups (AA, NA, JA, DSA, Al-Anon, ACA, OA...) where people in recovery share their experience, strength and hope

Specific to our treatment program is that the person works on their recovery in the context of their current life, anchored in their "broken" reality, continuing to be touched day-to-day by work relationships and personal relationships that have likely had a lot of suffered. We believe that the change that takes place in this way is a profound one, and abstinence is likely to be lasting, every day in its own time.

We also have patients who live in another city and come to do the recovery program in an intensive way, but our relationship continues even after they return home. We continue to see each other monthly in the post-cure program and encourage maintaining contact with the support group.”


**For more information you can visit the website at sfdimitrie.ro

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