AHS Views

A woman’s life has come crashing down, thanks to drug addiction. Kristin Parker, a scrub tech in Colorado who fell prey to an addiction to painkillers (and heroin for a short time) wound up contracting Hepatitis C. But, that’s not the worst of it. She worked as a nurse for two different hospitals, where she had access to needles and prescription drugs that were administered by injection.

I don’t believe that the hospitals would have hired her if they knew that she was a drug user, but they definitely were aware that she had Hepatitis C. And, they put her into an area of the hospital where people were being operated on and given injections. Doesn’t seem very safe!

As time went on, Parker’s addiction continued, and she decided to start using syringes full of prescription painkillers and then replaced the medication with saline. Then, the same needles were used on patients at the hospital. As it turns out, she put the lives of as many as 6000 patients at risk, and gave the incurable disease to 3 dozen people.

So, just to recap: she used drugs that had to be injected, she got Hepatitis C and she gave 3 dozen people an incurable disease (maybe more). All of this because she was addicted to drugs!

Do you really think that no one knew about her problem? Did she really think she could just fly under the radar and continue this behavior? She’s only 27 years old and is now facing 30 years in prison. And there are 36 people out there dealing with a horrible disease from an unfortunate hospital stay. Absolutely heartbreaking!

I wonder how her life would have turned out if she had gotten the addiction help she needed. I have a strong feeling if she had gotten help finding a drug detox and drug rehab program that could address her addiction then all of these tragedies could have been avoided and she’d be living a normal life as well as her victims and this horrible mess wouldn’t exist.

While not everyone hits this low of a rock-bottom when they do drugs, this just goes to show that addiction is a powerful force that must be dealt with – before it’s too late.

Have you ever thought about whether you could be an “alcoholic”? Like when you hear about people who drive drunk or the neighbor down the street who had a few too many at the BBQ last weekend… Has it ever made you question your own habits with regard to alcohol consumption?

There are a several problems that can come from the consumption of alcohol. Take Binge Drinking, for example. People who binge drink have a purpose. They intend to get intoxicated and drink several drinks in a short period of time in order to get drunk. This is practiced by many, many people ranging from younger kids to older adults. In can be done once a week or once a month but is still a drinking problem.

Then, there is alcohol abuse. This can basically be defined as the use of alcohol interfering with a person’s life. Perhaps a mother is waking up in the morning and immediately getting intoxicated before she even gets her children out to the school bus. This would “interfere” with her life. This would also create problems, most likely, for the lives of her family members.

Alcohol abuse can lead to dependency. Alcohol dependency is not only a mental need to drink, but actually a physical one as well. An individual who is dependent on alcohol will actually experience physical withdrawal symptoms like feeling shaky, jumpy or nervous, depression, fatigue and irritability if they don’t drink. An alcohol detox program will most likely be needed to help a person through the withdrawal process.

Alcoholism is any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, despite health problems that someone might encounter, as well as negative social consequences.
If you, a friend or a family member fit into any of these scenarios, there may be a need for addiction help through alcohol detox and a good alcohol rehab program. It could save a life!

Have you ever heard that “relapse is part of recovery”? As much as people believe this to be true, it is not, plain and simple. If someone relapses after they receive their treatment, then a basic element of the recovery process was missed or omitted and the addiction help they received was incomplete.

A good percentage of the time, there will be indications that a person may relapse or be relapsing. Adam Goldstein, a.k.a. DJ AM was sober after getting addiction help for four years. He relapsed and was found dead last August in his New York apartment from an overdose. He died from a combination of cocaine, Oxycodone, Vicodin, Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax, Benadryl and Levamisole (a drug used to cut cocaine).

While an addiction to crack cocaine and/or prescription drugs isn’t easy to overcome, if a drug rehab program is thoroughly done, there is absolutely no reason that relapse has to be a threat. If done right, drug rehab is the solution to a drug free life!

On February 4th, the news of how Brittany Murphy died was released. It was ruled “accidental”, but drugs were involved and partly to blame. The bright, young Hollywood star was ill with pneumonia and anemia and was self medicating with a combination of prescription and over the counter medications, which caused her death on December 20, 2009. According to the coroner, if she had gone to the doctor rather than trying to treat herself, she most likely would still be alive today.

It seems all too common, not only in Hollywood, but all over the world for people to be taking medications that either aren’t prescribed to them or that are prescribed by multiple doctors who have no idea that the patient is receiving medications elsewhere. This is a practice known as “doctor shopping”.

Although doctor shopping may not be the case in Brittany’s untimely death, there were prescriptions found in her room that weren’t prescribed to her. And, as it turns out, she chose a lethal combination of prescription drugs.

What’s really heartbreaking about this whole story is that Brittany would most likely still be alive today if she had not taken those drugs and gone to the doctor to receive proper treatment for her illnesses.

While pneumonia and anemia are serious issues, they can almost always be treated by a medical professional.

Hopefully this can be a learning experience and a wake up call to those individuals out there who decide to take it upon themselves to diagnose and treat their own illnesses with other people’s prescription drugs. It’s not smart, it’s not safe and you could wind up losing your life or a loved one. If you have a prescription drug problem get addiction help now.

Do you have children? If you don’t, you surely have friends or family members with kids. What do you do if you suspect that they’re using drugs? Do you let it slide and hope it’s nothing, or that it will just go away? Bad idea! There are so many kids, even young children, getting involved in drugs these days, and many families have suffered losses because they ignored warning signals of suspected drug use.
What about drug testing? Is it a bad idea? Is it an invasion of a child’s privacy? Privacy schmivacy is all I have to say! If my kids were displaying signs of drug use or abuse, I would have no problem giving them a drug test.

Out of the kids I’ve met who get tested by their parents, there are some who don’t mind and others who resent it and feel like their parents don’t trust them. In my opinion, the latter seems like they’ve probably got more to hide. And, of course they’re going to resent the fact that their parents are looking out for their best interest.

In the past, the majority of drug tests have only been able to check for illegal drugs like marijuana or cocaine. Now, there are kits available that can test for prescription drugs too, which are, unfortunately, what a lot of kids are more likely to take than street drugs.

Don’t let the warning signs of drug use by your children or those of friends and family go without addressing them. A simple home drug test now could save your child from a lifetime of drug abuse, or even worse, an early death. If you do find that your child has a drug problem, get help. Statistics have proven that the earlier a person who is abusing drugs gets the addiction help services they need, the better their chances are at fully recovering and living a drug free life.

Difficult – is the only word I can think of to describe what it takes to get someone help to overcome a drug and/or alcohol addiction. About 95% of the time, addicts don’t think they even have a problem. However, they most certainly do, and it’s not just the problem of the addiction, but also whatever the problems are that made them get into the addiction mess in the first place. There’s only one way to handle addiction, and that’s by getting the addict through a successful drug or alcohol rehab program.

With that said, the next issue to overcome is convincing an addict, who most likely doesn’t think they have a problem, to go. But how do you do that? There are a number of reasons that could hinder your ability to be able to do the convincing… Perhaps the addict is scared about people finding out about their problem and what they will think of them. Or, it could be that they think that no one could possibly understand what they’re going through. There could also be strains on relationships that can play a factor as well.

So, the question remains – how do you get them to go? The best solution is to get outside help. And, there are people out there who specialize in getting addicts to go to rehab. They are called Interventionists. These are highly trained individuals who most likely have their own first-hand experience with addiction and recovery from their past. They understand what the addict is going through and have the ability to convince them to go to alcohol or drug rehab.

Do you have a loved one or a close friend who needs to get into rehab? Call a drug rehab program counselor. They can help you determine if an interventionist is needed, and will also help you find the right treatment program. It could save their life!

Marijuana, and whether or not to legalize it, has been in the news quite a bit lately. And, even though a lot of its advocates will tell you that it isn’t addictive, smoking marijuana does wind up sending a boat load of people to drug rehab. Statistically speaking, there are roughly 300,000 people that check into drug rehab for marijuana addiction each and every year.

You see, the thing about marijuana that most people don’t know, or take into account, is that it can easily be considered a “gateway drug”. This means that once you open the marijuana door, it’s a lot easier to open the door to harder drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, to name a few.
If you want the cold hard facts on this, take a look at this:
•    About 62% of adults 26 or older, who use marijuana before they the age of 16, end up hooked on cocaine
•    Over 53% of get hooked on prescription drugs

With that said, it’s pretty difficult to believe that people still think marijuana is just for fun. The ideal solution for anyone you know who uses marijuana is get them into a drug rehab program, before the problem escalates.

Detoxification is defined by most people as simply just withdrawing from drugs. In a lot of cases, a withdrawal that is medically supervised isn’t necessary and can just be done at home. This is especially true with most stimulants, painkillers and even heroin, although it is often preferred with the latter two to do a medically supervised drug detox to ease the pain of the withdrawal symptoms.

When large quantities of alcohol or drugs are consumed, it can be very a difficult process to withdraw. Medical detoxification, with the use of other medicines and reduction of the consumption the drugs or alcohol over a period of time, can help someone to systematically withdraw. This helps to ease the process of detoxing and eliminate the risk of seizure and other acute withdrawal symptoms.

Some of the drugs that people most often want or need a medically-supervised detox for include large amounts of alcohol, barbiturates (Phenobarbital), benzodiazapines (Xanax, Valium) and opiates (prescription painkillers, heroin, methadone).

There’s a common misconception though, which is that many drug and alcohol users will think their problem is solved once they’ve tackled the detoxification step. This step does handle the physical dependence, but in actual fact, they are much better off statistically to go into a longer-term residential drug rehab program after detoxification to handle the mental aspects of their addiction and prevent relapse. Detox is only a part of the big picture.

Fairly recently there have also been other classes of prescribed drugs that require medical detox to step down from. They include antidepressants (Paxil, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, etc.), antipsychotics (Zyprexa, Risperdol, Seroquel), as well as other mind-altering prescriptions.

Through education and information discovered each year on the side effects of these drugs, a lot more people are being proactive and making the decision not to take them and are seeking alternative treatments. Withdrawal symptoms from these types of drugs can be very severe and people coming down from them oftentimes experience sudden psychotic episodes, so stepping down little by little in a medically-supervised atmosphere is a recommended approach rather than weaning down at home.

Do you know of anyone, or have you heard stories of someone trying to withdraw from some of these drugs on their own? Did they succeed and beat it?

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but a lot of people who take drugs really do want to stop. Unfortunately, withdrawal is one of the biggest reasons for fear of quitting, as it can be physically and emotionally overwhelming. An addict who has gone too long without using (between hits) has encountered some of those withdrawal sensations.

Dreading withdrawal symptoms is not the only reason people have a difficult time quitting. A person can go through the motions to get detoxed, but until they complete a successful drug rehab program that addresses the reason they started taking drugs or alcohol in the first place, the urge to continue using will remain the same.

Whatever the reasons are that drive a person to take drugs or do alcohol, for the user, the problems are very real and they want to cover them up or drown them away. And, though people make it out to be enjoyable or even glamorous in places like Hollywood, being a drug addict isn’t easy. In fact, it never leads people in a positive direction and can often result in losses of jobs, homes, families and even lives.

A drug user will start out with times when they are very high and nothing much seems to matter – basically in a dream-like state, and their troubles seem further away – but this wears off. The rest of the time, the most important thought in their mind is where to get more. Then, they’re dealing with two problems – the one that made them reach for the drugs in the first place, and the dependency or addiction that they’ve acquired.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that drug addicts and alcoholics enjoy that life. They do want to get off drugs or stop drinking alcohol. The way to successfully do this is Rehab. And, if you aren’t able to talk your friend or loved one into going to rehab, make sure to get in contact with an interventionist. This is their specialty and they’re experience lends to getting even the toughest addicts to go and get the addiction help they need.

Without going into a lot of details, the short answer is probably no, and unfortunately the line between the two is pretty grey, but there is a definitely more to it…

A drug “addiction” is generally defined as compulsive, drug-seeking behavior which is due to physical and/or mental dependency on a drug, despite knowingly causing damage to oneself and others regardless of consequence. Most people associate drug addiction with illegal drugs like cocaine, meth or heroin, but the truth is that people can easily become addicted to prescription drugs that were originally prescribed by their doctor.

An individual with a drug “dependence” may not exhibit the compulsive drug-seeking behavior and may have a more normal and collected appearance in life. This doesn’t only include drugs, but can also include the moderate-to-heavy social drinker who has three alcoholic drinks several nights per week or more. You may as well additionally include the millions of people who take prescribed drugs on a daily basis.

As I mentioned before, there is a fine line between dependency and addiction, and a person who is dependent can very easily become addicted. What happens if a drinker gets cut off at the bar? A lot of times, they become belligerent and will go to another bar or store to buy more alcohol, which would be an all too common example of compulsive drug (or alcohol) seeking. They may not even know they are an alcoholic yet but these are the first signs not to ignore.

Another factor, which most people are unaware of, is tolerance. This can absolutely play a role in dependence turning into addiction. An example of this might be someone being prescribed a narcotic painkiller after an injury or surgery. They takes it as prescribed for the recommended time period, but when the medication use stops, the user goes into withdrawals because their body became dependent on it. The next reaction, in a lot of scenarios, would be that they have to get more of the drug to not feel those withdrawal symptoms anymore. They’re basically trapped into use - which leads to addiction.

Learning disability labeled teenagers being put on amphetamines (stimulants) is another common example. These are legally prescribed drugs, by doctors and/or psychiatrists. The children can naturally develop a tolerance to these drugs and then need more, something stronger. In many cases of illegal drug use by teens, it comes on the heels of a long history of Ritalin, Prozac, etc.

So, the one thing we do know is, despite different characteristics and definitions, one does have to be drug dependent to be an addict, but the line  certainly isn’t definite when it is crossed. And, knowing how easily this can happen, it’s extremely important to pay attention. Pay attention to yourself, if you find that you need to take a prescription painkiller. Pay attention to your kids. And, if you find yourself knowing of or learning about someone with a dependence, help them get into a good detox program before it leads to addiction.