What Addicts Need

Great Article. As a mother whose 23 year old son is a Heroin addict I found the article encouraging. The devestation on him & our family cant even be expressed. He has been in rehab previously and now a year later is there again. Please encourage anyone who will or can make a difference to leave the options open to help all addicts. What helps one wont help another and they need all the help they can get. Most people have no idea what is really going on around them & dont want to know because they are afraid, guess I can't blame them. The problem isnt just the addicts & their families problems it's everyones. This affects our entire country, economically, socially, health issues, and of course the prisons are full due to the fall out from addition. The sad part is that there are so many people judging those who are addicted they fail to see that there is little help out there. If you have money, you do have options & if you have no money you seem to be given aide. But if youre in the middle class the answer seems to be figure out. This help shouldnt depend on what a person has or hasnt financially. Thank you for listening and the encouragement.

Big business plays on all our addictions, TV, Coffee, Coke, Cigs, Pharmies, all of us have at least one addiction. Best play to learn how to eliminate addictions is FreeTense.com Good Luck!

Oh, and I don't appreciate being called an idiot.

ZSA you missed the point entirely. I'm not advocating Marijuana use or any drug use, I'm just saying that since we have limited resources to combat illegal drugs, maybe it might make more sense to focus on the dangerous ones rather than the ones that are innocuous and relatively harmless. Think about it, if we dropped Marijuana from the "do not use under penalty of law" list, then used all that law enforcement money for drug education and prevention, or alcohol treatment, we could probably save thousands of lives every year. It's just silly and wasteful. And foolish.


You say that drug use is costing us too much money and that's certainly true, but I'd wager that alcohol and tobacco use makes the cost to society (of illegal drugs) look like a pittance in comparison. Sure, we'd all like to live in some panacea where nobody uses drugs or commits crimes, but to be realistic, that isn't going to happen, and we need to deal with the realities of life, and the reality is that Marijuana laws are the biggest hindrance to really doing something effective to combat the problems that drugs and alcohol cause to our society.

Finally, you made the comment that "There are millions of us each day that conduct our day without the use of marijuana or any other type of drugs", so I'd like to point out that 1) you need to consider nicotine, alcohol, and prescription pharmaceuticals in that statement, because these are all DRUGS too, and 2) a few million out of a nation of 300 million is not statistically significant.

Thank you for this article. I blog about adolescent addiction at motherwarriors.blogspot.com and am a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Partnerhsip for a Drug-Free America. Addiction research has progressed and we know so much more, whether a "vaccine" or other drugs are ready for the market or not. But this information and knowledge does not seem to get to the people providing care, treatment, and therapy for addicts. The public perception--including our president's--seems to be that addiction is a matter of willpower or faith, rather than chemicals, genes, and neurotransmitters. The fact that it is a legitimate disease is still not widely accepted. Where is that anvil that used to drop on people's heads in the cartoons? Look up and take action. Many addicts are our kids. Act now and save their lives.

Thank you for this article. I blog about adolescent addiction at motherwarriors.blogspot.com and am a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Partnerhsip for a Drug-Free America. Addiction research has progressed and we know so much more, whether a "vaccine" or other drugs are ready for the market or not. But this information and knowledge does not seem to get to the people providing care, treatment, and therapy for addicts. The public perception--including our president's--seems to be that addiction is a matter of willpower or faith, rather than chemicals, genes, and neurotransmitters. The fact that it is a legitimate disease is still not widely accepted. Where is that anvil that used to drop on people's heads in the cartoons? Look up and take action. Many addicts are our kids. Act now and save their lives.

Great points Stevie.

I should point out that the word "Marijuana" was not mentioned once in the entire article, but Marijuana prohibition enforcement eats up 75% of the drug war budget and incarcerates thousands of people a year, all on the taxpayer's dime.

The government mouthpieces (read LIARS) like John Walters will never admit it, but Marijuana is quite harmless ("less toxic than potatoes" according to the DEA's own Administrative Law Judge), and if it were decriminalized we could make some real progress in the fight against truly destructive drugs like Heroin, Cocaine, and Methamphetamine.

We have a limited budget to fight drugs and we need to concentrate on the harmful ones. It's time to face reality, drop the political rhetoric and admit that Marijuana prohibition is a harmful mistake, and use our resources intelligently to stop drug, alcohol, and nicotine addiction by fighting them effectively, without wasting our money fighting non-harmful "drugs" like Marijuana.

IT'S A NO-BRAINER.

A few more words

Medical therapy IS available to help with initial withdrawal (albeit sometimes under-prescribed).
Alcohol withdrawal seizures can be stopped or blocked, the goosebumps of heroin withdrawal can also be treated symptomatically.

What is lacking is good long-term supportive therapy to help keep patients clean. Cases like one I saw are all too common - we detoxed a man, eased him through alcohol withdrawal over a week. He was released, stopped at the pub to celebrate on the way home. Drank. Drank, And was admitted to our ER that night in alcoholic coma. Unfortunately neither Antabuse nor Metronidazole (an antibiotic with similar effects) were administered before his release -- if they had he would have puked before he could get rip-snorting drunk in that pub.

Only by staying dry and clean long term can people live productive jobs and avoid all those D&A-induced problems like Wernike-Korsakoff psychosis and felony DUI.

AND
We really dont have cures for much of the problems that D&A can cause - COPD (tobacco) (short of breath forever), or Wernike-Korsakoff (incurable loss of reality). I've seen patients paralyzed for life by a spinal abscess traceable to a dirty needle.
Even liver failure with Hepatitis C (Alcohol plus dirty needle in past) -- theoretically treatable with major surgery liver transplantation -- is rarely cured in the addicted not just because of the expense and shortage of livers, but also because those who cant quit alk are not expected by many doctors to be able to comply with post-transplant immunosuppressives and absolute abstinence required to keep the new liver working.

The death toll of D & A is well in the thousands yearly.

I've been med student watching drug/alk detox in psych ward. I'm now seeking intern job.
No, we really dont have good solutions yet -- I strongly encourage research as here described in the hope that we may have something better to offer than 12-step programs and jail alone for the future.
Also would advise system to relax controls on the least-damaging drug with relatively moderate adictive properties - marijuana.

Heroin, Cocaine, Alcohol, Methamphetamine, and Tobacco are all in a far more physically damaging and psychologially addictive class.
At least half of patients in US county hospitals in age range 20-60 are there because of what these have done to them -- Hepatitis C, Cardiomyopathy, Bacterial Endocarditis, Spinal Abscess, Emphysema, Carcinoma (lung, bladder, mouth), Cirrhosis, Tense ascites, Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis in ascites; the total cost to society of drug & alk addiction is enormous!
(especially when you count the penal system, where at least half of prisoners are there for drug & alk related offences -- yup, I'm a lawyer too!)
(Yes, withdrawal from Methadone is worse than that from Heroin - primarily because it takes longer due to the long half-life of the drug).

Many patients resist referral to 12-step programs -- but for some patients they really do work. Doctors referring patients to them do so not from laziness, but because they have a better success rate than many other rehab programs -- BECAUSE they address motivation to stay clean AND provide long-term pressure to stay clean.

I hope that may change in future when new medications like those discussed here reach the market -- that MDs will then have something to offer..

Yes Americans (many) are addicted. Addicted patterns see FreeTense.com
to handle all addictions. They have great products for alleviating addictions.

Medicines for addiction will work about as well as medications for other mental illnesses such as major depression and schizophrenia - the same way medicines work for other chronic medical conditions such as type II diabetes and hypertension: for a few, they will be a god-send, for a few, they won't work at all, and for the majority, medicine will be but one tool in a complex tool box.

When all is said and done, it is still going to be about making profound and long-term lifestyle changes, whether it is addiction or diabetes, alcoholism or asthma. It will still be important to create a new social network for addicts, and it will still be important to learn alternative coping skills, whether it is overeating for the diabetic, stress management for the hypertensive, or staying out of the bar for the alcoholic.

To think that a drug, or a vaccine, will be the breakthrough we've all been praying for is naive at best, and negligent at worst. And of course, in this era of managed care, it will only be available to those with health insurance and/or lots of money. (For instance, Vivitrol, a painful monthly injection, costs approximately $900.00 per injection).

Just as Prozac, et al, were not the end of depression, (and are accompanied by side effects, a withdrawal syndrome, and increased suicidal thougths for some), just as haldol and thorazine were not the end of schizophrenia, drugs and vaccines will not be the end of addiction. And as history has shown, AA and traditional talk therapy has not been the end of addiction, either.

Chronic mental illnesses (and most chronic medical illnesses) require changes in thoughts, feelings and especially, behaviors in order to achieve long-term remission.

A more appropriate approach will be to consider AA, AND talk therapy, AND drugs, AND vaccines, AND prayer, AND anything else that works, as the way to successfully treat the complex disease of addiction. But pinning our hopes - and our pocket books - on the "magic" pill as the best way to treat addiction will only lead to disappointment.

Perhaps a better use of our research dollars might be spent on learning how to help doctors and other health care professionals promote and support long-term changes in behavior - but that would mean the behavior that might need to change first is the knee-jerk (addictive?) behavioral response called :writing a prescription."

C.MacLean, RN

The problem with AA and Church is it is infested with humans.Nobody gave us a halo or a PHD.If a drunk Knows his AA he would not give medical advise and would pray for some one who has obviosly been hurt by addiction.I do not think our disease has inparted any wisdom or other virtues's.We are just blessed that we are alive and if we can tame our ego happy.

"Posted By: FATJOEY @ 02/24/2008 3:43:41 PM
Comment: what addicts need is a kick in their ass's!!
Comment: weakminded losers!!!"

A recovering addict has more courage, fortitude, and champion spirit in one eyelash than you will ever have. Unless you've ever seen a person come from living at the animal level and become a happy, healthy, productive member of society, you will never know the depth and breadth of your ignorance.