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Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The truth about prescription medication addiction CNN.com Blogs. Every 19 minutes someone dies because of misuse of prescription medications. Sometimes it is because they take too much. Many times it is because they forget or ignore the warning their doctor gave about combining the medications with alcohol. And tens of thousands of people die every year as a result. Click on the link above to view the article
Singer Whitney Houston apparently drowned in her bath after ingesting a cocktail of prescription sedatives. The Crime Report is a great website that collects resources concerning topics associated with criminal justice; in this case, prescription drug abuse. The website archives a range of topics including wrong doing centered around the world of drugs. Such a tragic loss!
As Christmas is upon us, dadonfire.net viewership is up. So isn’t the struggle for addicts, alcoholics and their families to get through the holidays. People who have seen the worst and best of themselves and their loved ones, still care to make a difference in the world of addiction and recovery. They share what they see here and elsewhere. There are those who want to see a loved one survive. There are those who want to know their own freedom from addiction. There are those who want the world to be free. That freedom is possible.
Keep sharing and logging on to dadonfire.net. Spread the word. The point is to move consciousness in America from one of prejudice towards addiction and alcoholism to that of understanding. Addiction is a deadly disease that needs a real solution. Some people who log on to this blog have lost a loved one to drugs or alcohol in body or spirit. Somehow, they are able to keep putting out a positive message that may move another person away from what they have witnessed. Recovery is possible. Never give up. Have a merry Christmas and a free and happy new year in 2012!
Life-Saving Drug Out of Reach – NYTimes.com. “Overdose now kills more people in the United States than car accidents, making it the leading cause of injury-related mortality according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of deaths — 37,485 in 2009 — could be cut dramatically if Naloxone were available over-the-counter and placed in every first aid kit.” View the rest of Maia Szalavitz’s story on the use of Naloxone, by click on the image or title of this article.
“The likelihood for addicts to get effective treatment improved greatly last month, when the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) released it’s public policy statement on the definition of addiction. Boldly stating that addiction is a “primary, chronic disease”, ASAM has established the role of neurobiology in the development and maintenance of all addictive behaviors” Barry Lessin. Read the rest of Barry’s article by click on title: Addiction Really is a Disease
http://www.pathwaytoprevention.org/ Teen drug addiction has a devastating effect on youth, families and communities. Teens drop out of school, the workforce or life itself. Change the course of teen drug addiction.
CASAColumbia.org: News Room: New CASA Report Finds Adolescent Substance Use at Epidemic Levels.
The study looks at how American culture increases the risk that teens will use addictive substances and how the messages sent by adults, and glamorized by the tobacco and alcohol industries and the media, normalize substance use and undermine the health and futures of our teens.
Probably one of t
he best videos; America’s Disastrous Drug War, produced by Walter Cronkite was removed from all you-tube archives. Go Figure! One Cronkite video that survived is called Harm Reduction. BUT!!!, Many informative videos on the drug war are still out there and readily available to illustrate maybe, the costliest problem America faces. Here are a few notable video producers and interviews on the subject: Neil Franklin, Frontline, Robert Capecchi , a 12 minute clip from a great 2007 series from Kevin Booth’s, The American Drug War. Check out the rest of Kevin’s series on TagTélé and you-tube.
Here is someone who looks deep into the neuroscience of addiction, shedding some light in areas you might not have thought about. David J. Linden is an American professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the author of The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God. [1] The book The Accidental Mind is an attempt to explain the human brain to intelligent lay reader. CLICK HERE FOR THE NPR INTERVIEW WITH LINDEN If your interested in David’s latest book, The Compass of Pleasure, you can go to his blog and learn more.
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.
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.
Should taxpayers support wet houses? In AA literature, it has been said that there are those who seem to be constitutionally unable to get sober. A wet house is basically a place that allows drunks and addicts to enjoy a modicum of shelter and to drink, usually outside the premises. Typically, shelters require residents to remain sober or they are disqualified. What appears to be the ultimate in enabling is to some a less costly way of dealing with drunks. The argument being ER, jail, and crime are the alternative and cost more than sheltering a drunk or addict. Advocates of wet houses call it harm reduction. Whether America comes to terms with its chronic population of drunks and addicts is yet to be seen. Addiction doesn’t seem to be waning and it is in fact costing all of us too much money and grief.
South Florida has achieved a reputation of becoming a haven for pill farms and the proliferation of illegal pain medication. Pressure to enact new laws has finally led to monitoring and limitation of prescriptions, which dampened the availability of addictive drugs from Florida pill mills. October 1st, 2010, was a milestone as some pain clinics simply closed, leaving addicts looking for other sources. “A lot of people were panicking… I was getting a lot of calls from people trying to figure out how to stay alive,” said Bernard Cassidy, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who represents pain clinics. Some pill mill operators were charged with illegal dispensing of pain medication. There are thousands of Americans still addicted to pain medication, affecting women, the elderly and teens. Teens are especially vulnerable as Mary Bono Mack talks about the issue, using her son as an example. Women are another vulnerable group as explained in Women and Prescription Drug Addiction. Prescription drug addiction is a growing American problem. Links by JJ
Our America with Lisa Ling examines tough issues, one of which is drug addiction. In the episode; “Mike and Darla:Survival in New York City”, Lisa shows us how where seemingly normal everyday couple became trapped in a life style they are struggling to escape; addiction and the destruction it left behind. Darla didn’t make it. Many don’t make it out of the abyss of addiction. We want to think; just quit, but look at the statistics. ABC News looks at the Skyrocketing use of Heroin by our kids and that is where this starts. There is something we are missing and its attacking families from the inside out. We fill our jails with all kinds of addicts and alcoholics. A small minority of addicts who have spent a enough time in jail are fortunate to hang on to their sobriety when they were released. A sober addict named Tommy was one of the lucky ones who did. Being an addict is a rotten choice to make, but once done, leaving that realty becomes harder with every day spent using, until for most, it is impossible. There is something missing in America, when a damaging trend that affects us all is ignored by those who can make the biggest difference.
St. Francis Mission Recovery Programs…Can you imagine driving more than 90 miles to get to your weekly meeting? What if you wanted to go to more than one a week but couldn’t because it was either too far away or you didn’t have adequate transportation? What would you do, and more importantly, who would you turn to? These issues, sadly, are run of the mill problems for those recovering from alcoholism and addiction on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation is home to the Lakota (Sioux Indian) people, many of whom suffer from the problems mentioned above. Two recovery centers – the Icimani Ya Waste Recovery Center and White River Recovery Center – are working to help those who suffer from addiction on the Rosebud Reservation. The centers are run by members of the Lakota tribe / the St. Francis Mission (link: http://www.sfmission.org/programs/recovery/). They help coordinate 12 step meetings for those in need, provide space for those meetings to take place, give referrals to treatment centers and support for the families of those suffering from addiction. In talking to the coordinators to the two recovery centers, it is clear that the need for recover is strong on the reservation. Jim Stands, director of the White River Recovery Center, states, the people on the Reservation are affected by the disease of addiction. Whole families – from great grandchildren to great grandparents – are affected, and in turn, addiction affected the community and the whole Lakota nation (called the oyate). When an individual wants to overcome their addiction, they face challenges that are above and beyond what someone who lives off a Reservation might face. One of the open AA groups that meets on Wednesdays at the White River Recovery Center is called the “Out of Towners” meeting for a reason. Many of the individuals who attend this group live far away from where the meeting is held, but make the long drive every week to support each other in sobriety. The St. Francis Mission and the Recovery Centers have partnered with the Betty Ford Institute to provide educational programing to address the effects addiction has on the family. Participants of the Betty Ford Family Program learn to set boundaries, control codependency issues, and communication skills so they can express emotions and feelings in a healthy constructive way. The recovery programs combine Lakota traditions with more traditional recovery content. by Corrie Oberdin corrie@corrieoberdin.net http://www.sfmission.org
As U.S drug policy struggles with the reality of a failing drug war, a dysfunctional drug policy and confusion in moving towards decriminalizing America’s addict population, I would like to acknowledge the real losers here; our addicted population of young addicts. They are on the road to become old addicts. Some have a hustle; others are in constant danger of filling our jails. Many are our children. They fit somewhere in a population of 25 million alcohol and drug users. They impact 2/3′s of Americans in some form. This is not a moral issue. It is a medical issue, in which treatment and not the least a cure, is more elusive than cancer.
Our public and private treatment institutions turn out to be pretty insignificant and I would dare say that the thousands of 12 steps meeting in the U.S. , for all of the bias against them, do work and are effective. They are at least free. They say you get what you pay for. That’s great for rich addicts, but addicts are almost all defined as indigent and non-contributing to society, so how does that work? Who pays? Their addictions, albeit complicated and unique, are at least defined in the common sence as a condition where dopamine receptors no longer function in abstinence. The realty is this. A very long period of abstinence would be necessary for the restoration of naturally occurring dopamine and receptor functioning; maybe a year minimum; brain rehab, if you will. Without this transformation, an addict exists in an emotional black hole. In a tenuous world, the blatant loss of 7 million Americans to addiction each year is just the tip of the iceberg. Next to the bigger issue of losing America’s economic stability; an addict nation threatens to drag us down. With some exception to VMAC, most of our insurance and healthcare institutions are miserable at treatment. They skirt co-existing mental disorders, while showing across the board rejection of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment programs. Except for sparse and difficult public funding, insurance companies won’t even pay for basic replacement drug therapy, which I would estimate, as an interim stop-gap measure could cost anywhere from total subsidy to $200 per month. A paltry sum for such a large benefit. At a baseline minimum, no narcotics addict should be turned down.
We live in a world that abhors addictive behavior, yet institutionally condones the biggest drug dependant and alcoholic society on earth. People like Governor Scott of Florida ditch prescription databases over privacy rights. How does that even fit? Our government claims to want to eradicate demand and source, yet have at least enabled or created a situation in which more pharmaceutical opiates are available than ever and our budget to fight the drug war in Mexico is as counterproductive as our U.S. job eating trade deficit. Instead we march our most desparate addicts off to jail for criminal training to support an over crowded pork barrel prison system. Addicts who are not violent, need to be screened and sequestered in a contained environment geared towards treatment. There is no good excuse for not doing it. Dollars spent to accomplish this can come from 30-60% redundant incarceration rates and less damage to society. Addicts are human beings that need to be rehabilitated. That has to be a common committment. Rehabilitation is even a stated purpose of America’s incarceration systems. Prisons are supposed to try and make men useful again. Secure penal facilities already exist in abundance. They specialize in the warehousing and exacerbation of criminals. What is missing, is willful intent, screening, and intelligence.
As Mexico counts 35,000 deaths resulting directly from the drug war that President Felipe Calderon initiated in 2006, Former Mexican President Vicente Fox among others, argues for legalization to stop the carnage. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., it seems pointless to incarcerate users of pot and other drugs, while at the same time fueling the drug trade coming in from Mexico. Everyone seems to lose except the DEA and the Prison Lobby. What would happen if much of that enforcement effort went into rehab and recovery. That would be a good counterpoint to what Mexico is thinking about. Even if sanctions remained in the U.S. for drug trafficking, we could help millions of Americans, simply with the decriminalization of use, diverting that savings to rehab. Portugal embarked on just such an experiment more than a decade ago. Nothing bad happened. In fact, no one regrets it because their experiment showed positive results, lowering drug use and removing the cost of incarceration of drug use. The whole point is to help those bit by their drug use; not hurt them. Although, one can not say how this would work in the U.S., the Drug Czar has taken a cue from his look at Portugal.
America loves its drugs. Maybe that’s why we are silent to the epidemic of addiction. 25 million Americans abuse something. From prescription drugs, liquor, caffeine, heroin,..to a growing trend of free highs, Americans are experts at self medicating and now our teens buy legal club drugs and herbs practically anywhere, including online. Salvia is just that; a legal and available drug luring our youth into a culture of drug use. Salvia, in fact, has very negative implications even suicide. A friend asked me recently, reflecting on Jared Loughner’s use of drugs if that could have contributed to his shooting rampage in Tucson. I responded by saying the underlying cause was probably already there, i.e., some kind of mental issue, but who knows and is it worth the risk. ABC News published a video in January of 2011 investigating the drug salvia. Obviously, some pharmaceuticals may extract useful medicine from herbal drug sources, but the use of these drugs is just another road to addiction. Individual’s Addiction starts somewhere and habituating something one views as innocuous, is a beginning. This website is about lighting a fire under positive action away from an addictive society and the counter productive policies that keep Americans hooked. Topic provided by Mary
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