AHS Views

So many college kids are drinking and using drugs that parents have to be careful when they send their kids off to any institute of higher learning. Highedcenter.org published a list of questions parents should ask school officials about their drug and alcohol policies.  Parents who want their kids to get the most out of their education and avoid having to look for addiction help for them later would be wise to ask these questions and check out the school thoroughly.

Most kids will have a preference for a certain college and they may resist going to a different one. But if they’re really educated on the dangers of drugs and alcohol - including just being around others who drink or take drugs, even if your kid doesn’t do it themselves, which could lead to the need for addiction help - you may get more cooperation.

For example: Over 60% of kids who are around other kids who drink or take drugs have had their sleep or study interrupred; nearly 54% have had to take care of a drunken student; nearly 14% suffer damage to their property; and one in ten have been pushed, hit or assaulted.

The statistics on that site state that 1.3% will be raped, but other sources say the incidence of rape is much higher: According to abacus.bates.edu, for example, one out of four women will be sexually assaulted on a college campus, and one in 8 will be raped. Most of the rapes involve drugs or alcohol.

Extensive drug and alcohol abuse that requires addiction help services is common in college, but that’s not the only consequence. Perhaps if your kids understand this, they, too, will choose a different school.

The YMCA in Coppell, Texas is planning to offer drug education for recreational drug users and support for families whose lives have been adversely affected by drugs and alcohol. Ralph Strangis, a former drug addict and alcoholic who is now an upstanding member of the community, will be speaking at the first event. According to Strangis, members of the local community tend to not talk about drug and alcohol problems. He’s hoping this program will enable them to do so. It also may help ensure people who need addiction help get it.

Not talking about alcohol and drug problems is not unusual. But for the 15 million or so people with alcohol problems in the U.S. who need treatment but don’t get it, talking about it - whether you’re the person with the problem or you are a friend or relative - could be the first step to getting the addiction help needed.

Unfortunately, too many people ignore problems with drugs or alcohol. Sometimes people see drugs, or alcohol, as just a phase that will blow over. Sometimes they think there’s nothing wrong with a little drugs or a few drinks. And sometimes the friends and family members don’t think they’d ever be able to convince the person to get help.

However, there is help available through an interventionist. If you need one, you should call Addiction Help Services - they’ll give you all the help you need.

Ignoring alcohol or drug problems is never a good solution. Eventually, it will ruin someone’s life. And some may even lose their lives altogether or be instrumental in someone else losing theirs. What’s better? Continuing to live with the problem or doing something about? Hopefully, other communities will follow in Coppell’s footsteps and make sure community members get the addiction help services they need.

Plano is not theonly

Abilify, a drug usually used to treat psychosis, is being touted as a possible solution to alcohol addiction. Alcohol is dangerous, it’s true. But check out the side effects of Abilify before you make any decisions about whether you’re going to choose to be drugged rather than finding some addiction help that will really get you alcohol - and drug - free.

Just what we need, more people taking prescription drugs. Take one epidemic, alcoholism, and switch it for another. To make matters worse, you have to put up with possible suicide risk,  convulsions, seizures, cognitive and motor impairment, nausea, vomiting, constipation, headaches, dizziness, anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, hypertension. Why is that appealing? Wouldn’t getting addiction help be better than that?

And it doesn’t get down to the bottom of why the person is drinking - which is how you handle addiction.

Don’t go for another drug - there’s a good chance you’ll just eventually end up in rehab anyway, for the drug instead of the alcohol, so why not just do it right in the first place. Get the addiction help services you need.

The European Union has called on the alcohol industry to stop targeting liquor sales to the youth of those nations. Over 100 colleges have written to the NCAA to have them stop taking TV ads for beer commercials during college events. While this isn’t going to end college drinking or the need for addiction help, it can’t hurt.

We know that Purdue Pharma was less then honest about the addictive nature of OxyContin. We also know that Merck wasn’t honest about the dangers of Vioxx. So can we trust Anheuser Bush, Bacardi, or Heineken to do something to curb college drinking like they have publicly pledged? Probably not is the true answer. Really, those companies are dancing every time they read statistics that 40% or more of our college kids binge drink. Do they cringe when they read the stats about the 15 million people in the U.S. who need addiction help?
 
There are at least two things they could do. One would be to withdraw from advertising in college newspapers. The other would be to withdraw from advertising during college sporting events.

One of these giants of industry could lead the way and perhaps the rest would follow suit. I am sure that the TV stations, newspapers and magazines could sell the ad space without a problem.

We shouldn’t have to tell Mr. Busch, Mr. Bacardi, Mr. Coors, or Mr. van Boxmeer (from Heineken) that they should be proactive in helping to stop alcohol abuse in college students. Neither a congressional hearing nor laws should be needed; Young kids getting addiction help services because of alcohol abuse is not a pretty picture. Maybe these gentlemen could look past their profits and do something to help.

In Portland, Oregon, prescription drugs and heroin are the drugs of choice. At Reed College in Portland, one student died from a heroin overdose and two others came close to it in the last few months. If Reed is like any other school, 7% of the students are addicted to alcohol and 20% need some type of addiction help for drugs, alcohol, or both.

Teachers and students alike will also be using prescription stimulants (Ritalin and Adderall) like they are coffee - except those drugs are more similar to cocaine than coffee. In a recent survey it was found that 20% of scientists use Ritalin and other stimulants, and 30% of college students use Ritalin or Adderall.

In Portland, heroin is and has been a drug problem for a long time. Not cracking down on this problem in the city may be the reason Reed is now having a problem.

In most areas of the country at least 89% of students know heroin is dangerous, and 11% think it is safe once or twice a week. That doesn’t mean 11% will try it, but enough of them will, and you will definitely end up with heroin addicts and some deaths.

School administrators have their work cut out for them. Obviously martial law won’t work.  In a school like Reed, where students have a mind of their own, drug education may help.  Students from a college like this can also do more to protect their classmates with intervention and safety measures. If your friends or fellow students are taking drugs or drinking, get them the drug addiction help they need.

Living in Missouri and wondering where your children are is no different than anywhere else: If you have a child in high school, there is a good chance they are out drinking. Half of those kids will need addiction help because of alcohol abuse during their lifetime.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration half of your children will have had alcohol by age 15 and 90% will be drinking by age 21.
Addiction help being required for a third of the population in the next 15 years is not out of the question.

And that doesn’t even take the drug problem into account – including those that are prescribed.

Its really amazing when you  think about the ages that kids are drinking or doing drugs - . fourteen or fifteen-year-olds binge drinking or a college student needing addiction help because he drinks at school three or four  times a week. It’s estimated that 20% of college students need addiction help.

It seems to me that parents are sometimes very naïve about where their kids go when they go out on a Friday night, or when they go off to college. They will drink and, possibly, they will drink a lot.

If you are a parent and you drink you should assume your kids will follow in your footsteps. If you need addiction help services because of alcohol you should get it for the sake of your kids and your family.

If you think being addicted to prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax or Ritalin is limited to one age group or one location, you’ll have to look closer to your own home. Although high school seniors and college students get most of the press, and do need the majority of the addiction help in the U.S., people out of college and into their later years are gaining on the twenty-something’s with alcohol and drug abuse problems.

If you are old enough to remember the pot of the 60s and 70s then you may wonder what the drug problem is today. The biggest problem is with drugs prescribed by doctors. People think prescription drugs are more or less safe - what doctor would allow someone to get addicted to drugs? In fact, even a lot of the doctors don’t know how dangerous the drugs they prescribe actually are. Most of them probably spend little or no time studying about prescription drugs and how addictive they are.

If you have kids in college you should realize that 50% of them abuse drugs and alcohol and 20% need treatment. That’s a lot. And it’s not limited to Hollywood or California, its Wisconsin, Ohio and everywhere else you can think of. People of all ages need addiction help services.

What prescription drugs are being used by kids? According to former DEA agent and renowned drug expert, Robert Stutman, OxyContin, Ritalin and Adderall are most common. In 1969 the average age of first drug use was 16 ½; in 2006 the age was 12. One in four of those 12-year-olds will need addiction help according to the Center for Substance Abuse Research, and they have be dependent on drugs for their entire lifetime.

Because kids are taking prescription drugs so early in life, we’ll probably be looking at a might higher percentage of the population needing addiction help in the future – by 2015, when some of these kids grow up, they’ll be addicted to or dependent on a drug.

One of the biggest problems is that people don’t realize how dangerous these drugs are. But they’re killing people. In 1969 it would be extremely rare to pick up a newspaper and see an article about a kid dying from a drug overdose. In 2008 you can find an article every single day if you look at local papers across the country.

Robert Stutman addressed the drug problem earlier this week, speaking to about 100 parents in Polk County, Florida. Another interesting piece of information – Stutman said that half the 300 students in George Jenkins High School said they drank alcohol weekly. That’s also a bad sign – and there’s also a good chance they’ll also need addiction help.

Prescription drugs and alcohol generally come from people’s homes. If you don’t want your kids to get into trouble and needing addiction help services in the future, keep your alcohol and prescription drugs locked up.

It looks like the University of Iowa’s Hawkeyes are going to have to make some serious changes. In the last year, 11 team members have been in trouble with the law: one for theft and unauthorized use of a credit card, several are involved in a sexual assault charge, several more for drunk driving and now two Hawkeyes have been arrested on drug charges. It looks like this team really needs addiction help.

One of the players, James Lee Cleveland, was found with 21 OxyContin pills and 24 doses of a muscle relaxant called caprisoprodol. Although muscle relaxants aren’t normally thought of as addictive, caprisoprodol works by blocking pain sensations from being sent to the brain and can cause both addiction and dependency.

Is Cleveland taking these drugs to be able to keep playing despite an injury? If so, that wouldn’t be uncommon. Now it appears he’s off the team. If he was injured, it would have been better to stop playing until the injury was healed - he probably would have been able to use the drugs for a shorter period of time and not risk getting addicted to or dependent on them. Now he probably needs addiction help. Who knows if he’ll get it?

Of course the guys who’ve been charged with drunk driving should have gotten addiction help long ago as well.

Drugs and alcohol can bring a team down pretty fast - other players have already been suspended or kicked out altogether. It’s a shame to see a good athlete’s promising future shot down with alcohol and drugs.

If more team managers and coaches took players using drugs and alcohol more seriously and made sure they got the addiction help services they need, these guys would have a much brighter future.