AHS Views

Kelly Osbourne said in a recent interview that she regrets having put her parents, Sharon and Ozzie, through ‘drug hell.’ Kelly was addicted to prescription painkillers for five years and went through three stints in drug rehab before she finally got the addiction help she needed and sorted herself out.

Now she’s looking back with remorse, realizing how difficult things were for her parents while she was on drugs. It makes you wonder why, if kids care so much about their parents and feel so bad about putting them through all that, why didn’t they think of that before they got into such trouble?

In the case of Kelly, and Sharon and Ozzie, I don’t know them other than their public persona. But I do know that a lot of teens and young adults don’t seem to be too aware that their parents are actually people – parents go through the same emotions as their kids. Maybe not about the same things, but that doesn’t mean they hurt any less.

Instead, kids seem to think of their parents as the people who pay for things, make sure there’s food in the house, and provide drives to school and extra-curricular or social activities.

They’re also the people who have to give permission to do just about anything other than the daily routine.

So how are you supposed to influence your kids so they either don’t get into drugs in the first place or, if they do experiment and get into trouble, talk to you about it so you can help them get into drug rehab or otherwise get through the problem quickly?

Believe it or not, one of the first steps is treating your kids the way you would like to be treated. Realizing that most parents have the same problems recognizing that their kids have the same emotions they do. Just the same, but the situation is reversed.

When you realize that about your kids, when you start listening to them and stop treating them as if what they think and feel doesn’t really matter, then they will also start listening to you. And you can educate them about drugs, etc.

It’s all about communication. And good communication starts with recognizing that what someone else thinks and feels and wants to do is important to them – even if you don’t agree with those things. The same goes for kids; they might not understand why it’s important for you to do some of the things you do either, but they should still respect it – as you should respect them.

That is the beginning of making sure your kids don’t get into trouble and, if they do, it doesn’t get serious – they have you to turn to and to talk to.

Now that more people in Kentucky are dying from prescription drug abuse and addiction than from car wrecks, lawmakers and a lot of other people are desperate to find ways to get the situation under control. Having more addiction help facilities and treatment programs available is one very good thing, but there’s a lot more to be done.

For example, one of the major problems we have to get a handle on is helping doctors figure out who is getting prescriptions from them just to get high or to sell the drugs to others. It will also tell them about patients who have a legitimate reason for being on a drug, but have been now taking it for far too long. They need to stop either because they’re already addicted, or they will become addicted very soon. A good example of this is people who started taking OxyContin and other painkillers after surgery, an injury, etc. They get hooked on the drug and are still taking it despite the fact that they no longer really need it for that injury. In other words, they are now dealing with OxyContin addiction.

To help in this, a bill was just passed requiring that all doctors use the prescription drug monitoring system – an electronic database hooked up to other doctors, pharmacies, hospitals, out-patient clinics and anywhere else a person could get prescription drugs legally. When the doctors check this database, they can see which patients have been getting which drugs from whom and how often. Along with examining and speaking with the patient, they can use this info to determine whether or not the patient really needs the drug for medical reasons – other than addiction.

Part of the bill also put this database into the hands of the attorney-generals office so they could also use it to monitor doctors who are over-prescribing. Hard to believe, but it’s true, that unethical doctors are one of the big problems leading to prescription drug addiction.

That part of the bill was not passed, however, maybe just the fact that the unethical doctors are in this database and that other doctors, as well as pharmacists, hospital staff, nurses, and so on, are going to be digging into the database as they treat patients, will be enough to make them back off a little.

In any case, at least using the prescription drug monitoring system will help some.

This might not seem like great news for those who are hooked on prescription drugs but, in fact, it is. With people dying from these drugs left, right and center, anything that can help get you off them
is good.

In the last 10 years, the number of people trying to get into a Kentucky drug rehab facility has increased by 900 percent. In 2010 alone, nearly 26,000 people were admitted to addiction help centers. But so many more people need help – 26,000 is just a drop in the bucket.

Kentucky has one of the worst drug addiction problems in the U.S. Prescription drug addiction is especially bad. OxyContin addiction, for example, really took off there as so many people were suffering from chronic pain. They got prescriptions from their doctor, now they’re addicted, and they need OxyContin rehab.

A lot of these people are also out of work. True, the area is depressed economically, but there are also a lot of jobs around. The problem is that employers are having trouble finding people who qualify for the jobs because of their drug use.

Getting a job isn’t the only problem the drug use is causing. A recent report also said that most of the children in the state who die or almost die from abuse or neglect are from homes that are coping with alcohol or drug abuse. Very, very sad.

The good news for them is that Medicaid is soon to cover the cost of addiction help, and as many of the people who need it are out of a job, they will qualify for government assistance.

The Kentucky governor proposed to add $11.6 million in Medicaid specifically to help with the addiction problem in the area. That will treat another 4,500 people. Plus, they’re going to increase that budget to $14.9 million next year, which will bring the number of people they can get through drug rehab up to nearly 5,000.

Hopefully, that will also make thousands of people eligible for employment, which means they’ll have a chance to turn their lives around.

Also, when the government starts helping people get the alcohol or drug addiction treatment they need, they’re first going to focus on parents with young children.

If you’re living in Kentucky and need addiction help, or know someone who does, make sure you check with the government. The extra money for Medicaid isn’t fully approved yet, but should be soon. Give the governor’s office a call and they’ll give you more information.

It’s amazing to hear stories of recovery, even more amazing to hear about a former addict’s background. It’s often nothing like you would expect. Fortunately, addiction help can really turn lives around.

One recent story is about a woman who came from an even better than normal childhood. She was a member of the student council, and getting ready for college when she started using alcohol and marijuana. That was in her early teens.

By the time she was further on in high school, she started with cocaine and prescription drugs. Then, while in college, ended up on heroin.

It’s not unusual for people who have taken prescription drugs – especially painkillers – to wind up on heroin. An OxyContin addiction, for example, can be extremely expensive. The pills can cost up to $60 each, and it’s common to take a few every day. Obviously, most college kids can’t afford that. Heroin, on the other hand, can be purchased for $5 a hit. Most heroin addicts have two or three hits a day, sometimes more.

So .. it’s a lot less expensive, but even $30 or $45 a day is still more than most people can afford to spend on drugs. Thank heaven for small blessings.

For this girl, who called herself Jamie, not her real name, it was too expensive. She was caught stealing at work – she supported her habit with theft – lost her job, and wound up going before a judge in drug court. Fortunately, she was given the opportunity to go to drug rehab rather than going to prison.

Jamie is now drug free, has a new job, is reunited with her family, and life is back to normal.

Do you have a son, daughter, spouse or good friend with a drug problem?

Don’t wait for them to wind up in court, get them into an addiction help program now.

The lead medical examiner in Brevard County, Florida recently said that when he is called out to investigate a death that does not involve a shooting, stabbing or motor vehicle accident, there’s a good chance that drugs are involved. But he’s not referring to street drugs like heroin, cocaine, or meth – he’s talking about oxycodone (trade name OxyContin.) In fact, he said that it’s so common, “You can almost guess when you go to the scene” that oxycodone was a factor. Prescription drug addiction help could have prevented many of these deaths.

In the last few years, hundreds of deaths in his county have been directly attributed to OxyContin, and hundreds more have involved OxyContin although the drug was not listed as the cause of death.

And that’s just one of Florida’s 67 counties, and not necessarily the worst one.

Here we are, spending $ billions on the War on Drugs – with the focus on illegal drug manufacture, transport, sales, etc. etc. – and the worst enemy we have is turning out to be the drugs made legally and prescribed for literally millions of people every day.

In fact, these drugs present a far more dangerous situation than illegal drugs ever have – especially because people consider that, since they are prescribed by doctors, they are safe. And people are not properly warned of just how addictive these drugs are.

Another factor creating this problem is the drug culture that has been created by the medical establishment. It’s an unfortunate fact that drugs have become the solution to many problems that could be – and should be – addressed successfully without drugs.

The “Just Say No’ campaign focuses on street drugs. You’re supposed to just say no when someone approaches you in the schoolyard or at a party or on the street. But what about just saying no to your doctor? What about demanding that your doctor come up with a less dangerous solution to your problems?

Really, there are so many people who are dealing with OxyContin addiction, and addiction to other prescription painkillers as well as other prescription drugs, that it could make a huge difference if we just said no when our doctors suggest drugs as the only solution.

It would also create a huge, and positive, effect on kids if they didn’t watch their parents taking drugs as solutions to pain, sleeplessness, anxiety, stress, tension, and so on. What if those parents were teaching kids to find the root cause of and deal with their problems? What if parents set that kind of example and, at the same time, educated their kids on why drugs shouldn’t be a solution.

It’s a proven fact that kids whose parents educate them like this are 50 percent less likely to get involved in drugs themselves.

It’s time to broaden the “Just Say No” concept. Start with yourself. Start with your doctor. If we demand better solutions, doctors will be forced to find them, and to refer us to health practitioners who can really help. We can then start turning around the prescription drug addiction epidemic.

If someone in your family already had a problem with prescription drugs, get them into drug rehab before they become one of the statistics.

Why did Wall Street need bail-outs? Would you trust an industry or profession in which 90% of the workers either used cocaine or accepted it? Well, that’s exactly what the Drug Enforcement Agency found in an undercover drug operation in Wall Street. Maybe if more of these guys got the addiction help they need, things in the country would be saner, more ethical and just.

According to a report in the New York Post, “Many of the drug buyers were Wall Street traders, brokers and bankers who liked to spend their nights getting high after the market spent the day going low,” the Post said. They also reported that T.G.I. Friday, a restaurant in New York’s Financial District, was shut down by police after they discovered that the restaurant was linked to cocaine deals.

Another report in The Wall Street Journal said that drug testing revealed cocaine in 7 percent of tests. This is less than it was a few years ago, but employees and counselors on Wall Street said usage hasn’t decreased at all – it’s just that the testing is now announced before it happens. Which, of course, gives anyone the opportunity to stop taking the drugs soon enough to know that they’re not in their system at the time of the test.

In fact, a hiring manager at a major New York bank told a Reuters reporter that “Our drug test is not so much a test of whether you actually take drugs as it is an intelligence test to see if you can figure out how long it takes to get traces of the drug out of your system.”

The director of a local drug rehab facility said they’re ‘crammed’ with Wall Street coke addicts. Several other counselors, in other facilities, said that the Wall Street guys feel they’re entitled to the drugs since they work in a high stress industry. Another counselor said that not much gets done about the drug problem – that as long as someone shows up to work and does their job, they’d have to catch on fire for anyone to decide to do something about it.

Like it or not, the U.S. is pretty much run by Wall Street, along with a handful of multi-billion dollar industries like big pharma – which also have financial gain as their motivation.

In the meantime, the ordinary guy on the street faces the consequences of the financial crises that are caused by the Wall Street drug addicts.

The Wall Street drug problem isn’t new, there have been investigations of one sort or another going on for over 20 years. A lot of people have been arrested, including 114 dealers in the Financial District.

I can well imagine that someone who works on Wall Street doesn’t disclose the fact that they’re on drugs to their family. They probably explain away their symptoms to their wives, husbands, kids, etc., as the consequences of having a stressful job.

Do you live with someone who works on Wall Street? If so, don’t ignore their erratic or unusual behavior. Dig deep, and get them into a drug rehab program. Despite what they think, taking drugs is not making the situation any better. And it will get worse and worse the longer they keep taking them.

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.

Officials in Tennessee are predicting a surge in heroin addiction. Why? Is there a bumper crop of poppies in Afghanistan? Have the Mexican drug cartels pumped up their marketing efforts or lowered their heroin prices? No. It’s because there are so many people suffering from OxyContin addiction and addiction to other painkillers and prescription drugs, and those drugs are SO expensive, that the addicts are switching to heroin.

Why aren’t they just getting addiction help to overcome their problem? Well, that’s the nature of addiction; people don’t just walk into a drug addiction treatment center because they can no longer afford to support their addiction. They find ways to get the money – usually illegal and dangerous – or they find cheaper drugs.

Are we talking about druggies shooting up in alleys? No. We’re talking about the middle class – white collar workers and high school and college students coming from nice homes.

They tend to snort or smoke heroin instead of injecting it – that makes it more socially acceptable AND they have the false idea that if you don’t inject it, it’s less addictive – and dealers will even deliver to their homes, offices and dorm rooms.

It’s a regular gourmet take-out and delivery.

And instead of paying $30 to $80 per pill for OxyContin, hydrocodone or other prescription drugs, they only pay $10.

Prescription drug addiction is more common than you might think. It’s epidemic all over the U.S., and there’s a good chance that someone you are close to has a prescription drug addiction or abuse problem – your kids, some of their friends, your nieces or nephews, even your spouse.

If you need addiction help for prescription drugs – for yourself or anyone else – contact Addiction Help Services. Don’t let your family and friends turn into heroin addicts. Now is the time to help them change their lives.

Everyone who’s ever looked into the drug problem at all has heard about ‘crack babies’ – babies born to mothers who used crack cocaine while they were pregnant. It was, and is, a huge problem. Now, the same thing is happening with prescription drugs. It’s a very good reason for women who could become pregnant to get addiction help as soon as possible. But there is one thing that experts overlook – they say that the problem is with mothers who ‘abuse’ prescription drugs, prescription drug addicts. But does that mean that children of mothers who take their prescription drugs as directed are safe?

Hardly. In fact, many of the people taking prescription drugs – as directed by their doctor – are actually addicts. They’re not ‘abusing’ the drugs, but if they tried to stop taking them they would realize that they are in big trouble.

They would go through the withdrawal symptoms for that drug – feeling depressed or anxious, heart rate up, blood pressure up, they would feel nauseous, achey and flu-like – the list of symptoms is long. And some of them are actually medically dangerous.

Many people don’t realize they’re addicted to a prescription drug until they try to get off them. They also often misread the symptoms – they think that because it makes them feel bad to stop taking the drug, they actually need them. Often, they don’t. It’s just withdrawal.

If you’re taking prescription drugs as directed by your doctor, and those drugs are not medically necessary for a life-threatening condition – e.g. if you’re taking painkillers, sedatives, tranquilizers, and that sort of thing – and if there’s a chance you could become pregnant, it is possible that a doctor would say it is fine to stop taking those drugs. If so, you could look into the possibility of getting some addiction help to ensure your baby is safe and born healthy.

A good drug rehab facility will have you checked out by a doctor to make sure it’s okay to come off the drugs, and then help you through it.

I recently read an article about the prescription drug addiction problem in a certain state. There was a big task force formed by the police, various addiction help facilities and a number of other groups. One of the government officials in the town was quoted as saying that he didn’t think there was a prescription drug addiction problem, that there was no evidence of it. Boy, does this guy have his head in the sand. All you have to do is call a few addiction help facilities and you’ll find that is not the case.

The facts are all over the place – they’re even published by various government agencies. Saying that prescription drug addiction is not a problem is like telling us the Holocaust never happened. Get real.

While it’s true that most people taking prescription drugs – as prescribed by their doctor – use them for the purpose for which their doctor intended them (and even those people can easily get addicted) the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 20 percent of Americans use prescription drugs for non-medical reasons.

Also, a 2009 study found that 16 million Americans ages 12 and older took prescription drugs for non-medical purposes at least once in the prior year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration.

And if anyone thinks these drugs are not addictive, why have addiction help facilities been inundated with people suffering from OxyContin addiction, Xanax addiction, and addiction to other tranquilizers and sedatives and even speed like Ritalin and Adderall?

The pill mills in Florida – which give away OxyContin and other painkillers like candy and have become huge legal suppliers for prescription drug addicts all up the eastern seaboard – are currently the subject of legislation.

Police reports from all across the country say that prescription drug addiction and abuse is becoming more and more of a problem in their area.

I can’t imagine why anyone would think it’s not an issue. Whatever ………..

The truth is this – prescription drug addiction IS epidemic. Kids are getting them from their parents’ medicine cabinets, pain clinics are handing them out like candy, people are going from one doctor to another faking symptoms to get more pills, thefts from pharmacies and other legit suppliers are becoming increasingly common, and even seniors are dealing them – watch the news.

Don’t let some blind politician make you feel that prescription drugs are safe – and if you have a problem with them, or there’s a problem with someone you care about, get into a drug rehab center.