AHS Views

There have been several news stories lately about parents testing their kids for drugs. Some feel it’s an invasion of privacy but the fact is, it could save their lives. And if there’s a problem it will be known about so early that it’s quite possible drug testing will prevent them from ever taking drugs or, at least, taking them more than once or twice, and they’ll never wind up needing addiction help.

Kids may resent it but they just don’t realize how tempting it can be when you’re being urged by so many people around you to just try it out. While there are kids who wouldn’t fall prey to that temptation, it’s hard to know who will and who won’t. Young adults who seem happy, goal oriented, in control of their lives and with no problems at all are often the same kids that wind up taking drugs.

Addiction help services are available to get someone off drugs or alcohol but, really, it’s best not to start them in the first place. Each person’s metabolism is different, and each reacts differently to different substances. Honestly, you never know what’s going to happen. Drug testing may be the only option for parents who want to be 100% sure and, eventually, as kids see others in trouble and needing addiction help services, they’ll be glad they got it.

I’ve written a lot of blogs in the past about the dangers of methadone. Check out yesterday’s New York Times article about methadone-related deaths and you’ll find out more about the problem. And why people who are already taking other drugs or drinking alcohol, or could possibly do either, need to get addiction help before they ever do anything like take methdone or other opiate painkillers.

Methadone is dangerous enough all by itself, but when you combine it with other drugs or alcohol, you’re really taking a very big risk.

Imagine this scenario - you drink, or take drugs that aren’t really necessary for your survival. They’re not saving your life, they’re just enabling you to escape whatever’s bothering you. Tranquilizers, sedatives, etc. You could probably use addiction help, but you’re not getting it.

Then you’re in an accident or have an unexpected illness. The doctor has to give you prescription painkillers. But you’re also taking other drugs. Or drinking. Now you have to take a drug that could kill you.

Do you really want to be in that position? Do you want someone you care about to be in that position? No. So, get some addiction help now. Life is the school of hard knocks. To get through it, you need to be in good shape. And the better you’re doing mentally, emotionally and physically, the greater your chances are to be happy and make life what you want it to be. Don’t take drugs - become more able to handle your problems.

And the first problem you can handle is your addiction to or dependence on drugs. Start with drug addiction help services.

Many parents are reluctant to use home drug testing on their kids. But, really, when you consider the amount of peer pressure they run into - with so many kids in schools taking drugs these days - it’s not inappropriate for parents to be exerting some pressure of their own. And you could prevent your kid from needing drug addiction help in the future - which is a lot harder to come by than home drug tests - not to mention the agony both you and your kid would have gone through while on that path.

Okay, so you think you know what’s going on with your kids.  But according to a recent study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, there’s a good chance you may not. For example, 46% of teens say they leave the house to hang out with their friends on school nights, only 14% of parents thought the same thing. Also, 28% of kids say drugs are the biggest problem they face, only 17% of parents thought that.

So, where’s the disconnect? Well, kids don’t always tell their parents everything - even when they think they’re not doing anyting wrong, they’re reluctant to tell their parents if they think they’d meet with disapproval.

I’ve seen lots of kids thank their parents for drug testing. Help relieve the pressure - and you’ll keep them safe. And, unlike many other parents, you won’t be searching for drug addiction help services in the future.

Tonight I read a review of a play called ‘Runaways’ currently showing in Maryland. A cast of twenty two tell their stories about abuse at home, drug addiction, prostitution and everything else they ran into at home and on the street. Many of these kids really need addiction help, but they have even less chance of getting it than those who have a family to back them up. One thing runaways don’t have.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Los Angeles where there are literally thousands of kids  who’ve run away from home. Seeing these kids really makes you appreciate having a relationship with your own. But I know from experience that drugs can really destroy that relationship - whether the drug problem is with the parents or the kids.

My relationship with my mother was almost non-existant for many years. However, she eventually got me to get addiction help - I was an adult by that time - and backed me up in every way she could after that. And, thanks to her, I never looked back. And our relationship was completely restored.

If you have a kid taking drugs, realize that the drugs will eventually ruin their lives, and probably yours. Get them the addiction help services they need and both your lives will be better.

In another desperate attempt to find an easy way out of the drug problem, scientists have come up with yet another scheme to take the place of long-term residential addicton help - that’s the model with the highest success rate. Instead, they want to give the addict a drug to impair the memory so the person basically forgets he’s an addict.

Yeah, that’ll work.  I wonder if when he forgets to take drugs he’s addicted to he’ll also forget what those horrible pains are as he goes through withdrawal?

God knows how many millions are being wasted in treatment programs that just don’t really work. They don’t get to the bottom of the addiction problem and they don’t prepare the addict to go back out into the environment and stay clean.

If  you’re looking for solutions other than drug rehab, rest assured that there are successful addiction help services available. Call us to find out about them.

Amy Winehouse was rushed to the hospital again for an ‘adverse reaction’ to medication. There’s really no question of what really happened. And it’s obvious she still hasn’t gotten the addiction help she needs.

I’ve been thinking about the adverse effect she must be having on her fans and admirers. It seems that with things this bad - it’s really no longer fun and games and getting high - the people who would find her lifestyle attractive are really just those who have a desire to be a tragic figure.  And there are people around like that. 

But do you think Amy really wants to be that messed up? Underneath it all, do you think she really wants to be in and out of the hospital, in and out of rehab, pitied by former friends, with a husband who threatens to kill himself, who’s in jail, who’s parents probably wish she was never born?

I don’t, and I think someone should save her. Someone should get her the addicton help services she really needs. Someone should get to the bottom of what she’s having trouble with in life so she can get turned around. Otherwise, really, she’s not going to last much longer.

If someone you care about is taking drugs or drinking a lot, realize that it’s not unusual for their life to turn out like Amy’s. She’s a celebrity, so everyone knows about it, but, really, this is the life of the druggie. I’ve been there, too. And if it wasn’t for someone making sure I got addiction help, I probably wouldn’t be alive now. Amy’s nearly died more than once and, if she keeps going this way, she may well die soon. In fact, if whoever took her to the hospital this time hadn’t been around, she might be dead now.

Get the people you care about the addiction help services they need - do it fast.

After writing yesterday’s blog on methadone treatment I received a blog from a woman who was on heroin for 10 years until a methadone treatment clinic opened in her town. From her viewpoint, methadone saved her life. Fair enough. I don’t know what addiction help she tried during those 10 years but, obviously, whatever it was didn’t work for her. So, she’s now a methadone advocate.

By the way, she asked if I’d ever been addicted to heroin. Yes, I have been. And I also tried methadone to get off it. I didn’t like it. I quit methadone, and I quit heroin.  And I know plenty of others who’ve done the same.

The fact is, lots of people have gotten off heroin without methadone treatment. If someone prefers to continue to take an addictive opiate drug - i.e. methadone - that’s up to them. But some people would prefer to be drug free. So, before they make the choice of methadone treatment, they should be informed that being drug free is an option. That there are many people who’ve gotten off heroin and that it can be done with the right addiction help services.

Just because some people didn’t do it doesn’t mean they couldn’t have if they’d gotten the type of addiction help they really needed. And just because some people didn’t get the addiction help they needed, doesn’t mean others should be denied that same help.

If someone else reading this would like to get off methadone or is considering going on it, do yourself a favor and find out about addiction help services that could help you live drug free.

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.

More about what happens with drugs in college. Susan Smith (not her real name) grew up in a normal, loving, educated family. She was a girl scout, mom lead a troup. A great life. Then she went to college - she was going to be a social worker - which is where she started drinking, smoking marijuana, and using cocaine.  After a year and a half she got some addiction help but, although she stopped using cocaine, continue alcohol and marijuana. I would definitely say the addiction help she got was inadequate. If it had been thorough, she wouldn’t have continued with alcohol and marijuana.

Obviously, her college education didn’t quite turn out to be what she’d hoped. She now a cosmetologist, 48 years old, and is once again getting addiction help to stop using cocaine - she’s been on it again for the last six years.  Her habit cost her $200 - $300 a day.

This story has a relatively good ending, so far. She’s still alive, and she’s getting the addiction help services she needs. But, her life, I’m sure, was far different than she had planned. 

Natalie Ciappa, an 18-year-old high school student who overdosed and nearly died on Memorial Day weekend, promised her parents (and probably herself) she was going to stop using heroin. But less than a month later, she was dead. The drug problem had been going on for over a year but she had refused addiction help.

It’s hard to know how long it would have taken for someone to figure out she was dead - when her mother awoke the next morning and Natalie wasn’t home, she went to the location of the party Natalie was attending and found her there dead on a sofa. Still with other people there. They hadn’t even noticed she was dead.

Natalie’s mother and father had been coping with her drug problem for over a year. They had tried everything, but hadn’t gotten her to rehab. She’d overdosed and wound up in the hospital less than a month before she died and her parents had thought she’d stopped.

The chances of stopping heroin because of an overdose are slim without drug addiction help. The drug has such a hold on you - and the same is true of many other drugs - that it really doesn’t matter that your life, or anyone else’s, is threatened.

Natalie was a top student and an excellent singer - with an excellent future. The last person you would expect to be a drug addict. The same as your kids. Don’t mess with it - get them addiction help services, no matter what you have to do. It’s really the only way to overcome drug addiction.