AHS Views

Anyone who’s been a teenager knows that it can be kind of tough. It’s can be very hard to hold your own - be who you are - under peer pressure. What makes it even harder is that many kids don’t really know who they are yet. They’re like leaves blown by the wind. One of the most prevalent winds these days is prescription drugs - and if they do wind up taking them, they may need addiction help.

Here are some somewhat startling facts - courtesy of Connect With Kids:

• The largest group that abuses prescription drugs is young adults aged 18 to 25. The second largest is 12 to 17 year olds.
• 6.8 million teens (nearly one third of the U.S. teen population) think prescription drugs are not addictive - even if they didn’t get them from their doctor.
• 4.5 million teens say they’ve taken prescription drugs that were not prescribed to them.
• More than one in three teens feel pressured to abuse prescription drugs and nearly one in ten say that taking prescription drugs is important if you want to fit in. 

I don’t know how many of the 18 to 25 year olds started when they were younger but statistics show that the younger you start the greater the chances of you continuing. A lot of these young adults will need addiction help before they finally stop taking them.

Parents, you need to know this information and take it seriously. Find out if your kids - no matter what their age group - are using prescription drugs. And find the addiction help services that can help them before it goes too far. With one third of kids thinking these drugs are not addictive, they’re likely to get hooked without even being aware of what’s happening.  They’re also likely to combine one drug with another - that has caused a shocking number of deaths.

Get them the addiction help services they need fast. If you think there might be a problem but you’re not sure, or you’re not sure what to do about it, call Addiction Help Services. One of the addiction specialists can help you.

Here is the heartbreaking story of a man whose 17-year-old son died from a drug overdose. The boy, Harrison, was the model kid. He and his dad had great rapport, they had a great family, but Harrison took a prescription painkiller, the same kind that are in the medicine cabinets of 10s of millions of homes across America and, when he mixed it with a common cold medicine he was taking, it killed him. He had apparently been taking the painkillers to get high. No one knew about it, and no one made sure he got the addiction help he needed. Had they done so, he would be alive today.

Harrison’s dad says that the problem is that people just don’t understand the dangers of these drugs. They realize that someone taking illegal drugs is in danger and wouldn’t even hesitate to get them addiction help, they don’t realize that a kid, or an adult, taking prescription painkillers that come from a doctor could actually kill you - especially when combined with other drugs (yes, including other prescription drugs), or with alcohol.

Harrison obviously had a problem his parents didn’t know about. It’s clear from the article written by his father that they would have made sure he got the addiction help he needed. How many other parents are out there in the same situation? You can be that with 2,500 kids trying prescription drugs every day for the first time - to get high - it’s i the millions. And millions are at risk.

If you think someone in your family may be at risk, or already know they are, call Addiction Help Services. They can help you figure out what to do about it.

Heroin is more common than you think. That is, if you’re a parent. The kids definitely know about it. In fact, along with OxyContin and Vicodin - which are basically the same as heroin - it is becoming a widely used drug of choice. Where we used to think of heroin users as a the strung out, wasted guy in the alley, we’re now dealing with “honor-roll students, drama-club students, kids playing school sports,” says Pierrette Farber, a drug expert in Hudson Valley, NY who sees kids who need drug addiction help every day.

The scariest thing about it is the kids’ attitude - they don’t think trying heroin is that bad. And one user said that a popular anti-drug site is just government propaganda. Wouldn’t you like to find out who told him that?

One user featured in the article has now been free of heroin for 75 days. He started in his teens - crushing and snorting things like OxyContin and now, years later, he’s trying to get straight. He has tried many times and finally asked a friend for help. With his friend’s help, he got into drug detox. His description of detox is a pretty clear statement of why most people who try to get off heroin can’t do it: “Every single of part of your body aches for weeks,” he says. “It’s like the flu times 100.”

In fact, it doesn’t have to be that bad if you go to a medical drug detox center. A good one can actually help you detox in relative comfort and in a short period of time. After that you need to get addiction help through drug rehab to get to the bottom of why you became addicted so it won’t happen again.

Parents - you’ve really got to check out your kids. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your kid would never do anything like that. I can guarantee you that most of the parents who’s kids are now in need of addiction help services thought the same thing. Check them out very thoroughly, and get them sorted out fast.

A recent news article says that students may need to be drug tested during exams -  they’re talking about the drugs recently hailed by surveyed scientists as enhancing focus. One scientist even justified it by saying that, as a scientist, his job is to serve humanity and he’ll do anything he has to to make sure he does that job as well as possible. Yeah, right. Influence a bunch of kids to take drugs - that’s really serving humanity. I’d be inclined to get this guy some addiction help.

Taking drugs in school to enhance focus and concentration is just one more off-shoot of the prescription drug epidemic that is sweeping America.

There used to be a sense of pride in being able to excel on your own steam. Or even be able to handle life on your own steam - not head for the bottle or the medicine cabinet when things got a little rough. Are those days over? 

Just like the athlete who refuses to take drugs and is proud that his accomplishments are not aided by a force other than his own, academics should also use their own brain power - not that of a drug. Why is it not okay for an athlete to take performance-enhancing drugs when it seems to be perfectly okay for a scientist?

In any case, one thing is certain, more drugs equals more need for addiction help services. Whatever the benefits of these drugs, they are also addictive.

Do you remember Skittles? I don’t know if they still make them - little candies that look a bit like M & Ms, no chococate, just fruit flavored chewy candies. Well, if you hear your kid talking about skittles, they’re probably not talking about candy - they’re talking about prescription drugs. And there’s a good chance that, in the future, they’ll be talking about getting addiction help.

Read the story about two Kentucky teenagers, 16 and 17 years old, who started using drugs when they were just turned 13.  They began with alcohol, moved to over-the-counter drugs, and then to the prescription drugs they found in their own medicine cabinet. They eventually settled on OxyContin as their drug of choice and both are currently getting the prescription drug addiction help they need through drug rehab.

Most of the kids who do this think the drugs are safe - they’re in their own family medicine cabinet. Either their parents or other family members are taking them, or have them left over from when they had an operation or illness.

The partnership for a drug free America nationwide says one in five teenagers say they abuse prescription pills to get high.

In Kentucky, one in ten teens say they pop pills to get high.

Indiana is the 5th highest state for people 12 and older abusing prescription drugs.

“Open your medicine cabinet and look inside and there’s probably something somebody can use… especially combined with alcohol or some other kind of substance that they can use to get high,” says Van Ingram, KY Office of Drug Policy Control.

Do your kids a favor - get rid of the drugs before you need to help them find addiction help services.

In a period of just three months, 16 people died from drug overdoses in Barrow County, Georgia. 13 of them died from an overdose of prescription drugs and the majority of those were related to OxyContin. Many of those lives could have been saved if they’d received the addiction help they needed.

A prescription drug addiction counsellor commented that prescription painkiller abuse is rampant in Barrow and in other areas of metro Atlanta.

A child advocate from a Barrow County agency said that more and more of the parents of kids she’s trying to help have parents who are addicted to prescription drugs. “The parents are usually sleeping or high or out getting the drugs,” she said.

Prescription drugs kind of creep up on you. People think they’re safe because they come from a doctor. But they’re just as dangerous and addictive as street drugs. Unfortunately, many people don’t find that out until they’re already hooked.

Make sure anyone you know who is taking prescription painkillers gets the addiction help services they need before their problem becomes serious.

Winchester, a New England town, has launched a campaign to protect its citizens from prescription drugs. The Winchester Medication Take Back Program encourages those with prescription drugs in their medicine cabinet to clean them out and turn them in. The idea is to keep drugs out of the water supply and landfills, and to stop young people from experimenting with them - which can lead to the need for addiction help, or worse.

 ”Unfortunately, we’re seeing more young people go down a path that’s difficult to come back from,” Liz Silva of the Substance Abuse Coalition told wbztv.com. The article goes on to say that “drug experimentation is a destructive path that often begins in a medicine cabinet at home. It’s a path that ends with addiction and sometimes death. In Winchester police are seeing teens experimenting with prescription drugs like oxycodone. ”

Winchester is not the only town with the problem - it’s happening all over the U.S.  Kids getting drugs from their parents’ medicine cabinets also sometimes wind up giving them to other kids or taking them to parties where the drugs are dumped into a bowl and everyone just takes what they want. Getting off the drugs can be hard without professional addiction help.

Of course, the kids need to be educated on the dangers of prescription drugs but, in the meantime, making them inaccessible is a good solution. Let’s hope other towns adopt a similar program - there would be a lot less need for addiction help services, and our kids would be safe.

According to a report by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, the states with the highest percentage of its citizens addicted to prescription drugs are Tennessee and West Virginia. West Virginia just took over the number one spot, and drug rehab centers will probably be inundated with people needing addiction help. 

We’ve talked about “West Virginia and OxyContin” in this blog in the past, as well as “Tennessee and OxyContin.” You could also talk about “Florida and OxyContin.” in fact, you could pretty much relate OxyContin to any state in the country.

You can also say “Kids and OxyContin.”

One young lady named Jenninfer, from yet another state, Ohio, landed in drug detox at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in January 2007. Neither Jennifer’s parents nor teachers knew she needed any addiction help. Jennifer’s parents were lucky; Jennifer came forward and told them she was addicted to OxyContin.

Jennifer’s not the only kid in trouble in Ohio - 50 other children also received drug detox in Children’s Hospital in 2007. “Ohio and OxyContin.”

Fifty kids from Columbus going through drug detox should be an eye opener for parents. Keep your prescription drugs out of the reach of your kids. And get them the addiction help services they need if they’ve already discovered them.

Laconia, New Hampshire, where eight people died last year from methadone, is playing hardball. The man who sold the methadone to one of the victims has been sentenced to a minimum of 15 years - which could turn into 40. He will be able to get out after 10 years if he gets addiction help through a substance abuse program.

While it’s good to see someone being held responsible for this tragedy, I can’t help but think of the all the hundreds or thousands of people dying from OxyContin overdoses while the Purdue execs are snug in their beds. How come they aren’t also in prison? They not only sold the OxyContin to those people, they even lied about how dangerous the drug is.

The way I see it, this is a travesty of justice.  I’m still hoping they will be further prosecuted or made to do more to fix the problem they created. Helping get people the addiction help services they need would be a good start.

In Glenn Falls, New York, heroin abuse is on the rise. According to Police Chief, Joe Bethal, the problem may be caused by people switching from OxyContin and other prescription painkillers to heroin when what they really need is addiction help.

“One of the reasons may be because of prescription drug abuse. The pharmaceutical companies have manufactured quite a large amount of prescription opiate-based painkillers and we know they’re out there in the homes and the medicine cabinets,” said Chief Bethal.

He hit the nail right on the head. Pharmaceutical companies (Purdue Pharma, when it comes to OxyContin) are producing endless amounts of pain killers, and they will sell as many as they can.

If you can sell OxyContin to 34 internet pharmacies - enough OxyContin to fill 100 million prescriptions - you know there isn’t any discrimination. Anyone can become addicted to prescription pain killers. Warren County Undersheriff Robert Swan said, “It’s not just seen in one area, one group or a specific gender. It covers everyone”. Switching from prescription painkillers to heroin is a bad choice. As the Chief says, getting addiction help services is not a crime.