AHS Views

A blog I read recently talked about how parents feel helpless when it comes to their kids drinking or taking drugs. They feel they can’t control it at all. The author’s solution was to start having dinner together. And, believe it or not, actual studies have shown that kids in families who have dinner together are significantly less likely to abuse alcohol, take drugs, and wind up needing addiction help.

Why is having dinner together so effective? Because you are doing something as a family – hopefully, it’s something you all enjoy – and you can have fun, laugh, talk about your day, and so on.

Doing that opens the door to deeper conversations about the important things in life, and to real parenting. Unfortunately our hectic lives leave little time for parenting. Sure, there’s lots of talk and interaction in good homes, but it’s mostly rushed – on the way to one thing or another, trying to get your kids to get ready faster, dropping them off at school or social and extra-curricular activities, , and so on.

But there’s generally not much actual communication: Not much in the way of sit-down discussions where parents and kids are talking about things that matter. Where parents are finding out how their kids feel about certain things, what’s really going on in their lives, who they’re hanging out with, who and what they like and dislike and why, what their goals and aspirations are.

These talks should include discussions about things that can get kids into trouble – including alcohol and drugs – and what will help them succeed in life.

Talks about drugs should include their exposure to drugs – do they know kids who take drugs or drink, have they been offered drugs or alcohol, and so on – and how they feel about them and what they know about them.

Parents are responsible for learning about drugs and educating their kids – not lecturing them, but educating with facts. Facts about the perils of drugs and alcohol are easy to come by, and are dramatic enough to be pretty convincing and have an effect. Gradually teach them more and more, and occasionally, when you see news stories about something bad happening from alcohol or drugs – especially to someone the kids might admire like a sports figure or musician – let them know about it.

When do you start having these discussions? Really, it’s never too early. Kids are exposed to drugs and alcohol by the time they’re 9 or 10 years old. There are 13-year-old addicts. And don’t wait until there is trouble. Statistics show that kids are involved in drugs for about two years before parents find out about it.

The other important thing to remember is that the earlier kids get involved in drugs or alcohol, the greater the chances are that they’ll become addicts and eventually need a drug rehab program. So, as I said, it’s never really too soon to educate them. And the more they know, the more able they’ll be to make an informed decision about drugs when they’re exposed to them. And they will be – no matter what kind of home, school or environment they grow up in.

So, start with dinner. If you’re not already having dinner together, make it a household rule. And take it from there.

Can addiction help really change your life? Have a look at Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller. Brooke was very messed up on drugs, and Charlie (hate to say it) had pretty much gone off the deep end. Now Brooke’s getting drug rehab, Charlie’s helping her through it, and he’s getting clean himself. Now they seem to be more than friends – it looks like they’re even talking about getting back together. Since they have two kids, they would also have the family they once had.

A lot of people assume that others will never, ever forgive them for the things they said and did while on drugs and alcohol. But this is a good example of how people can not only forgive, they can also restore trust.

There will be exceptions to this, of course. But it’s not always the fault of the former addict – there are some people who tend to just hold onto things, they never really forgive, never really trust.

I would venture to say that people like that are not the best people to have a relationship with anyway – regardless of whether drugs or alcohol were ever a problem. Neither would be happy, and one person would be constantly reminded, usually by the other person, of what they’ve done wrong.

In fact, having unhealthy relationships – relationships with people who make you feel bad in some way, feel guilty, not up to their standards or with whom there always seems to be some kind of trouble – can be a big reason why people take drugs or drink in the first place.

When someone is going through an alcohol or drug treatment program, one of the steps they should take before they leave the program (and the best drug rehab programs do this) is to do an assessment of the people in their lives to see what relationships are really good for them, and which are not. Bad relationships can really make it hard for the former addict to stay clean and change their lives.

At this point, the Brooke and Charlie relationship seems to be very supportive and worth having. They’re helping each other get through what surely must be the worst times of their lives.

Let’s hope both of them make it, and they wind up back together or, at least, very good friends.

New designer drugs are scary – and there aren’t too many more frightening than Crocodile, a designer drug taking Russia by storm. If Crocodile doesn’t kill you, you may be seriously impaired for the rest of your life. Will Crocodile make it to the U.S. and other countries? If it does, or if you or someone you know already has a drug problem and may be tempted to try Crocodile, it’s time to get addiction help – FAST.

People who take Crocodile regularly don’t usually live more than two or three years. Even those who manage to live through it and then get off the drug can suffer serious damage.

In the case of Pavlova, who recently entered a drug rehab program in a small village in Russia, the damage was something you would never expect. According to Andrei Yatsenko, the house manager of the drug program, Pavlova had “developed a speech impediment, and her pale blue eyes have something of a lobotomy patient’s vacant gaze, her motor skills are shot from the brain damage. She’ll try to walk forward and instead jolts back into something.”

The drug is nicknamed Crocodile because the skin turns greenish and scaly at the injection sites – anywhere from the feet to the forehead. The blood vessels burst and surrounding tissue dies. Bone tissue is destroyed by the drug’s acidity. This combination often results in gangrene or amputation. Pavlova went into rehab when, after a two-week binge, she started to develop gangrene in her groin, where she was injecting, and had blood poisoning. She was rushed to the emergency room where, fortunately, a representative of the drug rehab invited her to get addiction help.

Medical experts consider it somewhat of a miracle that she is still alive.

Pavlova is 27 years old; she started using drugs many years ago. First with a tar-like substance cooked from poppy seeds, a form of opium, then with heroin. But Crocodile costs 1/3 the price of heroin and is easy to make.

Crocodile is considered the ‘dirty cousin’ of morphine, but the active ingredient is codeine. The real problem is what it’s mixed with – things like gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous which, believe it or not, is scraped from the striking pads on matchboxes. Can you imagine that concoction being injected into your veins?

As of last year, estimates say that up to a million people in Russia may be doing just that.

One of the worst problems with drugs is that someone who is high, or already addicted to something – as Pavlova was to heroin – or even just feeling like they want to experiment, will take just about anything. And they are usually not told what’s in it, or what it could do.

That is one very important reason to get anyone who is already taking drugs – even if they’re not addicted – through a good drug rehab program as soon as possible. And those who want to experiment should be educated so they know what they could be getting into.

It is not unusual to look at killing sprees and find drugs somewhere in the background. Often, the drugs in question are ‘psychiatric’ drugs – you never know what’s going to happen when people are taking them or when they try to get off them. In the case of the horrible scene in Tucson, where Gabrielle Gifford and 16 others were shot and several killed, the drug in question was also a legal drug, although not a pharmaceutical. The shooter, Jared Loughner, had a history of taking drugs. Would addiction help have prevented this disaster?

Loughner is only 22 years old. He was experimenting with drugs in his teens. The usual – marijuana – but also hallucinogenic mushrooms and an herb known as salvia divinorum, the effects of which mimic psychosis.

There’s no question that Loughner’s actions on that fateful day in Tucson were psychotic.

Salvia divinorum, also known as Salvia, is not illegal – although that is likely to change in the near future now that this killing spree has called attention to it. No one really knows how long it was since Loughner last smoked the drug, but reports say that he took quite a lot of it in the past and, as with other hallucinogens, the effects can last a long time – years – and you never really know when the person will ‘re-live’ them.

If you know of anyone who is using Salvia, or hear the word being tossed around with your teenage kids, make them aware of the potential effects and, if they have been taking drugs of other sorts, get them through a good drug rehab program. A good program will help get the drugs out of their system to help prevent re-living the experience in the future as well as addressing their reasons for taking drugs.

We would like to hear from readers who have experience with Salvia.

This week, a woman who was flying into Ohio from California got nabbed for drug trafficking. This type of arrest is fairly common these days, you can read all over the news, stories about people involved in traffic stops or other means of travel, winding up with drug charges.

What caught my eye in this story was the fact that the woman, and an entourage of 3 other individuals, had flown into an Ohio airport on a charter plane with 13 suitcases. Some of which were too heavy for one man to carry alone. Hello?… Could she possibly be any more obvious?  Did she actually think she wouldn’t get caught?

She was caught and it turns out she was trafficking bricks of pot, cocaine, drug paraphernalia and suspected drug ledgers that showed drug transactions equaling about $300,000. So, this was no small operation.

The woman is now in jail and facing up to forty years in prison, as well as up to $2 million in fines. Considering the fact that she said she was paid $60,000 by a friend to transport the suitcases, I’m sure she’s now thinking it wasn’t really that good of a deal for her.

Drug trafficking is and has been a very serious problem all over the world for decades. It’s what feeds drug addiction, which is at epidemic levels everywhere you turn.  In Russia alone, eighty people die every day due to drug abuse, just to mention one statistic.

I think it would be wise to give the drug trafficking woman a pretty hefty jail sentence, and anyone else who gets caught, for that matter. In other countries, drug trafficking is punishable by death. Forty years in prison seems pretty reasonable when you think about it from that perspective. It’s not a small crime and it contributes to so many deaths everywhere.

Methadone is commonly given to heroin addicts (as well as morphine and other opioid users) to “treat” their dependence and withdrawal symptoms. It is prescribed to addicts every day, all over the US. It’s considered a way of helping people to get past their addiction and dependence to illegal street drugs.

The unfortunate thing about methadone is that it’s just as addicting, if not more so, than the heroin that they were shooting up, snorting or smoking. Once patients are given methadone, they just keep getting prescribed. This can go on for years and years – it’s called methadone maintenance.

What’s really fascinating to me is that it takes about a week to get through heroin detox. And, it can be done with other means, like vitamins, healthy diet, other alternative drugs that are less addicting and much easier to wean off of (in some cases), and the patient can fully rid their body of the powerful drug.

My question is, why on earth would you want to move to a different addictive drug, to become a slave to and dependent on, instead of a week of heroin detox? It has also been proven that methadone detox can be worse for patients than that of heroin. Would you really want to go stand in line for your methadone every day for years and years?

If I really take a look at this problem, it would appear that most people make the switch from the illegal drugs to methadone because it’s offered as “help” to addicts from the government. And, while I believe that the intentions are not horrible, the solution that has been put in place certainly is.

What if, and this is a big what if, the government used the resources that pay for methadone, to actually provide detox and addiction help facilities for addicts instead of drugging them? If you want to stop taking heroin, you go to treatment and properly go through the steps of drug detox and then drug rehab. What a concept, right? To actually get people fully off of drugs…

If you’ve ever found yourself looking for detox or rehab services, especially state funded programs, I’m sure you’ve experienced trouble locating an open bed. I personally hear the heartbreaking stories of families who don’t have enough money for private pay rehab, who have no options, on a daily basis. What’s available to the opioid addicts? Currently the answer is more drugs.

Have you ever heard of “non-addictive” drugs? Sounds a bit like an oxymoron to me, but there are many drugs in existence today, both legal and illegal, which claim to be just that – non-habit forming.
Pharmaceutical companies have come out with “non-narcotic” forms of pain and insomnia relief like Ambien and Ultram that are “safe when used as directed and non-addictive” yet the amount of people getting hooked on these prescription drugs continues to rise. Even though they say “non-narcotic”, if you read the fine print, it actually says there is “some” risk for dependency. And, even worse, allergic reactions, in rare instances, can be fatal!

There’s actually nothing new about pharmaceutical companies coming out with new non-addictive drugs. In the 1850’s, when opium addiction first reared its ugly head in the United States, morphine was used as a non-addictive alternative until it was banned in the 1920’s because of its addictive properties.

Then, there’s marijuana. There have been statements that this illegal drug is a “non-addictive” and “non-harmful” one, yet it’s one of the most abused drugs in the country.

How about LSD? Another drug said to be “non-addictive”, which is in fact one of the most harmful drugs out there. It can cause long-term damage to users as well as flashbacks (where a portion of their LSD experience reoccurs). People who abuse frequently can build a tolerance and require more and more of the drug to achieve the desired effect. It can also cause long-lasting psychoses. After using LSD and experiencing their first high, many people take it over and over again, in spite of the negative effects that are associated with the drug.

My point is that drugs alter the senses and perceptions. They create a high in the user and continue the cycle of the user wanting to take the drugs to achieve the desired effect. In many cases, it takes more and more of the drug to reach that high so the tolerance level also rises. This is true of all drugs – from LSD to marijuana to legal prescription drugs and replacement drug therapies that are so heavily promoted routinely.

Calling these drugs “non-addictive” is not only downright false, but is easily proven untrue. Not only with illegal drugs like marijuana and LSD but also with legally approved drugs like anti-depressants, prescription pain killers and replacement drug therapies.

If these drugs were non-addictive, as claimed, why does the number of people becoming addicted to them continue to increase? And why are alternative drugs being produced to “help” ease addiction symptoms? Take a hard look at the facts; you’ll realize that “non-addictive” drugs simply do not exist.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a simple answer to that question? With so many illegal drugs on the scene, the answer to that question becomes relative to viewpoint and what kind of damage is caused, whether it is physical damage, emotional pain and suffering, damage to the family, cost involved, or a combination of any of these.

There is no question about how deadly crack cocain, heroin and meth are, but it has been suggested that hallucinogens like LSD (acid) are the ones with the worst lingering effects. This is because they alter the mind and its perceptions, and people can have “acid flashbacks” for many years after they stopped taking the drug.

In the hallucinogen class of drugs, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is one of the major players. Like the name of this drug class suggests, hallucinogens cause hallucinations, which are greatly alters a person’s perception of reality. Under the influence of hallucinogens, people can see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem very real but do not exist. Some hallucinogens also produce rapid, intense emotional swings.

LSD’s effects are unpredictable and can be different each time the drug is consumed. They depend on how much is taken, the user’s personality, mood, expectations and their surroundings where the drug is used. Generally, the user will feel the first effects of the drug about 30 minutes after taking it. The physical effects include dilated pupils, higher body temperature, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dry mouth, and tremors.

Most of the time, a user will refer to their LSD experience as a “trip” and when it is a frightening experience it’s called a “bad trip”. The effects of this drug take quite awhile to wear off after taking it. A trip can last around 12 hours. Users on a bad trip can experience severe and terrifying thoughts and feelings, fear of losing control, even fear of insanity, death and despair. Some fatal accidents have taken place during states of LSD intoxication and people have been known to get stuck in a bad trip and display extreme psychosis or paranoia.

Most LSD users willingly decrease or stop its use over time. Since LSD doesn’t produce intense physical cravings like other drugs, it’s not considered to be a drug that people have to get addiction help for. However, a user can still build a tolerance to the drug, requiring larger amounts of the toxin to be consumed to experience another trip.

In more recent years, use of hallucinogens, especially LSD, has decreased. It seems to be catching on that it is one of the worst drugs, as evidenced by the drop in usage. Why risk becoming a vegetable? It doesn’t seem worth it!

I’m reading an autobiography that takes place largely in Mumbai, known at the time as Bombay, India. It strikes me as similar to recent descriptions of Broward County, Florida, the new painkiller capitol of the U.S., where thousands of pills are handed out to local residents every day and thousands more are sold to people travelling to Florida specifically to get pills they can then take home to other states to sell in their part of the country. So-called pain clinics protected by armed guards openly and legally dealing narcotics like OxyContin have probably already killed thousands of people and ruined the lives of millions. Only the lucky ones make it to a drug rehab program where they can get help.

Fortunately, Florida has finally approved the electronic prescription drug monitoring system to track these prescriptions and one day soon we hope that many of these guys – they’re actually M.D.s – will be out of business.

But it’s going to leave some people in desparate circumstances. There will still be doctors around they can get painkillers from if they legitimately need them, but those who don’t are going to be facing very serious withdrawal symptoms or they’re going to switch to street drugs – like heroin – to continue their addiction.

Thousands of people will need drug addiction help as they can no longer get their drugs. If you know someone in this position, call Addiction Help Services. We can help you find a suitable facility to get them off drugs safely and end their addiction.