AHS Views

Here’s an unusual addiction help treatment being used in Australia - surfing. LJ’s Surf Clinic was set up by a former drug addict who just couldn’t find anything he was more interested in than drugs. Surfing, he discovered, was a challenge that motivated him to stay alert and in good physical shape, which means being clean and sober. He’s now 53 years old and helps others get off alcohol and drugs by learning to surf.

There’s a lot to be said for getting involved in sports, or anything else you’re passionate about, to stay off drugs. But I wonder what happens to people when they go home after their nine-month stay at the surf clinic.

If they can surf at home, that’s great. But most people don’t live in an area where they have rolling ocean waves nearby. Also, how are they going to make a living? They’re going to have to do something other than surf, unless they’re pros, to pay the rent.

For some, it may be enough. Being out in the elements and presented with physical challenge has a tendency to make us think differently - to look at life with a new perspective, get a boost in self-esteem and a new respect for the body. Some will also examine what’s going on their lives, who they’re hanging out with, whether not they’re really happy with their career and so on. And that may enable them to make the changes in their lives that need to be made to stay sober when they get back home.

But others will get back home, be faced with the same old problems that drove them to alcohol or drugs in the first place, and they’ll relapse.

Now - if the surf club also included a mandatory examination of one’s life and helped lay out a plan that included more than surfing, we might have a combination of addiction help services that really turns people’s lives around.

I just read an article about banning happy hour in England. They’re trying to cut down on binge drinking. They started with not allowing pubs to be open 24 hours a day, now they’re cutting out the time when people can traditionally get their drinks two for one or a lot cheaper than at other times. There are also pubs in Scotland refusing to let people into bars if they’ve been taking any drugs, police are actually checking customers at the door, or have any on them.

It’s good to see this kind of action going on in pubs. Especially when the guys who own bars are there to make money. They’re obviously willing to make a little less for the public good. And there will be fewer people needing alcohol rehab and detox.

Too bad the alcohol industry and Big Pharma aren’t willing to do the same. Big Pharma won’t stop at anything.

If people took a cold, hard look at Big Pharma, and realized that it has turned into an industry whose primary goal is to get people hooked on drugs so they can make money, they’d be up in arms. It’s like having a drug pusher sitting in your living room working tirelessly night and day to convince you that you need their drugs. They’re on your television programs, in your magazines, and so on.

But it all looks so innocent. So benign. Like they’re really just trying to help.

Don’t be fooled. That’s not their intention. They’re trying to make money. And they don’t care who gets hurt in the process - they’ll just take a little, tiny fraction of their profits and pay you off. No big deal.

Get out from under their spell - contact Addiction Help Services for alcohol or drug rehab.

Surveys conducted by substance abuse agencies generally show that of the 20 million or so people who need addiction help for alcohol, about 90% don’t get it because they don’t consider they have a problem. But a new survey in England, which has much the same alcohol and drug problem as we have here in the U.S., showed that 40% of patients lie to their doctors about how much they drink. It made me wonder if those 40% are among those who also say they don’t have a problem.

The first step to successful drug or alcohol treatment is, of course, admitting that you have a problem. Don’t get me wrong, though - I don’t mean that they have to stand in front of a group of people an say “My name is  …, and I’m an alcoholic” - which is the standard Alcoholics Anonymous thing, and they definitely don’t have to do that forever. But they do have to at least admit it to themselves.

If you have someone in the family, or a friend, who you know needs help but won’t admit it, give intervention a try. An experienced interventionist can talk with the person and get them to admit they need help - sometimes with very little effort. Most already know they need help, but when they’ve spent years denying it to friends and family, it’s hard to change their story. With an interventionist, who they’ve just met and who can recognize an alcoholic from a mile away, it can’t be denied.

If you need help, or an interventionist, call Addiction Help Services. We’ll help you find a way to help your friend.

A recent news story accused breathalizer testing to be racist. According to the lawyer on a case, who asked for his client’s breathalizer test to be inadmissable, black men have a lung capacity of 3% more than white men. Which means that .08 would translated into .0776. So, the black man was 3% less drunk than the white guy.

Did the accused carefully monitor his intake knowing that his lung capacity was 3% higher? I doubt it. In fact, I would venture to say that no one failing a breathalizer test - assuming the machine was calibrated - was actually watching his drinking that closely before he got into a car.

Bearing in mind that the drunk (allegedly) driver could have killed someone, getting in a car after you’ve been drinking is dangerous.

The idea that someone could evade the addiction help they need, and endanger the public safety, not to mention his own, because of his lung capacity is pretty scary. Especially when we’re not particularly worried about how alcohol is affecting someone’s lungs - it’s the brain and motor control we’re worried about.

It’s unfortunate that lawyers will find any way they can to get their client off. The judge denied the motion. Good call.

Okay, so there are a lot of people out there who depend on methadone as a way to get through life. People who just can’t shake their addiction to opiates no matter how many times they go through various forms of drug rehab - if I’d tried drug rehab 17 times, I guess I’d consider it impossible to quit heroin, too - and people who live in chronic pain so severe that they can’t enjoy life in the slightest.

But those aren’t usually the people who are dying from methadone. Check into the story of Tim Strews, a former radio personality who, although he hopes to go back to his job, is also considering becoming a drug counselor so he can give others the addiction help he got that finally got him off methadone.

It was a long haul for him. He was in residential treatment for more than four months, and continued as an out-patient when he left.

Methadone is one of the most difficult drugs to kick. Worse than even the most seriously addictive drugs like heroin.

It’s also one of the trickiest drugs to control. It stays in the system for up to 10 times longer than it provides pain relief - which motivates the person taking it to take more or to take other painkillers with it. But that can cause the methadone to build up to toxic levels, which can kill you without any warning that there’s a problem.

Strews’ experience change his attitude towards people on drugs. He used to be pretty unsympathetic. How he sees that it’s almost impossible to stop taking drugs without help.

Badgering won’t do any good. Drug addicts need help. Contact Addiction Help Services to find an addiction treatment center that’s suitable for your problem and resources.

A reader who made a comment on a recent blog said “Each drug addiction must be treated differently. Critical to each case is the personality of the addicted.”

Thank you. That is spot on. Unless addiction help programs are tailored for the individual, they have a slim chance of working.

Why a person became addicted to drugs may seem ridiculous to others - which is probably one of the reasons why parents think their kids would never take drugs. They associated taking drugs with certain personality types - people who have what the observer would consider a serious problem.

Kids, for example, don’t seem to have any serious problems from most parents’ viewpoints. But each person is an individual, as are their responses and reactions to life’s pressures.

If you have someone who needs addiction help services, don’t go for a cookie cutter program. Get something that will be tailored to the individual.

One of the most attractive things about alcohol - especially to kids - is the low cost. Kids can buy a six-pack for less than their lunch money. True, it’s not the best quality beer out there, but it’s beer. However, a recent study found that even a small price hike in alcohol taxes can significantly lower the number of deaths cause by alcohol. If it can do that, it obviously also lowers the amount of drinking being done, the possibility of alcohol addiction, and the need for alcohol addiction help.

The study was based on alcohol taxes in Alaska. When the taxes were raised on alcohol in 1983, the death rate dropped by a staggering (no pun intended) 29%. When the alcohol taxes were raised again in 2002, the death rate again went down by 11%.

The alcohol-related deaths examined in the study were varied - everything from cirrhosis and chronic pancreatitis as it takes years of drinking to develop these problems so would apply to an older crown, to alcohol poisoning, which is more likely to happen with a younger crowd that does some serious binge drinking. The study didn’t include motor vehicle and other accidents.

When Finland lowered their taxes in 2004, people drank 50% more, alcohol-related arrests went up 11%, and the death toll increased by 11%.

Most of the states haven’t raised alcohol taxes in 20 years. The executive director of the American Beverage Licensees said that raising alcohol taxes in the U.S. would have a “highly negative effect on the economy.” Big deal. Just another example of the choke hold industry has on the country. Big Pharma’s another one. No matter how many billions of dollars Big Pharma pays out on lawsuits, the industry is never called upon to reform.

When are we going to get our priorities straight? Has it never occured to anyone that a country with fewer drinkers and drug addicts might have more people able to produce something that would strengthen the economy? And how much money would we save on health insurance, prisons, police, health care, property damage, addiction help services, etc.

If saving lives doesn’t mean enough to put the choke hold where it belongs - on the industries themselves - surely the money should be a motivation.

Other countries often follow what happens in the U.S. I was raised in Canada, I was always told that we were 10 years behind the U.S. In some ways, that’s a blessing. As the people in the Czech Republic are soon to find out - they’re going to get methadone to “treat” heroin addicts.

We’re going to export yet another unsuccessful ‘treatment - one that gets heroin addicts addicted to another drug instead of helping them get off drugs altogether.

There are plenty of addiction help programs that actually get people off drugs successfully. Why aren’t we exporting them?

But that’s really the way America works these days. Big Pharma makes sure of it. Got a problem, take a drug. Got a drug problem, take another drug.

The worst thing about this is that it actually looks like a solution. And when you have a solution to a problem, you stop looking for one. Which means that, just like in America, people all over the Czech Republic will be addicted to methadone and actually think they don’t have a drug problem. And many of the officials, doctors, and other professionals will think the same.

If treatment options aren’t working, find out what’s wrong with them and fix it.  Don’t just give up and park the person on another drug.

Oh, I know this post will bring a lot of methadone addicts out of the woodwork to tell me what an ignorant idiot I am.  And some people who will write in really do need to be on methadone - they’ve tried everything else, or their living in chronic pain.

But, the vast majority do not need it.

If you suspect you may be one of them, and would like to live your life without having to make a trip to the methadone clinic every day, contact addiction help services to find out more about your options.

What happens to kids whose parents and siblings do drugs? What happens to kids whose mother used crack while she was pregnant? What happens to kids whose parents wind up in prison because of drugs? Through My Eyes, an essay contest sponsored by the Cowlitz Substance Abuse Coalition with additional support from the Washington State Community Mobilization and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, tells the real life stories of living in households with people who need addiction help.

These essays are a must read - the little girl whose father was in prison, whose two brothers were always high on something, and whose mother, a crack head during each of her pregnancies, was rarely home. Or the 13-year-old athlete who started his battle with drug addiction when he was prescribed morphine for an illness.

Addiction Help Services is there to help you. If someone in your family has a drug problem. give us a call. 

Some parents think they can’t do anything about drugs in schools - and the dangers they pose for their own kids. But taking action can help. Here’s the story of a woman who made a phone call about drug use to a local school. Her suspicions were followed up on, a search was done, and 10 kids were busted with stashes of prescription drugs and illegal substances. It was the school’s drug ring.

That one phone call is going to prevent prescription drug addiction (and other drug problems but, really, prescription drug addiction is the most prevalent), drug-related crime, and probably a few overdoses, deaths, injuries and illnesses.

I would hope the kids who were busted will get addiction help as well. The bust might also save their lives.

We recently had a rash of vandalism on our property. We knew who it was - a gang of kids that went to the school down the street. They stole a kids bike and threw it at our car - making a horrible mess - they knocked over our mailbox and punched dents in it, the broke our sprinkler heads. And a few other things. We knew when they passed by and waited on the street and confronted them. A few of our neighbors, whose property had also been vandalized, joined us. They stood in front of their property. We also went to the school and spoke with security - they knew who the kids were. They already had a reputation. And we called the police, who actually came and parked across from our house when the kids were due. The vandalism stopped. But, that’s what it took.

Taking action works. 

If you want to protect your kids, take action. And if they already have a problem, get them the addiction help services they need.