AHS Views

Having listened to Obama speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention I can’t help but hope he will actually make some of the changes needed in this country to help eliminate the real sources of drug addiction and make sure people get the addiction help they need.

Many people don’t realize that they have a drug problem. They see ads on TV describing conditions that sound somewhat like theirs, find out what drug to take, ask their doctor - who doesn’t really have time to study up on drugs and didn’t learn much about them in medical school - if they can try it, and the doctor gives it to them. Next thing you know, the patient has a drug problem and needs drug addiction help.

Where did the problem start? With the ad on TV that fed the patient the diagnosis and prescribed the treatment. The doctor was simply the middle man. And that’s what I hope Obama, or someone, will do something about.

If you or someone you care about is one of the millions of people who’ve been diagnosed and treated by drug companies and have a drug problem as a result, find the addiction help services you need.

I don’t watch an awful lot of television but I read the White House press release today about National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month - it’s September - and wondered in just what media the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign is being run. If it’s been on television, there certainly hasn’t been enough of it to stand out - I don’t remember seeing anything at all. Nothing about taking drugs, nothing about addiction help, and yet we’re supposedly hard at work in the war against drugs.

The press release talks about prescription drug abuse. But it seems to specifically relate to children, and prevention. Yes, kids have to be reached. But what about addiction help for those who already have a problem? There’s also a recovery program that gives vouchers to people to get the addiction help of their choice. I don’t know the details but I’d bet my bottom dollar those choices don’t include long-term residential drug rehab with is about the only really effective addiction help you can get. So, of the 200,000 people who’ve been helped through the program, how many actually made it?

The release also mentioned doing drug testing in schools. The problem is there’s far too little testing going on and they don’t actually test for prescription drugs - which is probably one of the reasons they’re becoming popular.

The press release goes on and on about all the work being done, but nothing’s the nail on the head. We could make some real headway, for example, if the drug companies were stopped from advertising directly to consumers. The government wouldn’t allow a drug dealer to sell heroin on TV - why is it okay for a drug company to advertise what is basically the same drug?

Really, I don’t know how regulatory bodies can be oblivious to the situation. And if they’re not, if the people involved know what’s going on, how do they sleep at night? Day after day people are dying from prescription drug addiction and abuse, it’s all over the news, you can’t miss it, and yet our legal pushers, the drug companies, continue to stay in business. Do we really need the drug companies to tell us what’s wrong with us and what drugs we need to fix it? I don’t think so. When will someone stop them?

When you consider the magnitude of addiction help needed - for the millions of people all over the country - getting 200,000 people through a mediocre program just doesn’t cut it. When are we going to get real about this? You can’t kill a herd of elephants with a water pistol.

In the meantime, it’s every man for himself. If someone you care about is in trouble with drugs, get them the addiction help services they need.

In the town of Fort Frances, Ontario, just across the border from Minnesota, there are about 60 people on methadone maintenance. Last year there were seven. The town has a population of a little over 8,000. According to a local pharmacist, more and more Fort Frances residents who have trouble ending their addiction to heroin, OxyContin and other opioids are turning to methadone rather than getting the addiction help they need.

The pharmacist doesn’t see methadone maintenance as an addiction or as something that requires addiction help. But just because you get your drugs from a doctor instead of on the street, just because you don’t have to share needles, doesn’t mean you’re not addicted. It simply means you’ve found a way to satisfy your addiction that is more convenient and more acceptable. But you still need addiction help. In fact, methadone is highly addictive.

The pharmacist also thinks that someone on methadone maintenance doesn’t experience the “obsession that comes while moving from one high to the next,” and that it’s easier to get off methadone than the original drugs.

He’s wrong on both counts: Getting off methadone can be even harder than heroin or OxyContin and, even though the methadone user may not experience the same ‘high’ as with those other drugs, they still through the outrageous withdrawal symptoms that manifest in the obsession he’s referring to if their dose is delayed.

This pharmacist, I am sure, is encouraging people to go onto methadone maintenance instead of getting the addiction help they need. He sees it as a real solution. It is a solution to something - but not drug addiction.

I’m sure he’s probably well meaning, but he is, after all, a pharmacist and, obviously, believes drugs have much to offer. True in many situations. But one thing you can’t get out of drugs is a solution to drug addiction. For that, you need real addiction help services. If you need addiction help, give us a call. We’ll help you really get off drugs.

“This is the age of medication”, said Dr. Steven Jaffe. “I have a thousand parents who say, ‘I didn’t know how much my child was into.” That’s right. They’re really into medication - the kind they find in their own homes, steal from the family medicine cabinet and share with their friends. And the number of teens doing this is far beyond what any parent would probably think. There are millions of them - and some are going to wind up with a prescription drug addiction problem that requires professional addiction help.

In other words, your kids could basically be drug addicts right now. And you don’t even know about it.

In a recent article about prescription drug addiction and abuse, 17-year- old Kat Peterson says she took Percocet, Valium, Xanax and anything else she could get her hands on. She also said at first she didn’t think they were dangerous because “why would the doctor prescribe them if they were dangerous?”

And, she added, “I didn’t even care about the danger of it; that had no effect on me.”

That’s what teens and young adults are thinking. And that’s what they’re doing. Educate them, get involved in their lives, and if you find out they’re already taking prescription drugs, get them addiction help services before it’s too late. Professional addiction help can get them off drugs, but they need it fast. The death toll is rising.  

Saturn Noriega, writer, CEO andformer Chicago politican, wrote an article recently in which he referred to “America’s fastest growing problem - an insatiable hunger for illegal drugs. ” The article praises drug testing in schools as a way to ‘help protect the innocent and straighten out the guilty’ before they wind up in jail or in need of addiction help.

Spot on, with one exception - while millions of Americans are still using illegal drugs, the real love affair seems to be with prescrption drugs. The school drug testing programs rarely include prescription drugs so no one knows the person is taking them until they get to the point where they need addiction help, a trip to the ER, or the undertaker.

The fact that prescription drugs aren’t tested for in schools is probably a big selling point for someone who wants to get high but doesn’t want to get caught. That, and the fact that you can just get them out of your parents (or a friend’s) medicine cabinet, and they don’t have a tell-tale odor like marijuana, meth and some other drugs, make them ideal.

And that’s why we have a prescription drug addiction and abuse epidemic and why more and more people are seeking addiction help for those drugs,  not the kind you get ‘on the street.’

Well, that’s not really why - the real reason is whatever is behind a person preferring a drugged state instead of reality. But that’s another story.

Until school drug testing includes prescription drugs, the number of kids taking drugs and needing addiction help services will continue. And, by the way, read Noriega’s very concise and insightful article into the drug scene.

Ever since Russia opened up to the rest of the world, the country has had a drug problem. Russia has been corrupt in several ways for a long time, but drugs was not one of them. Now they have a heroin addiction problem. Some drug ’specialists’ in Russia are advocating methadone treatment, but most consider it almost a killing offense to even suggest it. Generally, methadone treatment is not considered addiction help, it’s trading addiction to one opiate for another.

Perhaps the relative absence of Big Pharma in Russia - that is, compared to the U.S., where Big Pharma has shaped the country into a nation of drug takers and legal drug dealing is the country’s most profitable industry - allows the Russian officials to see methadone treatment for what it really is. Here’s a quote from a recent story in the NY Times: “Methadone opponents in Russia say the therapy entraps patients in lifelong addiction; others accuse Western countries of pushing the treatment on Russia for commercial gain. There are also fears that methadone could seep into the black market, given the high level of corruption at many Russian clinics. ”

There are plenty of methadone treatment dissenters in the U.S., but, culturally, we are so used to drugs being the solution for just about everything that it’s easily accepted. As is prescription drug addiction of other kinds. Russia is looking at the cold, hard facts. Successful drug addiction help services mean getting the person off drugs, not onto another one.

Make sure you listen to Larry G’s Prescription Drug Addiction radio show this Sunday. We’ll be hearing from pharmacists (Larry G’s profession for 30 years) with their take on the prescription drug epidemic and what can be done about it. Maybe this show will motivate people to get the addiction help they need, and preventing addiction for others.

It’s good to see medical professionals getting involved in educating people about the dangers of prescription drugs. However, even they have to be educated - especially physicians. Many doctors depend on the drug companies to tell them all about drugs, what they’re for, what they can do, and how they can help their patients. Unfortunately, that’s about all they tell them - and that’s large part of the problem.

If someone you care about might have a problem with prescription drug addiction, get them the drug addiction help services they need today. And tune into Larry G on WGUL 860 AM on Sunday night, July 20 - 9:05 p.m. Eastern, streamed live on the Internet at www.860wgul.com.

“People using these (prescription drugs) recreationally have no idea what they’re getting into,” emergency room physician Dr. Lawrence Wilson commented after yet another Texas prescription drug death. One more reason to ensure that anyone taking prescription drugs gets the addiction help they need before they, too, end up in the hospital or the morgue.

The patient in question, a young adult, had come into the ER with a prescription drug overdose and, as far as the doctor could tell, she left in stable condition and things seemed under control. But it appears she died from a combination of prescription drugs. What the doctor obviously was not aware of was that this person needed addiction help. Not even the overdose was enough motivation for her to stop.

That’s because she was addicted - she needed professional addiction help services.

Bill Irving, a local alcohol and drug abuse counselor, says prescription drug abuse is “so accepted right now it scares me to death.”

Where are people getting these drugs? Many are getting them right out of the medicine cabinet but according to Dante Sorianello, a Texas DEA agent, adults and teens often get prescription pads and write their own prescriptions. Or they pretend they’re in pain then go to several doctors with the same symptoms to get more than one prescription. Or they get them on the Internet - with 70% of Internet pharmacies you don’t even need a prescription to get the drugs and it doesn’t matter how old you are.

They use the drugs themselves and give or sell them to others.

But it’s all much harder to control than street drugs because it’s buried within the medical system - officials are used to looking on the street.

There are plenty of addiction help services available in Texas and across the U.S.  Check with a specialist to find out which one is best for your situation.

I realized something today - people don’t understand addiction well enough to know when someone they know is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Here’s an interesting article about recognizing drug addiction that might shed some light on it. The article defines drug addiction as “the compulsive and continued use of a drug, or the loss of control over its use, despite adverse consequences produced by the drug.” So, when you see that, you know it’s time to get the person some addiction help.

Usually, the person will tell you that their drug use is under their control. That they can stop anytime they want.  You can tell them that it’s upsetting you a lot and it makes you unhappy. Under those circumstances, if the person is a family member, spouse, or someone with whom you have some interdependency - in other words, someone who considers they have some responsbility for your happiness - then they will stop.

If they don’t stop, they’re addicted. Really, it’s as simple as that. And it doesn’t matter if the problem is with street drugs, alcohol, or even prescription drug addiction - if they see it’s having negative consequences and they don’t stop, it’s because they can’t.

You need to talk to them about getting some kind of drug addiction help - a drug detox, drug rehab, whatever. If they refuse, if they insist they don’t have a problem, get some help. Call an interventionist. Addiction Help Services offers intervention services and can also help find a good drug detox, drug rehab and any other help you need.

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.