AHS Views

Anyone who watches the news knows about the trials and tribulations of Britney Spears. Now an article reports that her ex-boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, has just released a music video said to tell the story of Spear’s life spiraling out of control leading to her getting addiction help through a stint in drug rehab.

While it is being reported that the video is about celebrity culture in general, as many young celebrities have recently checked into drug addiction treatment recently, the co-writer of the piece, Duran Duran is quoted as saying is it “loosely based on Spears.”

And judging from the girl in the video, dressed in a “Spears inspired” outfit and oversize designer sunglasses, I would say that the video is more than loosely based on the pop star whose time in an addiction treatment program and bizarre behavior since then has caught the attention of the media on an almost daily basis. 

With all of the negative influences on young adults these days through pop culture, and role models such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan possibly making alcohol and drug addiction look attractive and glamorous, this video might be useful to educate kids on the flip side of the story and encourage them to either stay away from drugs, or to get the addiction help services they need.

While no specific numbers have been reported, I would imagine there are several hundred thousand drug addicts out there who are parents. And parents, just like anyone else struggling with substance abuse, often end up needing some type of drug addiction help treatment to handle their addiction.

Unfortunately, when that times comes, many parents will chose to not get the addiction help they need because they know that once they are in a program it will be left up to their families or the state to decide who will take care of their children. Losing or being away from their children can be too much for any parent to bear, even when a parent knows that if they don’t get addiction help they could lose their children permanently.

But what if drug addiction treatment centers provided child care or allowed children of addicts to stay with their addicted parent while they were undergoing substance abuse treatment?

This is actually the plan at a drug addiction treatment center in Oregon. Facilities are being built to accommodate six mothers and their children.

The center is one of the first to offer this option and it may open the door for more addicts to get the addiction help services they need while also enabling mothers to learn to be responsible for their children again in a controlled, drug-free environment.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, teens who smoke cigarettes are nine times more likely to develop a drug addiction than those who don’t smoke. If you don’t discourage kids from smoking cigarettes now, you may be looking for drug addiction help later.

According to the study, nicotine causes changes in brain development, making teenagers more vulnerable to addiction to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. The study also found that smokers are three times more likely to binge drink, 15 times more likely to smoke marijuana and seven times more likely to use drugs like heroin and cocaine.

I’m a former smoker - started smoking cigarettes at age 13 and less than a year later was smoking marijuana. I can’t say that one had anything to do with the other, but the same thing happened to many of my friends. And most of us moved onto harder drugs later in life.

I don’t know what the relationship is between smoking and drugs – it’s possibly that smoking cigarettes opens a door to addiction. After all, almost any smoker who has tried to quit knows that it certainly acts as an addiction, and can even cause withdrawal symptoms.

One more reason to discourage smoking, and one more hint on how to avoid needing drug addiction treatment down the road.

The state of North Carolina is currently investigating 16 methadone-related deaths that occurred in a handful of clinics across the state. According to the Charlotte Observer, the victims went to the clinics for drug addiction help and, instead, lost their lives.

Unfortunately, the 16 deaths being investigated are just the tip of the iceberg: 245 people in North Carolina died from methadone poisoning last year.

If you or someone you care about is looking for addiction help, treatment that gets you addicted to another drug shouldn’t be an option. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who needs to become addicted to methadone or any other replacement drug to handle their heroin addiction. Don’t fall for it. If someone you know isn’t getting the drug addiction help they need, it’s not because they need another drug to replace it, it’s because they haven’t gotten the drug detox and drug rehab that’s right for their situation.

Why people choose this route despite the fact that it doesn’t get people off drugs is beyond me. I know some have been led to believe that heroin addiction, for example, is difficult to overcome but, in reality, it’s not if you have the help you need. I know, I’ve done it.

There are many different options in drug treatment. Your best bet is to contact an experienced drug rehab counselor who can help you find the right addiction help treatment right for your situation.

When it comes right down to it, you’re the only one who’s going to educate your kids on drugs and alcohol and ensure that your kids, family members and others you care about get the drug addiction help they need. And the first thing you have to do is recognize that there is a problem.

An article today about the Kentucky forum on drug abuse, entitled “Not My Child! (Are You Sure?),” featured Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force Director Cheyenne Albro. Winning the war on drugs requires success in three areas, says Albro, enforcement, education and treatment. Law enforcement, while active, is obviously not solving the problem. So, if your kid is in trouble, it’s up to you. “Drug abuse is a devastating disease. It’s got a death grip on our nation. The cure for that disease is you, the public,” said Albro.

‘Not My Child! (Are You Sure?)’ is probably what almost every parent thinks when they hear their kid is doing drugs. It may be just as shocking to you – but, nevertheless, if that’s what’s going on, you need to know about it. And you need to do something about it fast. Drugs ruin lives, and sometimes they end them. Don’t let it happen to someone you love. Contact a drug rehab counselor and get the addiction help treatment you need.

The dangers associated with marijuana have been debated for years. Some say it’s the least harmful of illegal drugs and in California it is even legally prescribed for people with a variety of conditions including anxiety, cancer and multiple sclerosis. But a recent study may cause medical marijuana users as well as those who abuse it to head straight for drug rehab. 

The study, conducted by the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University and reported in Lancet (registration required, but it’s free, and they also have a podcast for the study, or read an article about it), or  showed that marijuana may increase the risk of psychosis by 40 percent. Researchers analyzed 35 studies that tracked tens of thousands of people for one to 27 years to examine the relationship between marijuana use and psychosis, depression, anxiety, delusions and a number of other conditions. In addition to the alarming data on the risk of psychosis for anyone using the drug, researchers found that, for heavy users, the risk of jumps to 200 percent.
 
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug because of its high potential for abuse. Also, per the DEA, it has no currently accepted medical use.

This study should end the debate. Let’s hope people take it to heart, get off the drug, and get into a successful drug rehab program.

I understand Linsday Lohan is back in rehab. And she’s busted again, suspected of driving while intoxicated and possession of cocaine. Here’s the problem with ankle bracelets – they don’t actually stop the person from wanting or needing to drink any more than wearing a watch would stop a heroin addict from wanting or needing a fix. For that you need a successful alcohol and drug rehab program that finds out why the person started on the road to addiction and gets them turned in another direction.

Guidelines, rules, laws, prisons, police sitting in patrol cars on street corners waiting for someone to speed or run a red light, officers patrolling the streets, and even high tech ankle bracelets, do not get rid of alcohol or drug addiction. They act as a deterrent, no doubt about that, but for the true addict, it’s only marginally more effective than putting a chain on an angry dog. The dog is still angry. He still wants to attack you. And he will at the first opportunity. He has to. It isn’t even because he’s a bad dog, he just has to.

Until you find out what’s behind a person’s alcohol or drug addiction problem and get those things squared away, the chances of things changing are very, very slim. And that can only be accomplished by successful alcohol and drug rehab.

A successful drug rehab program is one that works. Brenda Fassie’s story offers a sad lesson in choosing the wrong treatment programs.  

Brenda Fassie, the legendary South African pop singer who sold millions of records across Africa and around the world, died in a Johannesburg hospital on May 9, 2004 after spending 13 days in a coma. The post-mortem said her final dose of cocaine was the cause of death. She was only 39 years old. MaBrrr, as she was affectionately nicknamed by her fans, had tried to resolve her severe addictions over the years at various treatment centers – in fact, more than 30 times – but, unfortunately for MaBrrr and her millions of admirers, she never found a truly successful drug rehab program.

Fassie, the youngest of nine kids, was named after Brenda Lee, the American singer. Her pianist mother let her earn money by singing for tourists in the streets. In 1981 at 16, Fassie left Cape Town to seek her fortune as a singer in Johannesburg’s Soweto district. Soweto, short for “South West Townships”, had long been under the grinding heel of South Africa’s white supremacist apartheid policy. Poverty, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, illness and crime were rampant, and drug rehab facilities as we know them today were virtually unknown. But there was art, there was music, there were night clubs to sing in and a vibrant culture was being created by Soweto’s people. Nelson Mandela lived there for years, as did Bishop Desmond Tutu and other famous black South Africans.

Five years before Fassie arrived, Soweto police opened fire on 10,000 protesting students marching peacefully from Naledi High School to Orlando Stadium. In the events that unfolded, 566 people died. The impact of the Soweto Uprising, as it became known, reverberated throughout the country and around the world. Soweto became the stage for violent state repression and the roaring social and political oven in which Fassie forged the direction of her music – by the mid-‘90s, she was the unequivocal voice of black oppression. But she had also formed a drug addiction so strong that it managed to resist one treatment program after another. And without access to a real drug rehab, Fassie was unable to break the habit.

In 2001 Time magazine dubbed Fassie “The Madonna of the Townships” and indeed she was. Fassie managed to combine ground-breaking musical success with a personal accessibility and human fallibility that drew a fierce loyalty and protectiveness from fans. Her career was studded with record sales and awards, but punctuated also by periodic scandals, recurring battles with drug addiction, and lows in her musical career that saw her written off by the press.

On June 12, 2006, two years after her death, family and friends paid tribute to Fassie at the unveiling of a huge new tombstone at Cape Town’s Langa cemetery. Wreaths from former president Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki – who had both visited her in the hospital where she lay in a coma – were placed on the family grave where Fassie was buried with her mother and father. The family is planning a museum in her honor, where her music and other memorabilia will be displayed. And perhaps most significant is the planned Brenda Fassie Foundation that would financially assist young drug addicts in need of a successful drug rehab program.
 

It seems that the average drug treatment program is getting shorter and shorter. This is largely dictated by what insurance companies will pay, but a simple comparison of success rates and program lengths shows that the most successful drug rehab programs fall into the 90-180 day range.

I have worked with thousands of individuals and families over the years and I am always hearing about previous failed drug rehab attempts. In almost all of these cases, the programs lasted around 30 days. That isn’t even enough time to allow the body to repair itself and get the person feeling better, let alone address the reasons the person started taking drugs.

Addiction doesn’t happen overnight. For drug rehab to be effective, the program must allow enough time to fix the body and handle the issues that got the person there in the first place. It seems simple enough, yet many people look for the quick fix. Sometimes they don’t want to be away from home for that long, or they’re afraid they’ll lose their job - there’s wide variety of reasons. However, regardless of the treatment model used, success rates are almost always higher with longer term treatments. Some of the best advice I could ever give to those looking for help is to ensure that the drug rehab they select is 90 days or longer. Why risk having to do it again? Do it right the first time.

1,200 Massachusetts drug offenders are currently enrolled in the special “drug court” sessions where defendants are given one last chance: Commit to drug addiction treatment — and to intense supervision — and you’ll stay out of jail. Started in the 1990s, it is a program with a demonstrated record of success — addicts who participate re-offend less often, and stay sober longer.

The program grew out of a realization that simple incarceration of offenders with drug addiction issues had been a proven failure. As the number of drug addicts responsible for criminal acts grew — by 1997 about 70 percent of those arrested for crimes nationwide were acknowledged drug users — government and court officials arrived at a consensus that more drug addiction treatment was a better answer. With federal support, some 1,700 drug courts have been established across the country.

Source: www.boston.com