AHS Views

Steve Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, has been very out-spoken against drugs for a couple of decades now. When he checked into a rehab center to get drug addiction help, it was a big surprise. How could this happen to someone so obviously against drugs, who hasn’t taken anything in 20 years?

Tyler recently revealed that the problem was prescription drug addiction. It started the same way it does for many people, including plenty of high school and college athletes: He was given painkillers and sleeping pills to handle the pain caused by a series of foot and leg surgeries. In fact, Tyler’s injuries were caused by his athletic stage performances.

You really have to watch out for athletes and drug use. They want to play - and if it hurts too much there’s a good chance they’ll take something for the pain rather than sit on the sideline.

Prescription drug addiction help services are available, and we have to make sure our athletes - and anyone else being given painkillers or other drugs for a temporary situation - only take the drugs for a short time. If it goes on too long, they’re likely to need the help of a medically supervised drug detox program to get off them - and might need addiction help services as well.

Some of these prescription drugs are just as addictive as the worst street drug and are just as hard to kick. If your son or daughter has been involved in an injury, make sure they’re no longer taking the prescription drugs they got at that time. And if you find they are, get them the addiction help services they need.

If you think you may have a drug problem, you’re probably right. But there are some people who aren’t sure whether they have one or not. And they should find out as soon as possible so they can do something about it and get some addiction help. How do you figure out whether your problem is serious? Take the about.com quiz.

Twenty easy questions will give you the answer. But you do have to answer them honestly. 

Drug addiction, especially when you’re talking about prescription drugs, can creep up on you. You take the drugs to relieve pain, get to sleep, wake up, be able to focus, feel a little happier - whatever - and don’t realize you’re developing an addiction until it’s really too late.

Take the quiz and, if the shoe fits, call Addiction Help Services. We can help you sift through the thousands of treatment centers and models and help you find the drug addiction help that’s right for you.

Here is the heartbreaking story of a man whose 17-year-old son died from a drug overdose. The boy, Harrison, was the model kid. He and his dad had great rapport, they had a great family, but Harrison took a prescription painkiller, the same kind that are in the medicine cabinets of 10s of millions of homes across America and, when he mixed it with a common cold medicine he was taking, it killed him. He had apparently been taking the painkillers to get high. No one knew about it, and no one made sure he got the addiction help he needed. Had they done so, he would be alive today.

Harrison’s dad says that the problem is that people just don’t understand the dangers of these drugs. They realize that someone taking illegal drugs is in danger and wouldn’t even hesitate to get them addiction help, they don’t realize that a kid, or an adult, taking prescription painkillers that come from a doctor could actually kill you - especially when combined with other drugs (yes, including other prescription drugs), or with alcohol.

Harrison obviously had a problem his parents didn’t know about. It’s clear from the article written by his father that they would have made sure he got the addiction help he needed. How many other parents are out there in the same situation? You can be that with 2,500 kids trying prescription drugs every day for the first time - to get high - it’s i the millions. And millions are at risk.

If you think someone in your family may be at risk, or already know they are, call Addiction Help Services. They can help you figure out what to do about it.

American Drug War, a Showtime hit soon to be available on DVD, “shows how money, power and greed have corrupted not just drug pushers and dope fiends, but an entire government. More importantly, it shows what can be done about it,” according to Kevin Booth, the filmmaker responsible for the movie. Personally, I’m hoping this DVD will be rented by millions of people - and I hope it opens their eyes to the real situation so they will take the initiative to get people with drug problems the drug addiction help they need.

A few decades ago there were a few lobbyists struggling to expose corrupt practices within the field of psychiatry. They accomplished very little over a period a a few years. Then One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was released. The movie had such an impact that those groups experienced more interest and cooperation in the three months after the movie’s release than in the three years prior.

That wasn’t about drug addiction, but the same thing could happen if more filmmakers took it upon themselves to expose the truth behind the drug industry. People would realize that they are, in fact, being dupped. If the impact is great enough, it might even spur them on to find out more about addiction help services, addiction, and drugs so they can do their part to really win the war on drugs.

A study was done in the U.K. about the costs of drug addiction. The estimate was about $1.5 million per addict. This includes several things including health care and the cost of drug-related crime. They also figured out that the costs would be reduced to about $70,000 if people got drug addiction help before the age of 21.

It’s hard to say how close these figures come to what is spent in the U.S. but one thing we know is the same is that the earlier people get drug addiction help, the better their chances of actually recovering rather than living their out the rest of their lives on one drug or another. This mean you have to catch it while kids are still college-aged - whether they’re actually in school or not.

In fact, if your kids are using drugs, or alcohol to an excess, it’s a good idea to make sure they get help before they go to college. The temptation in college is great: Not only are illegal drugs easy to get, there are tons of college kids taking prescription drugs that make the rounds. Some use them for study aids, and others take them to get high.

What the U.K. estimates may not have taken into account is the ruined lives and families. If your kids are currently taking drugs, you already have some idea of how devastating it can be for parents. Get them the addiction help services they need now - don’t wait. If you don’t know where to turn, contact a referral agency that has experts on hand to help you figure out a solution.

There are many people who don’t particularly worry about marijuana despite the fact that it has side effects that really change a person’s life - like being disassociated from reality - and despite the fact that it often leads to taking other drugs. However, the results of a new marijuana study released by the White House should serve as a wake-up call to make sure people using marijuana get the addiction help they need.

The study showed that the potency of marijuana is at its highest point in 30 years - much stronger than it was in the ’70s, and twice as strong as it was in 1983.

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy commented that one of the reasons baby-boomers may not worry about their kids using marijuana is that they expect it to be the same as it was in the ’70s. Not true. The report stated that young people who have used marijuana in the last year are twice as likely to be depressed as those who didn’t and that the risk of developing ‘mental problems’ is increased by 40%.

There’s also a higher risk of physical disease.

Good reasons to make sure anyone you know using marijuana gets the addiction help they need.

The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said she is worried that marijuana will become even stronger and cause addiction. That statement makes me wonder if she knows what addiction really is. While it’s true that, for the most part, quitting marijuana doesn’t cause extremely severe withdrawal symptoms like other drugs, that’s not all there is to addiction. Try to get someone who uses marijuana regularly to stop and you’ll see how difficult it actually is. There’s a reason why they want to feel that way - and those reasons are the ‘addiction’ elements that need to be handled so the person to stop.

Getting addiction help services for marijuana is more important now that ever. Taking marijuana use lightly could be a very big mistake.

If you have any doubts about whether or not your kid’s drug addiction or abuse could lead them to a life of crime, take a look at the latest figures in the new drug court study:  There are 1.5 million people in jail for non-violent drug-related crime - they’re the ones that may be eligible for drug court. And most of them will be back on drugs when they get out, and most of them will wind up back in prison. All the more reason to get them the drug addiction help they need now.

According to the study, it would cost the U.S. $14 billion to set up a nation-wide drug court system so people who commit these crimes can get addiction help instead of going to prison. That’s a lot of money, but it would save $46 billion - 85% of which is currently spent on repeat offenses.

Many more than 1.5 million lives are ruined with drugs, these are just the people who commit crimes - and get caught. And many of those crimes are committed just to get their hands on the drugs they need.

Being on drugs is dangerous enough to ensure people get addiction help services fast. The possibility of getting involved in crime and going to prison, possibly over and over again, makes the situation all the more urgent.