AHS Views

Ronnell Brandon, a student athlete at Harrisonburg High School, was recently accused of selling drugs to his teammates. Brandon supposedly sold drugs “to take away the pain of hits.”  Since it happened in Virginia and the pills were to take away pain, I’ll make a wild guess and say he was selling OxyContin.  It is alleged that 10 of his teammates used the drugs. If the law of averages holds true, at least two or three of the ten will need drug addiction help.

Authorities have confirmed that coaches had knowledge of the transactions. “It is also apparent that this information and knowledge was known by not only the players themselves but also several coaches of the Harrisonburg High School football (team),” said Harrison Police Sgt. Chris Rush of the Charge Gang Task Force in his affidavit.

The head coach, Tim Sarver, was tipped off on at least two occasions and apparently asked the player about it. Coach Sarver says he hears rumors every year. He also said he checked it out and the player denied it. Another coach, David Long, talked to Brandon and he again denied it. Let me think … hmmmm, a potential drug dealer lying to an authority figure about drug dealing. Shocking. Hopefully, the coaching staff wasn’t more concerned about winning than finding out if student athletes were on drugs. How many kids on that team actually need addiction help and their problem is being ignored to win games?

If you think this is an isolated incident of painkiller abuse in high school sports, well please wake up. Not only are many high school athletes taking drugs – in this school, the 10 players probably represent 20% of the team - a good percentage of them probably even need addiction help.

What does this mean for college and professional sports?  I promise it isn’t going to be a pretty picture. Parents of student athletes should be alert to the possibility of drug use, especially if your son or daughter is injured. This holds true for cheerleaders as well. You don’t want to be looking for addiction help services for your teenager.

Activists Marianne Skolek and Barbara Van Rooyan have targeted Purdue Pharma executives for their role in causing an epidemic of drug addiction in this country by promoting OxyContin as safe. Both women lost a child to OxyContin. They are also accusing the FDA of not acting fast enough or at all to put an end to the problems caused by this dangerous drug. Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, has sued the FDA over their lack of action and irresponsibility. The amount of addiction help needed in several states could cost more than the total fine Purdue paid - $635 million. When you add the cost of investigations, prescription monitoring systems and prison time for OxyContin-related crime to OxyContin addiction, the numbers are just to high to calculate.

The fact that Purdue executives were allowed to get off without any jail time is just the clever work of high-priced lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Look at it this way: In the last 15 days there have been about 50 crimes related to OxyContin reported by local newspapers across the country. In Sacramento, California, Special Agent In Charge, Gordon Taylor, says “we have seen a certain up tick in OxyContin investigations in pretty much the whole region. We typically go out with a whole squad, 10 investigators, more in some cases.” In Tazewell County, Virginia, the DEA estimates that 80 to 95% of the crime is OxyContin related.

But the crime is not isolated to those areas, it has to be happening all over the country all the time. The cost to local police, the FBI and the DEA has to be in the hundreds of millions a year. Yet Purdue pays nothing and receives money for every pill obtained legally or stolen. Why is congress spending time investigating steroid use by a hundred baseball players when the real problem is right under their nose? Drug addiction help services alone will cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars, should Purdue be fined again and made to clean up their mess?

There was an article posted on several news sites today about researchers ‘defining’ the mechanism of addiction to methamphetamine. Not surprisingly, addiction was defined in physical terms. However, although a person does dry out from drugs while doing a drug rehab program or getting any kind of drug addiction help that doesn’t involve taking drugs, and although their brain chemistry will no doubt go through some changes, addressing the changes that happen in someone’s brain after long-term exposure to a drug doesn’t address the reasons why the person started drugs in the first place and why they took them long enough to get addicted - which, by the way, usually doesn’t take long.

There are literally thousands of reasons a person is driven to drugs - maybe they wanted to be accepted by peers, maybe they had an urge to do something others wouldn’t approve of, maybe they felt insecure about something and the drugs numbed or distracted them from that insecurity, maybe they were just bored with life, maybe they were confused, maybe they felt they didn’t have much of a future, maybe they felt pressured, maybe they felt bad because they were overweight - whatever. There is no end to what might be going on in a person’s mind. And what they’re thinking or feeling might not make the slightest bit of sense to someone else.

Many people wonder how some celeb with tons of money, work, admiration, success, friends, and so on, would want to get involved in drugs. I’m sure there are millions of people who read news stories about some celeb in need of addiction help services and think to themselves “They have everything. Why would they possibly want to do that to themselves?”

There’s something behind it, and the chances are pretty slim that that something is not brain chemistry.

If you know someone with a drug problem, make sure the addiction help services they get dig in, find the underlying problem, and help them overcome it. No matter how dried out they get, there’s an excellent chance the person will go back to drugs if they don’t handle the reason they started them in the first place.

Senator Biden is looking into the problems caused by prescription drug addiction, dependency and abuse. He heard testimonies about the most commonly abused drugs - Vicodin, OxyContin, Valium and Xanax – and, according to The Talk Radio News Service, “experts’ testimonies at the hearing were appalling.” The whole situation is appalling and President Bush and others have known about it for years. The amount of addiction help necessary for the American public is staggering.

People are dependent on all of the above drugs and more. And some are switching from things like Vicodin to heroin because they can no longer afford Vicodin or can’t get any more prescriptions.

Biden should look into the manufacturers of these drugs and see if he can figure out why so many drug companies are making so much money. Don’t just point the finger at doctors: Find out why so many prescriptions are being written in Alabama for instance.
Kentucky, West Virginia and Florida have all been hit by this epidemic and more and more people need addiction help because of it.

If you need addiction help services, get them before it’s too late. Deaths from prescription drug overdoses are on the rise.

Hanover Hospital, in Hanover PA, sponsored a ‘town hall’ meeting to educate residents on Hanover’s drug problems. With 30 percent of police department calls directly related to drugs, and 60 - 70 percent indirectly related, Hanover Police Chief Randy Whitson expected a full house. “This room, with the problem that we have, should be standing-room only. This room should be packed,” he said. But the room was almost empty. Unfortunately, the community’s lack of interest may prevent people from getting the addiction help they need.

The police chief’s viewpoint on the war on drugs? “We’re losing,” he said. “We’re losing badly.”

Hanover is not the only area in Pennsylvania with a drug problem, and heroin is the state’s biggest problem - as it is in Hanover. ER visits related to heroin are 3 times higher than the national average, and 36% of people going into treatment for drug addiction help are on heroin - more than any illegal drug in the state.

If you live in Pennsylvania and need help with a drug problem, call Addiction Help Services. We’ll help you find the addiction help you need. 

Addiction help for your cat or your kids? It sounds like it could be funny – but it’s not. Palo Alto High School is in California is a mile from Stanford University and about six miles from Internet juggernaut Google. I would think that in a place like Palo Alto, students would be intelligent and would think things through. But, in this case, I am not sure anyone is really thinking at all. They’re giving drugs to their pets. Should someone tell an animal rights activist and let a group picket Palo Alto High School, or should we just get some addiction help for the kids so they won’t be tempted to give drugs to their pets?

I am certain in Palo Alto a group like that exists and would protest heavily any cruelty to animals.

The cat looks small and the high school students are 14, 15 and 16. Lindsey luckily knows that giving her cat meth would be a bad choice. Apparently some of the students think that ecstasy is ok, but Carson draws the line at acid. “I don’t think it’s bad to give my dog marijuana or any such thing” says Carson. Sheesh, what are you thinking Carson?  You are abusing your dog’s rights.

I guess freshman Lindsey can talk to her cat - she blew marijuana smoke in her cat’s face and knew the cat liked it - there is no other explanation. Lindsey, this may be a surprise but you also are abusing your cat’s rights, no matter what the cat says.

The students, one for one, didn’t think there should be any laws opposing this behavior. But what about their rights, kids?

Then there is Dave, a senior who gave his cat whiskey and watched him stumble around drunk. Susan says her dog ate a sack of marijuana, she doesn’t know how he got it but she, at least, let him sleep.

One voice of reason, Dan Schwartz says “it’s not fair because animals can’t make their own decisions about whether or not to take drugs.,

My guess would be that one or more of these kids will end up with either a drug or alcohol addiction problem. Dave the senior could be fifty-fifty on becoming an alcoholic.

Don’t think because Palo Alto is an affluent area addiction help won’t be needed. If you find yourself wondering what to do about friend or family call Addiction Help Services, we will try and help.

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.

Lindsay Lohan’s checked out of rehab, which is kind of strange since a report just a few days ago said she had been drinking and using cocaine while in rehab and had failed a drug test. Apparently a friend was bringing her vodka in a water bottle. (Great friend. Thanks for the support.) Who knows where she got the coke? If Lindsay’s leaving regardless, she’s making a big mistake. If you want to avoid relapse, you have to stay in drug rehab long enough to actually get off drugs (which she obviously had not if the reports were true), and you have to address the reasons for the drug addiction, and be able to withstand the temptation of relapse.

If Lindsay couldn’t resist drugs and alcohol while she was still in rehab center, you can be certain she won’t be able to do so after she leaves.

Although you can’t force someone into drug rehab unless it’s court-ordered, I think it would be a good idea to get the person coming into rehab to at least sign an agreement that they won’t leave until the professionals at the rehab center have done their jobs. The agreement wouldn’t hold up in court, but it might make the person think twice about leaving before they’re ready. A drug rehab program that included such an agreement would be far more successful and the client’s drug addiction really would be handled.

I read an article today about a man who was stole prescription pain relievers from his terminally ill mother. Stealing drugs from parents isn’t unusual, but this guy’s mom was using fentanyl patches. He was extracting the drug from the patches and then taping the patch back on his mom. How desperate can you get? If you have any doubt about whether or not someone using drugs needs drug rehab, that gives you a clue as to how bad the situation can get.

As a drug counselor, I’ve known many addicts who have done unthinkable things to get drugs. They sell their possessions, or those of their family and friends, they lose their savings, their houses, their cars. Really, there’s nothing they won’t do in their desperate need to get the next hit. And, it’s not unusual. That’s what drug addiction does to you. And without drug rehab, the situation is not going to improve – no matter what the addict tells you.

I’ve also heard a lot of excuses from family members who put up with this sort of thing because they know, or assume, that the addict can’t help themselves. Maybe that’s true – but somebody better do it. If you think that forgiving them and making excuses for them is going to help them get off drugs, think again.

If someone in your life is involved in drugs, get them into drug rehab fast. You may be forgiving, but the rest of the world isn’t. One of these days, that person you love, who you’re making excuses for, will wind up in prison, in the hospital, or in the morgue.

If you really love them, get them into a successful drug rehab program, no matter how much they protest, and no matter how many promises they make that they’re going to stop.