AHS Views

An amazing new study out of England showed that 1 in 5 people have either had a drug addiction problem themselves, within their family, or their circle of friends. That’s in the UK - not including Ireland - which has a population of about 70 million. So, 14 million people in the UK have had direct experience with drug addiction.

It would be nice to see a similar study done in the U.S. I’m sure we would come up with similar results.

Further breakdown showed that 1 in 50 people have been addicted to drugs, and 1 in 20 have had drug addiction in their direct family.  That boils down to about 3.5 million families who have had to cope everything drug addiction causes - break-ups, continuous upsets and frustration, worry about whether or not the addicted person is even going to be alive the next day, jobs lost, financial ruin, kids taken away by social services, and on and on and on.

It’s no wonder why more and more people are taking antidepressants and tranquilizers - and the drugs people take to cope with the stress are also going to cause addictions.

It’s a mess.

Does someone in your family have a drug problem? Do you need to find a drug rehab program that will work? Call us - we can help.

A doctor in West Virginia recently had her license suspended for treating too many drug addicts with Suboxone. She was limited to 100 patients by law, and she was treating 200. They warned her, but she didn’t get rid of those patients quickly enough and, when we was next investigated, was still treating 170, so her license was suspended.

What was she supposed to do? Tell 100 of the addicts she was treating that she could no longer help them and they’d have to go back on heroin or OxyContin? She was probably the only addiction help they were getting.

Ridiculous situation. West Virginia has one of the biggest opiate problems in the U.S. thanks to Purdue Pharma who targeted that area more than many others to get OxyContin out there.

The area has a high percentage of people living in poverty, and also has a lot of miners who are in pain from on-the-job injuries and illnesses like black lung that go with the mining territory.

It stands to reason that people in that condition are going to have a higher potential for drug addiction than others.

And not many of them are getting addiction help - there’s nowhere near enough help available to service them.

The doctor who was suspended, Lagrimas Sadorra, was, I am sure, the only hope most of those patients had.

Suboxone doesn’t make you high - people who are taking it, even though it may not be in ideal conditions, really want to clean up. And they’re being denied help.

It’s amazing that nothing would have happened to that doctor had she been giving 200 patients OxyContin - but she prescribed a drug that can truly help people, and she’s in trouble.

Do the drug companies control everything?

If you’re looking for addiction help services, give us a call.

A recent letter to the editor of the Empire Tribune is, once again, advocating legalization of drugs. He says prohibition of drugs, not the drugs themselves, are responsible for our drug problem. He references Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, so may be involved in law enforcement himself.

I can well imagine the frustration of law enforcement in handling the drug problem - but I think giving up and deciding to make something legal when it ruins so many lives is a real cop out. No pun intended.

He also said that before prohibition people didn’t overdose. There may be some statistics on that, I don’t know, but they wouldn’t have much credibility from my viewpoint since it’s hard to know how good the records were back in those days. And I don’t know that whatever statistics are available were properly analyzed either. Regardless, people don’t overdose because it’s illegal to take drugs - that implies that they did it on purpose. “Geez, if this were legal I wouldn’t accidentally take enough of it to kill myself.”

Legal or illegal doesn’t really matter. All you have to do is look at the rise in prescription drug addiction to know that. These drugs are completely legal - you go to your doctor to get them. But there are more people showing up in drug rehab centers for prescription drug addiction help than for street drugs these days.

Some of them have also moved onto other drugs. People who became addicted to OxyContin after getting a prescription from their doctor, for example, sometimes turn to heroin when they can no longer get OxyContin legally. Heroin costs a fraction of the price charged for OxyContin when you get it on the street.

Did prohibition of drugs cause their OxyContin addiction? Hardly. It has nothing to do with it. They got addicted because the drugs are addictive. Period.

Maybe it’s true that some people wouldn’t take drugs if they were legal - but I would bet those people are few and far between. The majority would still experiment - just like kids who take medicine out of their parents’ medicine cabinets and dump them in a bowl at a party with a bunch of friends who also brought their parents’ drugs. Do they think they’re doing something illegal? Probably not. They think the drugs are safe because they came from a doctor and probably have no concept that what they’re doing is illegal.

And some of them will get hooked. Will they get hooked because drugs are illegal? No, they’ll get hooked because the drugs are addictive and because they like the way the drugs make them feel.

The writer of the letter to the editor said people should be allowed to do what they want when it comes to drugs. That it’s their life and no one, including the government, has a right to interfere with it.

Unfortunately, in this regard, we do not live alone. Everything we do affects others. The police, of all people, should know that. Is legalizing drugs going to make the mother whose neglected children are being taken away by social services any less stoned?

If the fault lies anywhere in the legal system it’s with the lack of rehabilitation. Insisting on addiction help services for drug-related crime, especially of a non-violent nature, could actually change things. It would also help if there was some form of real rehabilitation of prisoners in general.

What do you think about this issue of legalizing drugs?

Matt Stevens, a British soccer player who was due to play in the 2011 World Cup games in New Zealand, was suspended for taking drugs. He’ll get the addicton help he needs, but since his suspension could be for as long as two years, there’s not much hope he’ll be able to play by that time.

The coach believes it’s due to becoming a celebrity. It’s true that being a celebrity opens doors that may otherwise have been closed, and there may be more temptations - more invitations to take drugs, spending more time in drug-oriented environments - you don’t have to be lined up to play in the World Cup to be offered drugs or to be a celebrity.

Playing football in college, for example, opens you up to the same temptations, and the same celebrity, even though it’s on a smaller scale. If you’re on a popular team, you’re going to be adored by fans and they’ll try to get hooked up with you one way or another - sometimes it’s with an offer of drugs.

In either case - and parents whose kids are going off to (or are in) college and will be (or are) ‘on the team’ should pay special attention to this - the person has to be prepared.

If your son, or daughter, is already taking drugs prior to going to college they should get prepated by getting addiction help services before they go. They already have problems that are driving them to drugs and those problems are likely to get worse in college where the environment is even more challenging.

Treatment for drug addiction or abuse gets down to the bottom of why the person is taking drugs in the first place and addresses those issues so they are no longer a problem. So, when they are offered drugs in college, they’re more likely to be able to say no.

Parents hope that going to college will straighten their kids out. But exactly the opposite is often true. Any problems they have now will be magnified. Get addiction help before they go - don’t wait until the problem is worse.

When a person has a problem with drugs or alcohol they’re sometimes not motivated to do anything about it. Despite the fact that they may be temporarily numbed to the issues that drove them to addiction in the first place, those issues are still there. They couldn’t cope with them before, so what reason do they have to think they can cope with them now? That’s why people need someone else to take the reins and get them addiction help.

Once they’re there, get off the drugs or stop drinking for a while, they can get into actual alcohol or drug rehab then they’ll start to change their mind. That is - if they get into a program that will find and directly address the things the person was having trouble with and help them figure out how to live happily.

But until they get into addressing those problems, they may not have enough motivation to find addiction help on their own.

Sometimes a disastrous occurence in life is enough to spur them on. People have been known to just quit, cold turkey, when the motivation is high enough. But that’s pretty unusual - they may want to quit but when they start going through withdrawal, the pain or discomfort pushes them in the other direction. And getting off some drugs, and even alcohol, can be pretty painful.

At Alternative Choices, the drug rehab program run by the drug court in Tooele County, Utah, there stands a suit of armor at the entry way. The message? “Prepare for Battle” The people doing this program have motivation - rehab or prison. And the program works well - 85% of those who start actually hang in there and graduate.

Your son, daughter, spouse, family member or friend, hopefully, will not need the threat of prison to get help, but expecting them to do it on their own is like expecting someone with the flu - fever, chills, aches and pains all over the place and exhausted - to run a marathon.

They need you to do the running for them until they’re up to it. At Addiction Help Services we can help you find the help, and strength, you need.

Every once in a while I get a comment from someone who tells me drug rehab doesn’t work. I don’t know what kind of addiction help they’re actually getting in the facilities they’ve been to, but there are studies galore showing otherwise.

The latest was published in the Scientific American. It’s a review of several studies on drug rehab - and they were done on people who’d been in prison; pretty hard core heroin addicts who you would think would be the most difficult to help.

What did the studies find? Addicts who don’t get treatment in prison are seven times more likely to become addicted to heroin after they leave prison, and three times more likely to commit another crime and go back to prison.

Fortunately, not all people who use drugs are in prison. But if you’ve ever been told, even by someone who’s been through rehab, that it doesn’t work - this should give you hope.

However, it is important to find the right program for your situation. Addiction Help Services can help you do that.

I’m constantly scanning the news looking for information on the drug scene. A few times a week I see news items about funding being cut for drug courts and other programs aimed at rehabilitation. These programs not only get people the addiction help they need, they also cut down on crime considerably since a lot of crimes are committed either because the person was on drugs or was trying to get them - or get money for them.

It amazes me how little focus there is in the U.S. on rehabilitation. True, there are millions of dollars put into drug prevention programs here and there, and some put into rehabilitation, but considering that we have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other country, and much of the crime is drug-related, and it’s more expensive to imprison someone than to rehabilitate them, you’d think the government would make some serious changes.

We’ve been imprisoning people for non-violent drug-related crime for a long time. Obviously, it’s not working. If it were we’d have few people in prison, not more.

I’d like to hear others’ ideas about why our country is so oriented towards punishment instead of rehabilitation. And what it will take to get the government oriented toward addiction help services instead of simply imprisoning them and then sending them back out into the world with even more problems than they came in with

Merry Christmas!!! Time to visit friends and family, have some good meals, wrap and unwrap presents - overall a great time. But many people’s Christmas is marred by family members who drink or take drugs. If they’re drinkers, they’ll probably drink even more during Christmas because whatever pressures they feel that drive them to drinking in the first place are intensified by the holiday season. And the fact that others around them are usually also drinking doesn’t help.

For those who have a problem with drugs, whether or not they’ll take them on Christmas depends on how serious that problem is. As with alcohol, someone who really needs addiction help probably won’t be able to stop themselves for Christmas any more than they can during the rest of the year. So, if you’re expecting your son or daughter to show up drug-free, realize that the problem may be out of their control and don’t expect too much.

Am I bringing you down? Had you hoped to have a wonderful Christmas where you didn’t have to think about those problems? Sorry about that. But I’m not the one bringing you down - what’s weighing on you is not my words, it’s the fact that your son, daughter, husband, wife, other relative or friend, has an alcohol or drug problem that’s not being taken care of.

It’s not going to go away, even if I don’t talk about it.

However, you will feel better if you resolve to do something about it and actually take steps in that direction.

If you don’t want another Christmas like this one, like those you’ve had in the past, get that person addiction help services they need. Call us over Christmas and we’ll arrange something. Think what it would be like to not have this problem and be able to get back to living normally without that constant worry and frustration.

A few months ago a mother who was having a drug party at her house gave her two-year old some methadone to shut her up. The methadone killed her daughter. The judge suspended his 10-year sentence in favor of five years’ probation with the proviso that the woman get addiction help.

So, she’s in the treatment center but has now tested positive for alcohol and has broken a few other rules. Her probation hearing is coming up soon, her lawyer will ask for another chance at drug rehab.

Earlier, the woman complained that the process was moving too slowly. That it was holding her up.

Excuse me? You just killed your kid! That’s called murder. You’re lucky you’re not in jail for life.

Chances are not good for this woman as far as I can see. Now on top of everything else she has to face up to about herself, she also has to confront the fact that she murdered her daughter. That’s going to take a hefty dose of responsibility. But she can’t even keep herself from drinking alcohol in an addiction treatment center.

Most people who are addicted to drugs are really deserving of help. But they have to step up to the plate themselves as well. It doesn’t sound to me like she’s doing that.

It’s true, drug addiction is almost impossible to overcome on your own steam. You need help. But when killing your own kid doesn’t raise your necessity to really take advantage of the fact that you have addiction help available to you, I’d say you might be too far gone.

Maybe she feels she has nothing else to lose.

Not too long ago she asked for her kids to be taken away from her because she knew she wasn’t a good mother. That should have raised some red flags with someone enough to insist she get addiction help. If she didn’t want it, she probably wouldn’t have reported herself - like a criminal who wants to get caught.

Not only didn’t she get help, she was also unable to arrange for help for her daughter. Now her daughter’s dead.

What a mess.

Do you know anyone that seems to be heading in that direction? Get them some addiction help services now. And make sure they go to a center that’s not set up to enable alcohol to get into the place.

According to a new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 5 million people in the U.S. are currently attending alcohol and drug addiction self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and so on. About 45% of the participants said they had been clean for the month prior to the study, and about 33% said they’d attended a drug rehab facility of some sort prior to going to the self-help groups.

I would think that those who attended the alcohol or drug rehab facility first would be more likely to also be the people who are staying clean.

There are several advantages to getting addiction help services in a residential treatment center before attending this type of meeting.

A good center helps you get through withdrawal and would also include some kind of nutritional and exercise program that would start to repair some of the physical damage.

It would also offer counselling as to why you got into drinking and taking drugs in the first place, and a program that would help you change the aspects of your life that need changing so you’re not tempted to get back into it.

The next step is always support of some sort when you leave. Especially if you’re going back into an environment where people drink and take drugs - you’ve got to find some people who don’t. That’s where AA, NA and similar groups come in.

Addiction Help Services can help you find a drug rehab facility or other treatment center that’s suitable for your needs, as well as a support group to help you afterwards.