AHS Views

I heard a very sad story today about a young man whose father shot himself after years of alcoholism. His alcohol abuse had resulted in divorce, and had alienated his son. The son never tried to get his dad into alcohol rehab and, although he’s not responsible for his father’s alcoholism or his death, that fact will probably weigh on him for a very long time.

Since I’ve been involved in drug and alcohol rehab, I’ve realized that it really is almost impossible for some people to quit on their own. They’re fighting a private battle, and the only way they feel they can win is through drugs or alcohol.

It’s sometimes hard to feel sympathy for a person who’s destroying their lives, and possibly yours. But, really, you don’t have to be sympathetic, just get them into a successful drug or alcohol rehab program. Although you may resent the fact that they drink, and the effects that has created on your life, that’s nothing compared to how you’d feel if they died and you hadn’t even tried to help.

There may be hope for government spending for drug treatment. In a recent article, U.S. Representative Chet Edwards announced that he has secured $150,000 for a new Byran, Texas project called Project Focus - a drug rehab placement program designed to “combat the spread of crime associated with alcohol and drug abuse at the community level.”

The project’s aim is to decrease the number of crimes committed by drug addicts by by finding them a successful drug rehab program. The project will also offer drug education and prevention programs to deter addiction. These programs will be available to loved ones and families.

Looking at the scope of drug addiction in the United States, this program sounds very beneficial for both addicts and their friends and families. For several years I worked at a drug rehab center delivered drug education lectures to an average of 30,000 children every year, as well as providing drug rehab services to thousands. The people who were educated said they would never take drugs, and those already addicted were able to quit.

Drug addiction is epidemic in the U.S. and successful drug rehab programs are in short supply. Hopefully this funding is just the beginning.

I read an article in The Facts about the extent of prescription drug addiction, specifically painkillers, in the U.S. When I worked in a drug rehab facility the biggest problems were heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. They’re still big problems – it hasn’t gotten any better – but, according to that article, even in 2003 there were 15 million people in the U.S. taking prescription drugs, mostly painkillers, for non-medical reasons. How many of these are going to need drug rehab to get off them?

OxyContin, Percodan, Percocet, Vicoden and Darvocet, the painkillers being referred to, are opioids, similar to heroin. They are highly addictive. I’ve known a few painkiller addicts who went from one doctor to another faking injuries, aches, pains and illnesses to get prescriptions. One told a doctor she had an allergy to the painkillers she was prescribed after surgery and asked for a different, stronger, drug. She got the new prescription she asked for, but also kept the pills from the first one. She wound up taking both of them and wound up addicted. She eventually needed drug rehab.

Is it possible for doctors to write a prescription for a drug rehab program instead of drugs? If not, that might be a solution.

The dangers associated with marijuana have been debated for years. Some say it’s the least harmful of illegal drugs and in California it is even legally prescribed for people with a variety of conditions including anxiety, cancer and multiple sclerosis. But a recent study may cause medical marijuana users as well as those who abuse it to head straight for drug rehab. 

The study, conducted by the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University and reported in Lancet (registration required, but it’s free, and they also have a podcast for the study, or read an article about it), or  showed that marijuana may increase the risk of psychosis by 40 percent. Researchers analyzed 35 studies that tracked tens of thousands of people for one to 27 years to examine the relationship between marijuana use and psychosis, depression, anxiety, delusions and a number of other conditions. In addition to the alarming data on the risk of psychosis for anyone using the drug, researchers found that, for heavy users, the risk of jumps to 200 percent.
 
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug because of its high potential for abuse. Also, per the DEA, it has no currently accepted medical use.

This study should end the debate. Let’s hope people take it to heart, get off the drug, and get into a successful drug rehab program.

Lindsay Lohan is in trouble again. According to a recent article, she was picked up at 1:30 a.m. after a car chase with police and was arrested for suspicion of drunken driving, cocaine possession, bringing a controlled substance into custody and driving on a suspended license. This is just weeks after her stay at a treatment center in Malibu, California. She’s obviously not doing much for their reputation as a successful drug rehab center.

Out of jail on bond, Lindsay is currently under medical care, her lawyer said. He didn’t specific where, or whether she was in another drug rehab center.

I’m sure many people are wondering what it’s going to take to get Lindsay drug free. She has been in two drug treatment programs this year alone, she currently has several legal charges against her which could land her in prison and, as a result of her addiction and legal problems, her career is suffering. She had to cancel a Jay Leno spot, and the movie she was slated to make with Shirley MacLaine has been delayed since May. The producers said they are going to announce a start date very soon, so it looks like their going to do it without Lindsay.

Despite her celebrity status, Lindsay is not much different from millions of others addicted to drugs and alcohol.  I’ve known people who have done as many as nine treatment programs before they finally found one that worked. There’s a lot to be said for finding a successful drug rehab program the first time. Let’s hope Linsday’s close.

I came across a news item today in Yahoo News about a man who crashed his car into a drug rehab center. He was under the influence of drugs at the time of the accident.

The man, whose name was not released, crashed his car into the Clifton Heights Drug Treatment Center on Wednesday afternoon and was found in his car unconscious with a needle sticking out of his arm. Police say the man had overdosed. They suspect the drug was heroin.

An ambulance was called but the man regained consciousness when the paramedics were loading him in, and he tried to jump out and make a run for it. He was caught by the police and restrained.  

The article also said that the man was apparently a former patient at the treatment center,  but there was no word on whether he was trying to be readmitted or if he was just happened to be driving by.

In most cases an addict will not ask to be admitted into drug rehab but, in this situation, it seems like this guy knew exactly where he needed to be.

I understand Linsday Lohan is back in rehab. And she’s busted again, suspected of driving while intoxicated and possession of cocaine. Here’s the problem with ankle bracelets – they don’t actually stop the person from wanting or needing to drink any more than wearing a watch would stop a heroin addict from wanting or needing a fix. For that you need a successful alcohol and drug rehab program that finds out why the person started on the road to addiction and gets them turned in another direction.

Guidelines, rules, laws, prisons, police sitting in patrol cars on street corners waiting for someone to speed or run a red light, officers patrolling the streets, and even high tech ankle bracelets, do not get rid of alcohol or drug addiction. They act as a deterrent, no doubt about that, but for the true addict, it’s only marginally more effective than putting a chain on an angry dog. The dog is still angry. He still wants to attack you. And he will at the first opportunity. He has to. It isn’t even because he’s a bad dog, he just has to.

Until you find out what’s behind a person’s alcohol or drug addiction problem and get those things squared away, the chances of things changing are very, very slim. And that can only be accomplished by successful alcohol and drug rehab.

A successful drug rehab program is one that works. Brenda Fassie’s story offers a sad lesson in choosing the wrong treatment programs.  

Brenda Fassie, the legendary South African pop singer who sold millions of records across Africa and around the world, died in a Johannesburg hospital on May 9, 2004 after spending 13 days in a coma. The post-mortem said her final dose of cocaine was the cause of death. She was only 39 years old. MaBrrr, as she was affectionately nicknamed by her fans, had tried to resolve her severe addictions over the years at various treatment centers – in fact, more than 30 times – but, unfortunately for MaBrrr and her millions of admirers, she never found a truly successful drug rehab program.

Fassie, the youngest of nine kids, was named after Brenda Lee, the American singer. Her pianist mother let her earn money by singing for tourists in the streets. In 1981 at 16, Fassie left Cape Town to seek her fortune as a singer in Johannesburg’s Soweto district. Soweto, short for “South West Townships”, had long been under the grinding heel of South Africa’s white supremacist apartheid policy. Poverty, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, illness and crime were rampant, and drug rehab facilities as we know them today were virtually unknown. But there was art, there was music, there were night clubs to sing in and a vibrant culture was being created by Soweto’s people. Nelson Mandela lived there for years, as did Bishop Desmond Tutu and other famous black South Africans.

Five years before Fassie arrived, Soweto police opened fire on 10,000 protesting students marching peacefully from Naledi High School to Orlando Stadium. In the events that unfolded, 566 people died. The impact of the Soweto Uprising, as it became known, reverberated throughout the country and around the world. Soweto became the stage for violent state repression and the roaring social and political oven in which Fassie forged the direction of her music – by the mid-‘90s, she was the unequivocal voice of black oppression. But she had also formed a drug addiction so strong that it managed to resist one treatment program after another. And without access to a real drug rehab, Fassie was unable to break the habit.

In 2001 Time magazine dubbed Fassie “The Madonna of the Townships” and indeed she was. Fassie managed to combine ground-breaking musical success with a personal accessibility and human fallibility that drew a fierce loyalty and protectiveness from fans. Her career was studded with record sales and awards, but punctuated also by periodic scandals, recurring battles with drug addiction, and lows in her musical career that saw her written off by the press.

On June 12, 2006, two years after her death, family and friends paid tribute to Fassie at the unveiling of a huge new tombstone at Cape Town’s Langa cemetery. Wreaths from former president Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki – who had both visited her in the hospital where she lay in a coma – were placed on the family grave where Fassie was buried with her mother and father. The family is planning a museum in her honor, where her music and other memorabilia will be displayed. And perhaps most significant is the planned Brenda Fassie Foundation that would financially assist young drug addicts in need of a successful drug rehab program.
 

Here’s an upbeat bit of news that brightened my day: a new nightclub in Oklahoma City called “Club Soda” offers an alternative to people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. The name tells you everything – no alcohol, just sodas, milkshakes, and specialty coffee drinks. Sounds like a great idea, for everyone from those who just want a break from the usual substance-centered clubs to people who may have completed alcohol or drug rehab and want to avoid the type of environment that got them into trouble.

Donna Woods-Bauer, executive director of the Oklahoma Citizen Advocates for Recovery and Treatment Association, asked local club veteran Rick Richards to open a club for recovering addicts. Richards, who had worked for years in adult entertainment clubs, was tired of the alcohol and drug atmosphere common in such clubs, and agreed to open the new night spot.

“It doesn’t matter how nice a place is, when you put alcohol in the mix there’s eventually going to be trouble,” Richards told the Associated Press. “I’ve seen my share of it.”

With a dance floor, karaoke, pool tables and a small café, the club is both family-oriented (kids are welcome – there’s even a playroom) and a budding location for singles to meet.

“It’s a family atmosphere,” Richards said, “a place where people can get out and don’t have to worry about finding a baby sitter.”

One customer said she’s made lots of new friends, and appreciates not having to deal with pickup lines from drunks.
 
I think this is a really great idea. Oklahoma, like every other state, has its drug problems. Offering recovering addicts a safe environment where they can have fun without drugs or alcohol helps them stay clean and sober after a successful drug rehab program.

Having fueled and profited from the habits of other drug addicts for years, Dr. Harry Black was arrested on June 7th for felony drug charges. The judge’s first ruling gave Black the option of treatment, but Black was ousted after only a week for breaking the rules. He’s now going to trial and facing 20 years in prison with fines of up to $1 million. I don’t know how many lives Black ruined, but I do know that had he personally completed drug rehab years ago, many may have been saved.

According to the story in the Post Standard, Black used his status as a physician to write medically-unnecessary prescriptions for drug addicts. Dr. Black and his wife, who admittedly has a problem with drug addiction, also kept some of the drugs to support their own habits.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t surprise me. These days there are plenty of doctors addicted to drugs, dealing them, and even being paid by pharmaceutical companies to put people on drugs they don’t need. As a result, more and more people are becoming addicted.

I struggled with my own drug addiction for several years, but it was made worse when I was prescribed a very strong painkiller after routine surgery. Once the pain was gone, I stayed on the drug and was taking it daily.

Eventually I went into drug rehab program. I was able to do a drug-free program, and have now been off all drugs for nearly six years. I know it’s possible to recover from addiction with a successful drug rehab program and had Black taken advantage of one, his life would be far different now, as would the lives of his patients.