AHS Views

It’s the day after Christmas. I’ll bet there are millions of people in the U.S. – and around the world – who wish they’d made sure that someone in their family had gotten addiction help before the holidays. Well, it’s not too late, and it’s never too early, to make it happen.

I remember many Christmases from my young years. Although the mornings were great – basically a happy family having breakfast, opening presents and so on – as the day wore on and the drinking started, the spirit was kind of ruined for some of us. Either someone in the household or someone who was visiting got nasty or way too melancholy – sometimes to the point of crying over everything they regret or how nice people were being to them and they didn’t deserve it – or there were fights, upsets, and so on.

This wasn’t just my family – it was also the families of many of my friends in our middle class neighborhood.

And then there was me when I was older. Showing up at my parent’s place stoned on one drug or another, or leaving early because I couldn’t stand going without drugs any longer.

Sometimes there were no drugs on Christmas day but, since my mother didn’t see me that often in those bad times, she wanted to talk about it. She was so happy to see me straight – but, at the same time, you could see the sadness behind her smile, she knew things were ‘normal’ just for the day.

It broke her heart. And worried her to no end.

Fortunately, I got off drugs shortly thereafter and that was followed by decades of a very good relationship. I never got into trouble after that, never gave her anything to worry about. It was my mother who first took the initiative to get me into drug rehab for the addiction help I needed. And once I got off drugs, I never went back. The treatment program was excellent, very successful, and deserves a lot of the credit for my never relapsing. And that’s why it’s important to choose the right drug rehab program.

But several years were wasted. Frankly, I was lucky to have lived through those drugs days. Many of my friends and acquaintances didn’t. And many of those who did were never able to re-establish their family and other relationship – they’d burned their bridges.

Do you want to save your kids? Your spouse? Your family? Your marriage? Your relationships?

Call Addiction Help Services – our experienced counselors have helped thousands of people from all walks of life and with all different types of alcohol and drug problems. They will help you find the right alcohol and drug addiction treatment program for your situation. And do it now, don’t delay as you probably have so many times in the past. Things aren’t going to change, except to get worse, unless something is done.

Do it now, and next year’s holidays will be what you really want them to be.

You would think that schools would be a relatively safe place when it comes to drugs and alcohol. At the very least, you would expect that if you can educate and protect your kids from other kids who drink and take drugs, and sell them, you wouldn’t have much to worry about. And if you can stop them from drinking and taking drugs early in life, there’s a far less chance you’ll have to find alcohol or drug addiction help for them when they get older.

But, unfortunately, protecting your kids from other kids who drink and take drugs is not the only problem – even teachers sometimes give student alcohol and drugs.

Almost every week in the news you see teachers involved with selling drugs to students.

This week it was a special education teacher (of all things) who was also a softball coach. A woman.

According to the report: “This was all after hours, off school property. It was with the presence of this teacher on a couple of occasions and then also at another third location where the teacher was actually given the money and brought alcohol and then also was there while alcohol was being consumed by these minor students,” said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

One of the parents found text messages between their daughter and the teacher and reported it to the authorities. After investigation, the teacher was charged with five different offenses. She has now resigned and is awaiting trial – out on $5,000 bail.

Another report was about a teacher addicted to heroin. Another woman, and only 25 years old. She and a partner stole 22 computers from Pittsburgh’s Creative and Performing Arts high school to buy drugs.

She wasn’t caught until she and the same partner, an ex-boyfriend, tried to rob a bank. She then confessed to the computer thefts as well as some thefts of personal items from neighbor’s homes.

We used to be able to look up to teachers. They were the go-to people when there was any trouble. And they could be depended upon to set a good example to our kids. Now we know that they might need drug rehab as badly as some of their students – or worse.

Some teachers in universities and colleges even condone the use of prescription drugs – so called ‘study drugs’ like Adderall and Ritalin.

So when you’re educating your kids about drugs, don’t just paint the picture of drug dealers and drug users being unsavory characters that hang out in dark alleys.

Drug abusers come in all shapes and sizes, and from every walk of life.

Kids who drink a little or take drugs are much more likely to use them as much or even more when they go to university or college. Alcohol, and some drugs, are so acceptable in colleges that they are encouraged by the culture to step things up. As they do so, they’re even more likely to become heavy drinkers and alcoholics when they get out of school and a significant percentage of them will need professional alcohol or drug addiction help to quit.

Fortunately, many universities and colleges are now offering alcohol and drug education. University of Western Washington is one of the latest to step up to the plate and offer these services for all students, including those who have just arrived.

They will also soon be putting up ‘informative’ posters around their campus and on student doors and will have advisers going to classrooms to talk to the new students.
They’re basing this on a study done about 10 years ago – the actions done included putting door-knockers on dorms and ads in a campus newspaper. It reduced alcoholism by 20 percent over the three years that the campaign ran.

It’s too bad that school resources, which are often short to begin with, have to be spent on this kind of deterrent – parents are paying for their kids to go to college for an education that will set them up to do well in their life careers, not to get them to stop drinking or not get caught up in the drinking culture in their school.

But, really, it’s going to come down to the parents. Parents have to be aware that they have to handle the problem well before university comes around.

The younger kids start to drink, the higher the chances they’ll continue.

If you can keep them from drinking while in their early and mid-teens, the chances of them remaining sober are 50% greater than if they drank or took drugs at that age.

If you can keep them from drinking in high school, there’s less chance they will fall prey to the alcohol culture when they get into college.

And, if they can avoid getting into the alcohol or drug culture in college, they’re less likely to drink when they leave.

But it’s really vital that parents start this at a very young age. Kids are exposed to drinking and drugs at a very young age; they need to be prepared. They need to already understand the dangers of what they would be getting into if they drank or took drugs BEFORE they are offered them.

There are many resources available to help parents educate their kids – just look online for alcohol or drug education and the info will be there.

And if you can’t keep them from drinking or taking drugs, you must get them into a good drug or alcohol rehab program as soon as possible – one that will give them that education, and get down to the bottom of why they’re taking drugs or drinking in the first place, and help them with those issues so they can stop – regardless of their environment.

Of course, one of the best ways to learn is by example. If parents don’t use alcohol or drugs as solutions to problems or to ‘have a good time’, the kids are more likely to follow in their footsteps.

This applies to prescription drugs as well as street drugs. Prescription drug addiction is now just as common as with other drugs.

Bottom line: If you look for non-drug solutions to enhance your own physical and emotional well-being, and teach your kids to do the same, you’re off to a very good start.

Alcohol and drugs ruin lives. They are now so common and available that teaching your kids about them is a vital step in raising them.

I recently read a news item about a ‘head shop’ in Duluth, Minnesota. Head shops carry drug paraphernalia – incense, pipes, certain music, posters, and so on. The head shop in this story – called ‘Last Place on Earth’ – also carries ‘drugs’. In fact, they are not yet classified as drugs; the substances are dangerous chemicals that mimic the effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, LSD, etc. They are being called ‘designer drugs.’ Unfortunately, they are not yet illegal – although they will be very soon. The people who make them, sell them, and simply possess them will then be breaking the law. And it’s a good thing. These chemicals are causing very serious physical and mental conditions, and the people using them are in serious need of addiction help.

The news item about the head shop began: “On many mornings, it looks like it’s the hottest business in downtown Duluth. Dozens of customers line up in front of the Last Place on Earth head shop on Superior Street to buy designer drugs, including herbal incense — sold as a legal alternative to marijuana — with names such as No Name, Armageddon and DOA, and bath salts called Insurrection and Lunar Eclipse. Some of the fidgety customers look like they’re waiting to get into a soup kitchen. Others look like your next-door neighbor. The products they are seeking to buy are comprised of a class of chemicals perceived as legally mimicking cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine.”

Reports regarding the dangerous effects of these chemicals are mounting. The number of reports to the Poison Control Center went from 0 in 2009, to 302 in 2010, and to 2,237 in just the first six months 2011.

There have been 20 calls in the last month in the Duluth area alone. A police sergeant describes his experience with people using these chemicals/drugs: “My personal experience is that it looks like a really bad trip on meth to me. People hallucinate and have very erratic behavior. Paranoia. Very uncontrolled. They sometimes have violence toward themselves and toward others. Just very, very odd.”

A doctor at just one local hospital says he sees two to ten people a week coming into the ER for problems with these ‘designer drugs’. “People snort it, or mostly inject it, it seems, in the arm, or whatever vein they can access depending on whatever their drug history is. The last one I saw was somebody who had been using it and brought in by police. They had two (officers) to restrain him. He had high blood pressure, high pulse, screaming, really struggling with police that required him to be sedated and admitted to the hospital.”

He also said that the drugs can cause seizures, kidney failure and death, and that there have been many reports about people “being so psychotic and hallucinating that they cut themselves with knives.”

The owner of the store, whose name is Jim Carlson, said he expects to make $6 million this year off these chemicals. He makes no apologies; he told reporters that people have a right to do whatever they want for their ‘enjoyment.’

Right. Here I was thinking that going psychotic, cutting yourself and having seizures and kidney failure was a bad thing!

Mr. Carlson doesn’t use the chemicals himself, says he doesn’t like them. In fact, it appears he doesn’t use any drugs, just has one or two drinks a week.

The DEA is working on making these substances illegal; a temporary measure should be in place by mid-October and will last 12 to 18 months. The permanent law should be passed by then. The chemicals will be classified as “Schedule 1 substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no currently accepted medical use in the U.S.”

Fortunately, we only have to wait until mid-October before people making or selling these chemicals can be prosecuted. As with other drugs, they would also be able to be prosecuted for any harm that comes to someone they sell them to.

One parent, whose son was using these chemicals, said she ‘can’t do anything about it because they’re not illegal.’ Yes, there is something you can do – kids don’t have to be using illegal chemicals to go to a drug rehab program. Making substances illegal illegal won’t help that end of things – the people using them will just find other drugs or chemicals if they can’t get these anymore. What they need is drug rehab.

But when the law does come into affect, I do hope that parents and other family members and friends of the people who have been harmed by these chemicals will take full advantage of their ability to prosecute the manufacturers and pushers.

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.

Florida has the biggest prescription drug abuse problem in the country. Despite that, it does not have a prescription drug monitoring system that will help isolate those getting prescriptions for the purpose of reselling the drugs to others. The monitoring program could put dealers out of business and, for those who are dealing to support their own habit, it may open the door to them getting some addiction help.

Florida was on the brink of implementing the system when Rick Scott, Florida’s new governor was elected. He got in by the narrowest margin in a Florida election in 24 years, and his approval rating has sank so much in just the few months he’s been in office that there’s no chance at all that he would be elected if voters had to do it over again. One of the reasons is that he vetoed the prescription drug monitoring plan.

He first said it was because of the expense. Then, after it was confirmed that NOT ONE CENT of the money would come out of the state’s coffers, he changed his tune and said he’d vetoed it because monitoring people’s prescription drug habits was an invasion of privacy.

It has since come to light that he’s an investor in a chain of about 40 pill mills, whoops, sorry, that’s ‘pain management clinics’, which are a major source of the problem.

Other politicians, lawmakers and the general public are incensed. I’m sure the thousands of Floridians whose family members and friends have been turned into addicts and, worse, overdosed on prescription painkillers and are now in their graves, would like to see him out of office.

Being an owner of pills mills, Scott can pretty much be designated a drug dealer at this point – add that to his other many stellar qualities. He’s obviously just protecting what is probably a very lucrative source of personal income.

Again, prescription drugs, especially painkillers, are a huge problem. Purdue, makers of OxyContin, said that 95% of their business is done in Florida. The company even offered to pay the $ million it would take to implement the system – read ‘public relations’ – trying to make themselves look like the good guys, after having paid out $642 million in fines for their fraudulent marketing of OxyContin – not a sincere desire to sell fewer pills.

Prescription drug abuse is becoming an even bigger problem than street drugs. In fact, in some areas of the country, it’s much worse.

Push for prescription drug monitoring in any way you can and, most importantly for your personal life, don’t hesitate to get any friends and family you suspect may be addicted to painkillers into a drug rehab program asap. Before they become one of the statistics.

In case you’ve been wondering about the new drug called ‘bath salts’, here’s some additional information. By the way, if you have kids or friends who use drugs, you have to warn them about bath salts. A guy who’s been using the drug since December just murdered his girlfriend. Bath salts can cause very strange, erratic and dangerous behavior – get anyone you know who you think might take it, or has, into an addiction help program asap.

Bath salts is a drug that resembles bath salts, rock crystals, hence, its name. The real name of the chemical is Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). It’s a stimulant drug – like speed, methamphetamine, cocaine, and so on – and has an erratic and intense effect.

MDPV has been used in Europe for several years and is banned in the United Kingdom.

The American Association of Poison Control Centers has recorded 1,403 overdoses in the U.S. since late 2010 – just a few months. That’s definitely above the norm.

A single dose of MDPV ranges from 50 mg to 100 mg. You can buy a 500 mg pack in little convenience stores for about $30. A very cheap high that practically anyone can afford.

A single dose can keep a user awake for up to 36 hours and, in addition to the usual euphoria that goes along with most drugs, has side effects that include hypertension, insomnia, nausea and dizziness.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood), who introduced legislation to ban the drug, said “It has a Russian roulette range. Someone may get a raging heart while someone else has psychotic events.” She also said MDPV is associated with self-mutilation and participating in assault.

Steven Marcus, medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center, said “We have people run down the street screaming.”

Other Assemblymen and Senators have also proposed bills, or are about to, to get this drug banned quickly.

MDPV is a real nightmare. When you consider that anyone can get this drug just about anywhere – sometimes even labeled and disguised as real bath salts, the ban can’t be soon enough.

If someone you know takes drugs, warn them about bath salts/Methylenedioxypyrovalerone/MDPV. Better still, get them into drug rehab. One of the unfortunate facts about people on drugs is that they can’t make the right decisions – so they might take bath salts despite warnings. Just get them some help.

Crack-cocaine headlines aren’t as prevalent as they used to be, or as other drug headlines (like meth and marijuana), but nevertheless, they do appear from time to time. I came across one this week, that caught my eye, about a couple of crack-cocaine addicts who made a very bad move. In fact, it was deadly.

A 33 year old crack-cocaine addict and a 25 year old buddy of his found themselves wanting more of the drug, but had no money. They hatched a plan. They decided to set up a drug deal with a crack-cocaine dealer, but instead of paying the dealer, they would just steal the drugs. Easy enough, right?
They had a gun and set up the meeting. One way or another, the plan must have failed, because the drug dealer wound up dead. He was shot and killed.

The two men went on trial this week and the outcome was grim. The 33 year old trigger man will spend the next 40 years in prison for second degree murder. The younger man will also get prison time, 15 years for being an accessory after the fact.

These are young men! My first thought is, would any of this have happened if it weren’t for their addiction to crack-cocaine? This life of crime, eventually spiraling to murder… We won’t ever know, but I’d venture to guess that their lives would be much better if it weren’t for the drugs. And, to top it off, they’re going to spend their young adult lives in prison.

Drugs don’t have to be smoked, snorted or injected to cause tragedy and death. The violence that people cause because of them, can accomplish that. And, unfortunately these two young men will probably never know a normal life because of them.

If you know someone who has a drug problem, get them addiction help! Call today and we will help them find a a drug rehab as soon as possible. It could not only save their life, but the lives of anyone who crosses their path as well.

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.