Did you know that Massachussetts has an OxyContin and Heroin Commission? Notice how they lump those two drugs together? There’s a couple of reasons for that – first, OxyContin is basically legal heroin and, second, OxyContin can get really expensive.

If you’re not getting your pills from a doctor, in which case they’ll cost you a max of about $5 per pill, you’re going to pay about $60 a pill on the street. Very expensive. The alternative? Heroin. It’s cheaper by far, and can be a lot easier to get.

Heroin addiction used to be associated only with dark alleys and the most depraved of drug addicts. Now our kids are taking it. It’s common.

In Massachussetts heroin and OxyContin addiction and abuse are epidemic. And they’re getting worried about it. They want to put addiction treatment centers in place so addicts know they have someplace to go to get help.

Do you need help with heroin or OxyContin? Does someone in your family? Contact us – Drug Rehab Referral. We can help you find the right addiction treatment center for your situation.

Popularity: 16% [?]

In last night’s press conference, Obama talked quite a bit about health care. I wonder if he knew Oklahoma’s funding was cut for their prescription drug monitoring program? I also wonder if he knows about the nation-wide problem with prescription drug addiction or the number of people dying from prescription drug overdoses. I doubt he’s had the chance to dig that deeply into things yet – having only been in office for 63 days with some pretty serious problems to address.

Obama wants higher quality health care at a lower cost. Cutting prescription drug monitoring funding is a move in the wrong direction. Not only does the monitoring stop people from doctor shopping – which allows them to get the drugs they need to feed their own habit AND fuels the illegal trade in prescription drugs that is driving people into an addiction treatment center to address their addiction – it can also prevent people from getting the wrong medication and being prescribed drugs that are harmful when taken with other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

Florida is a perfect example of what lack of a prescription drug monitoring program can do. It’s overdose deaths have surpassed other high cause-of-death categories combined – and we’re talking about overdosing on prescription drugs, not street drugs.

You can make sure Obama’s aware of this problem. Millions of families across the country have been damaged by prescription drug addiction, and prescription drug errors. Many have lost their loved ones because of this problem. Go to whitehouse.gov and write to him – let him know there’s a problem. He’ll be interested in solving it – it directly aligns with solving our health care problems. 

look at Florida – the nation’s pill state – no monitoring plan – anyone can get anything and the overdose deaths are skyrocketing, prescription drugs are killing more people than other high cause of death categories combined), and helps prevent people from getting the wrong medication or being prescribed drugs that will hurt them if they take them with the other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

A waste of money, and lives. 

Popularity: 24% [?]

Have you seen the new study on methadone? We’ve said many times that methadone is a dangerous drug – its highly addictive, harder to kick than heroin (and just about every other drug around), and methadone-related deaths increased by 400% in just a few years.

Here’s the stats: adverse events connected to methadone increased 1800% during the same time period as the number of prescriptions written increased by only 1300% (although it’s hard to justify the word ‘only’ when you’re talking about such an outrageous increase). The number of methadone-related deaths increased by 400% during that same time.

A new study shows that prescribing guidelines could be a major source of the problem. Check out New information points to safer methadone use for treatment of pain and addiction for more details.

Several coroners in the U.S. have written reports about the dangers of methadone – now we know more about it.  The study opens some doors, but we are not yet out of the woods. Do yourself a favor, stay away from methadone. If you’re trying to get off heroin, go to a good long-term residential addiction treatment center.

There are people who will try to convince you that heroin can’t be kicked. In fact, it can. I’ve done it myself, and know many others who’ve done the same. Don’t buy stories that methadone is the solution – a good drug rehab program is the solution, not more drugs.

Popularity: 14% [?]

My father, who’s 80 years old and is currently getting chemo to treat his cancer, fell and injured his hip a few months ago. He’s not a frail old guy by a long shot. He’s in better shape than most men 20 years his junior. But this fall caused pain in his hip and leg that would not go away. It got so bad at one point that he couldn’t even sleep. 

He followed his doctor’s advice and got no relief whatever. 

A friend of his told him about acupuncture. He went for one treatment and, starting within about two hours after the treatment, he was out of pain completely for three days. 

It came back, but was nowhere near what it had been before.

He then went for a second treatment and the pain virtually disappeared. It’s been about a month, and there has been no recurrance.

Addiction treatment centers are filling up with people who’ve become addicted to prescription painkillers – and often they started taking them with a doctor’s prescription.

Unfortunately, not many doctors a fully educated in alternative therapies so they don’t recommend them.

My father, despite the fact that he has cancer, is very active, plays golf, teaches about 40 private students every week, and so on.

Had his friend not told him about acupuncture, there’s a good possibility he would be taking painkillers – and suffering from prescription drug addiction – just to lead a somewhat normal life.

Unfortunately, many people are in that position.

Getting off prescription painkillers is not impossible and with acupunture and other natural therapies, you may even have another, effective and safe, non-drug solution to pain.

Check it out.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Lee County, home to nearly 60 cities and in Southwest Florida, just opened it’s first new alcohol and drug detox center in 50 years. I would hope there are some good addiction treatment centers available for follow up - detox is not enough for most addicts or alcoholics. That gets them dried up, but being able to stay clean will depend on the addiction treatment they get afterwards. There’s a lot of work to do after the detox period.

What’s amazing about this is that we spend $69 billion a year on the war on drugs but haven’t put a new detox center in this county for 50 years! How can that be? Setting up detox centers and addiction treatment centers should be our first priority if we want to handle the drug problem.

Instead, this County’s detox facilities have actually lost ground over the last 20 years. There were only enough facilities to treat 28 people 20 years ago, and even though the number of people likely to need help has tripled, the number of people there were facilities to treat went down to 25.

The new facility only has 25 beds – there were 46 waiting in line before the doors even opened.

If you’re having trouble getting into detox, or an addiction treatment center for follow up, give us a call. We’ll help you find one in your area.

Popularity: 25% [?]

In the new episode of House – hey, why not? Millions of people get their drug information from big pharma commercials, why not a TV series? – the doc in chronic pain changes his life completely by switching his drug of choice from Vicodin to methadone.  He’s long been suffering from prescription drug addiction, but the new one changed his personality. When his colleagues noticed his change in behavior they suspected he was on heroin. But they were outraged to find that he was on methadone instead. They said that mixing methadone with another drug, taking one drink of alcohol or taking one dose at the wrong time could kill him. And that he was twice as likely to die from methadone as from heroin.

Well, yeah, it’s a TV show. But the statistics on methadone-related deaths show the data is correct nevertheless. As of a few years ago, heroin was used by about twice as many people as methadone, but twice as many died from methadone as heroin. In fact, that means it killed four times as many people, not twice as many.

And now that methodone is being used strictly as a painkiller, not to get off heroin, the primary original use for which methadone was intended, the methadone-related death statistics are climbing.

People often don’t follow their doctor’s exact instructions no matter what medication they’re taking and no matter what warnings they’re given.  Things can be even worse with methadone since it stays in the body for longer than other drugs and might still be there even though the pain relief aspect of it has worn off. So, people tend to take their dose sooner than they should, or take a different painkiller, think they’re safe to have a drink, and so on.

The hospital administrator’s solution was to tightly control House’s methadone use. He had to get his precisely-timed dose from her and, although we didn’t see the list of other instructions she gave him, I would imagine they also included absolutely no alcohol and no other drugs without first clearing it with her.

In the end, House decided not to take it. He had made a nearly fatal error with a patient and felt the methadone had clouded his judgment.

In any case, him being on methadone wouldn’t have worked for the series because one of it’s main attractions (in the same way people are driven to slow down to see a bad traffic accident) is House’s personality – which completely changed during this episode.

TV show or not, I hope people take this information about methadone to heart. It may not tell the whole truth, but it has more truth in it than any of the ads you’ll see on TV from drug manufacturers. Unless, of course, you happen to listen to the warnings – which are issued in such soothing tones they somehow don’t manage to get the point across that the drugs are very dangerous. That’s why the prescription drug death toll is climbing, and that’s why more and more people are finally getting the message and showing up in addiction treatment centers to get off them.

Boy, I’ll bet this episode will have some people up in arms. 

Popularity: 23% [?]

There’s a new drug in town - a psychedelic called Salvia. So far, this herb is legal to buy, sell and use in all but 13 states. But other states are also looking at passing legislation that will put it in the same class as LSD.

The effects of Salvia are not completely unlike other psychedelic drugs – hallucinations, loss of motor control, out of touch with reality, some people have reported doing things like trying to ‘become one’ with things like chairs. Could be pretty painful. Read more about one person’s Salvia effects.

With such a lack of control, anyone taking this drug is obviously not safe.

Apparently, it’s not addictive but since addiction is as much a state of mind as anything physical, I wouldn’t be surprised if people ended up needing treatment for it.

The interesting thing about this drug is that medical reseachers feel it could be useful – some are actually calling it a miracle drug. They suspect it could lead to new treatments for new treatments for addiction, depression, cancer, HIV, and more.

How they’re going to harness it so it’s also safe is another story.

In the meantime, make sure you’re on the lookout for this drug and realize that anyone you know who is likely to experiment with it probably has no idea what they’re up against and could get into serious trouble.

In fact, if someone’s that desperate to change reality, they’re probably already taking drugs and should go to an addiction treatment center. If they get their personal issues resolved, they won’t be tempted by Salvia or any other drug.

Popularity: 12% [?]

It’s not surprising that the 60 billion dollar hospitality industry – of which serving liquor is a large part – is protesting the higher taxes on alcohol and the higher licensing fees proposed by recent legislation. But according to U.S. statistics, we’ve got about 20 million people in the U.S. who drink too much. Many of them have family problems (some lose their families altogether), lose their jobs, drive while they’re drinking, and so on, and end up in an addiction treatment center to try to get their life back on track.

And, often, that treatment comes right out of the pocket of taxpayers who don’t drink at all.

Is it wrong that an activity that causes that kind of destruction should be highly taxed? I personally don’t think so.

People may say that it’s people, not alcohol, who cause drunk-driving accidents (for example.) Yes, that’s true. They didn’t have to drink that much, did they?

But the unfortunate truth is that alcohol addiction, like drug addiction, is somewhat out of their control. As can be attested to by the millions of people attending AA meetings every day to get help resisting the demon rum.

Drugs are illegal, and even prescription drugs have warnings on them that you shouldn’t drive, operate heavy machinery etc. while taking them, but the only restriction we put on alcohol is how old you have to be to drink.

Those who drink moderately will not be very affected by the new taxes. Taxes on one or two drinks will not be prohibitive. On the other hand, if you’re going out to get drunk, the taxes could add up to a pretty penny. Likewise, it will make it more difficult for young people to head off to the store and buy a few cases of beer that are going to get a bunch of under-21′ers roaring and dangerously drunk that night.

All in all, I think we’re better off. What do you think? 

Popularity: 16% [?]

A 41-year-old British athlete, a football legend in England, known as Gazza (real name Paul John Gascoigne) has been getting his body back in shape while in rehab and is looking at taking on the Triathalon event – a swim of 2.4 miles, followed by a bike ride of 112 miles and then running a marathon. One right after the other. He’s thinking it will be the perfect follow up to the addiction treatment center help he’s been getting, and may be just the challenge he needs to keep him on the straight and narrow.

What’s happened to Gazza is interesting. Being a ‘former’ legend can’t be too comfortable. When you’re playing that hard, and winning, you have to find something to replace it when you quit.

Just as when people retire at 65 – whether they’re ready and willing to or not - quitting something you’ve been doing as a major part of your life for years isn’t easy. You have to replace it with something so you have a sense of purpose.

One of the major things done in a successful addiction treatment center would be to help someone find a purpose, something they’re passionate about. People sometimes turn to drugs when they don’t have that in their life. It’s what makes life worth living.

A good treatment center will also help the person get in shape physically. Once your body starts to feel better, you want to take better care of it and do more with it. It becomes an asset instead of a liability.

It seems that this exact thing has rehabilitated Gazza’s purpose.

If you have a family member on drugs or alcohol, make sure that the help you get for them includes something that includes something like this in their program. It’s not enough to simply stop taking drugs; there has to be more to life for full recovery to be successful.

Popularity: 13% [?]

With growing prevalence of armed robbers looking for OxyContin in pharmacies, it’s likely that many pharmacies will follow the lead of pharmacist Larry Bailey who no longer keeps the drug in his store. Patients who want to get their prescriptions filled have to wait until the next day. Bailey says having OxyContin on the premises is a liability.

Bailey sees the evidence of prescription drug addiction every day. At least once a day people come to him to fill their OxyContin or Vicodin prescriptions early, and more than once a month people try to alter their prescriptions.

How does prescription drug addiction start? For some it starts with a relatively minor problem like headaches, as in the case of wife and mother Julie Steiner who, one year after her doctor wrote the prescription, was popping 20 pills a day.  That’s  about $100 a day habit. If she were taking OxyContin, the cost would more likely be in the $600/day range.

How do people support such habits? Certaintly not too many can afford it without changing something about their lives. Steiner went doctor-shopping, and sent her friends out to do the same. Others also turn to a life of crime – like armed robbery of pharmacies and worse.

It took a lot to get Steiner to stop taking Vicodin. She had a seizure when she dropped her kid off at a bowling alley, then spent two days in the hospital and two weeks in rehab – not enough time to handle all the issues behind the addiction.

So, she relapsed. But not for long. Her desparate husband finally threatened to get the police involved and she quit once and for all. Imagine having to call the police on your wife.

But she still has the headaches and takes over the counter drugs for them.

As an aside, headaches happen for a reason. How much did her doctor do to find out that reason before he prescribed a highly addictive drug that turned life for her and her family into a years-long nightmare?

Make sure you look for all other options before you decide to take prescription painkillers. And if you have a doctor who refuses to send you to chiropractors, acupuncturists and other types of alternative medicine practitioners, get rid of him.

Don’t think prescription drug addiction can’t happen to you. It happens to people from all walks of life. And if it already has happened to you or someone you love – get into an addiction treatment center for help.

Popularity: 20% [?]