You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2011.
Ro
mancing Opiates, a controversial book on opiate addiction was written by social critic, retired doctor and highly acclaimed author Theodore Dalrymple, many call the Orwell of our time. He has written extensively for the City Journal, Manhattan Institute; a social journal worth viewing. His 2006 book, Romancing Opiates treats addiction and treatment much in line with his social commentary on failed states and systems. Most of his writing follows an Orwellian ideology. Curiously, in his book about opiate use, he compliments Mao Tse Tung’s methods of eradicating opium and heroin use in China with extreme coercion or death. You can read the rest of this review right HERE
M. Scott Peck said in his book, The Road Less Traveled, that “Life is difficult.” If you have an addict in your family, you know what that means. After years of hard work and raising your children: BANG! At some painful point, you
came to realize your kid is a drug addict! Here’s the kick: By the time you discover your youngster is using, he or she has actually been using for an average of 2 years. So, you took action, but it was too late for prevention. Knowing the difficulty and high cost, parents often took the easy road; accepting a half hearted contrition and going on. Before you know it; some of you are living with a hard core addict. Now you intimately know, difficult is an understatement.
Addiction causes an addict to react within the context of chemical chaos in their brains. It is a disease. Addiction changes brain chemistry. It is a medical condition that receives trivial attention from health care providers; leaving addicts and their families in ruin. We now know now that treatment and recovery is a process and not an event, yet it is treated by the treatment industry like a one time event, where families are led to invest everything they have in a short attempt to end the madness; yet what is the outcome? 5% success, 10%?, 20%?…
It is time that addiction receives mainstream designation as a legitimate medical condition that goes even further than limited parity laws require. It’s time that the burden be lifted off the shoulders of 20 million American families to play doctor to something most are powerless to. Obama’s ONDCP knows this, so why is it not public policy. This is what we need to demand of our lawmakers.
Gabor Maté, is an influential physician who knows what it means to think outside the box. His efforts have provided leadership in harm reduction and uncovering the mystery of addiction. Harm reduction is controversial. It is a theory of practice in dealing with addiction that is hard to swallow for mainstream America, but in some circles, it is viewed as necessary. Gabor makes sense out of it. he has committed his practice to working in the trenches with the worst the world of addiction has to offer, primarily in Vancouver. He does it in a way that only the context of raw addictive behavior gives it unmistakeable clarity. In 2009, Maté published In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a book that describes his realty of working in a Vancouver skid row addiction clinic. The Fifth Estate is a Canadian CBC news show that did a focused film series on Maté, his colleagues and several drug addicted patients. It included an episode about Maté’s clinic called Staying Alive.
With professionals like Nora Volkow bringing addiction science into mainstream visibility, how can we go wrong? She is a revolutionary! With blood ties to the infamous Leon Trotsky, this boldness is a trait we need to overcome obstacles that keep us from pushing through the big roadblocks to solving an insidious problem. She is a medical doctor with residency in psychiatry and passion for addiction science. Nora is committed to unlocking the mystery of addiction. In 2003, She was appointed the Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, NIDA. Nora Volkow is a rock star. She attracts a lot of attention and many hope that she will make a huge difference in one of the biggest public health concerns the U.S. has known. 25 million Americans deal with addiction. She recently received an Award in Psychiatry by Baylor College of Medicine. The New York Times calls her a General in the Drug War. That’s about as mainstream as it gets, as the scourge of addiction moves closer to achieving the coveted title of a genuine medical problem; enabling the help so many addicts have been with out. Go Nora!
We are talking about the origin of drug addiction and knocking on deaths door all the way down this dangerous road. Kids flirt with cheap highs as young as 9. Often something is missing at home and the choices a kid makes paves the way to drug and alcohol abuse. Years can pass while parents miss or deny the signs of drug abuse. Inhalants ranging from a simple “dust off” computer cleaner to a wide range of aerosol, glue and fuel huffing is a common start. Websites promote parental involvement as the deterrent. See The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition, Drug and Alcohol Scene and Parents: The Anti Drug. This is all great! Talk to your kids! …while you still can. Kids that don’t get the right attention probably don’t have two fully conscious parents working together. Even if we are half conscious to the fact, kids find ways to get high. The medicine cabinet is another source of opportunity. Many don’t realize that addiction to street opiates starts with the abuse of legal opiate based drugs. Keep prescriptions secure and monitor the pain medication a doctor prescribes for your kids injury. Statistics indicate that in 2009, 8 million serious drug addicts, whom were kids have slipped through the cracks. Some are still kids. We still deal with them. Our communities deal with them. By then its tough love. If that doesn’t work, the tough love they will get on the streets is brutal. Dadonfire supports a world of recovery. links by M. Slivinski.
It is easy to have high expectations for a teen coming home from some kind of treatment for their addiction, but what they need to know, is how important they are to their recovery — that failure is not the end and success is up to them. Substance use disorder creates stress for a family and there is no guarantee of the outcome of recovery without diligence. You know who your teen is. What comes after treatment is more work. Finding ways to deal with it are critical. There are resources everywhere and the web is a good place to start, even to find a meeting. There are also, ways for the whole family to just “be” that enhances the success of a teen’s recovery. To see a 9 point list of what I recommend for a family welcoming home an addicted loved one, CLICK HERE.
Moms United to End the War on Drugs & Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Rally & Vigil Join us to call attention to the devastation of the war on drugs and prohibition @ Chuco’s Justice Center, 1137 E. Rodondo Blvd., Inglewoood, CA, June 18, 2011 – all day – starting @ 1 pm
A New PATH /Los Angeles is co-sponsoring with SSDP an all day festival SATURDAY JUNE 18TH; collaborating with 27 other drug war activist and advocacy groups to present 2 panels of speakers, poetry readings, candlelight vigil – ending the evening with live music till midnight! For more information
THE ALCOHOLISM AND ADDICTION CURE: a book with a claim to cure addiction. Most have seen the ad’s. It sparked my curiosity. Heroin addiction is the genesis of Chris Prentiss’s book and his claim to cure addiction. His son, Pax Prentiss was a 10 year heroin user among other drugs, including alcohol. Pax conquered a larger than life complex about his dad by co-founding Passages Treatment Center with him. www.dadonfire.net is not sold on a simplistic cure. I do like the four points. Here are some links for your own review: Hollywood Rehab • Breakthrough Addiction Recovery • Addiction Tomorrow. “Curing addiction” at Passages is reduced to four problems in an addict’s life: 1) Chemical imbalance, 2) Events of the past, 3) Current conditions and 4) Things we believe that are false; biggest being that addiction is a disease and “I” have it. (Of course this flies in the face of AA and NA.)
If you believe that addiction is not a disease; but it is “something” that is curable, read this book. Addressing the four points will take a lot of cash. Passage’s, Malibu, is $78,560 per month. A scaled down Passages, Ventura is $32,500 per month. That includes daily work of nine therapists and doctors a plethora of phlebotomy according to Judith @ Passages Admissions (805) 283-4737. Those costs are based on Jan. 2010 pricing.
“The cure” is a commodity. Life energy, you might say. But, isn’t that personal effort no different that what has been known for the last 54 years since alcoholism and drug addiction to follow, were defined as disease by the AMA. It takes work whether done in 30 years or 30 days. As far as “a cure”, I wouldn’t bet much money on a “cured” addiction left un-checked after a single month of treatment. Addiction recovery, however one minces words, be it a cure or recovery, takes living in vigilance for an addict. Most can’t afford luxury treatment, but probably wouldn’t argue the impact of personal and public cost of addiction. It is a financial burden to all of us and big dollar treatment doesn’t pick bones about this reality. A “cured addict” is another story.
Rewiring the brain against addiction is an idea that holds the key to the answer. Having known suffering drug addicts, its safe to say that “just quitting” is not an answer. The Depression that goes along with addiction, often predicating the need for drugs to begin with is a key area of study. Dual Demons! as it called, continually feeds into the reality of repeated relapse. Addiction is a disease that requires the equivalent focus in dollars and effort of the drug war itself. Once we get big Insurance and big Pharma to play the game of real recovery we can start poking holes in the sails of drug trade. De-criminalizing addiction would cripple illegal drug trade. Imagine a world of compassion, recovery and freedom from addiction. Links by M. Slivinski.
YOUR COMMENTS