You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2013.
“Addiction experts say Suboxone is so effective in treating opiate addicts it can dramatically transform people in a matter of weeks”. In Doc’s Fight to Lift Restrictions, a good point is made on State’s ability to curb opiate addiction. Most state backed low-cost or free prescription programs for suboxone in replacement drug therapy is severely limited, effectively missing an opportunity to drastically reduce the financial and social impact of opiate addiction. Tucson Arizona’s COPE Community Services has stated that its use of suboxone is limited to 100 addicts, deferring many other addicts to the lower cost methadone which is not as effective. Methadone, albeit, very effective at harm reduction when used properly, is quite addictive and its users can be more prone to relapse back to street drugs. Talk continues about Generic Suboxone drastically cutting the sale price of its active ingredient, buprenorphine, but people are still waiting. The point is that readily accessible replacement drug therapy will put a large dent in the ugly business of opiate addiction. That’s something States can’t afford to ignore.
“Kicking” opiates is exceptionally hard for most addicts during the first week. If an addict succeeds the initial physical part of withdrawal, an addict will have to bear out a condition similar in some respects to methamphetamine withdrawal called P.A.W.S., post acute withdrawal syndrome. That’s really the tough part. It takes months and is predominately psychological. PAWS hits a average peak in 3 months making the risk of relapse very high for the first 3-6 months. That is why short term treatment claims can be mis-leading. Here are some links that are very helpful in explaining the complexity and details of what treatment and recovery look like:
Opiate Addiction, A New Breed of Drug Dependency Warrants Unique Approach ♦ Understanding Drug Dependence, Novus Medical Detox ♦ Treatment Options of Long Term Opiate Addiction ♦ Suboxone Assisted Treatment ♦ Aegis Medical Systems, Video Library ♦ National Advocacy ♦ Medical Assisted Treatment ♦ NIDA, Treatment Options ♦ links by Mary Slivinski
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” — Albert Einstein
“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
Black Tar is a perfect storm for kids and 
adults alike getting hooked on pain pills. As the much higher priced oxycontin continues to saturate suburban streets, black tar use is exploding. Narco-traffickers know this and target middle American pill heads with cunning door to door delivery of cheap heroin. Listen to Diane Sawyer of ABC News urgently report this growing epidemic in “Heroin in the Heartland” and read about yet another huge Pittsburg Heroin Ring Bust over this past weekend. Links by Keith.
A poignant piece by a mom, struggling to grip the grief and hind sight of missing an elusive opportunity to save a child from a devil she could’t control.
Expectations, A Poem by Mom vs Addiction
You have to let go of the child you once knew in the future,
The one who would without question attend college, have lots of friends, smile easily, do effortless back-flips, surrounded by the promise fog of youth.
The one whose very personality used to validate you and make others think you were so much smarter and together than you ever were.
Now that same child calls everything into question, and provides the kindling for others to re-draw you; you worked too much, weren’t home enough, didn’t take her to the right doctor soon enough, weren’t strict enough, didn’t see the signs, live in the city, believe in the wrong God, didn’t accept help that no one is really offering.
No one wants to know what you know—that we are all vulnerable, living in a house of cards. Now you know that there are places so painful, so agonizing that you can’t blame anyone for excusing themselves politely from your experience.
You would run so fast, too, if only the road didn’t lead you away from your very heart.
Life goes on and you are left alone with the certainty that as you meticulously rebuild, careful to place the cards just right, in balance with your new reality, you dare not hope for too much, they will fall again.
Matthew Sockolov’s blog, The Easier Softer Way appears in the side bar of dadonfire.net. It’s a spiritually based personal recovery blog worth a look. Its inspiring to see a young man sharing his recovery. He posted his thoughts on his own fourth step in: Courage. Click on the link to view. It is the meat of the 12 step program. This is where an addict shares a fearless moral inventory with another human being. Spiritual practices describe the process of vocalizing one’s defects of character as a door to let go these soulful burdens. The 12 step process can do anyone, in or out of the program a lot of good. Many spiritual practices & religions use a version of the fourth step. Catholics for instance “confess” their character defects (sins) to another person. This process is fundamentally key to releasing the human flaws that fuel addiction to dangerous drugs and alcohol. Link by Matthew
Rethinking the War on Drugs – The Wall Street Journal, Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken. Link by Tom M. The U.S. has reached a dead end in trying to fight drug use by treating every offender as a serious criminal. Blanket drug legalization has some superficial charm—it fits nicely into a sound-bite or tweet—but it can’t stand up to serious analysis. Mark Kleiman has ideas that provide an answer which history shows always falls somewhere in a middle ground. It is a realty based proposition; facts! View Frontline’s BUSTED, America’s War on Marijuana. and view Huffington Post’s online archive of Mark’s publications
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