This week, I came across a headline about a young man who died from a drug overdose. Since I read mostly drug-related news headlines and the stories that are related, I see quite a few articles like this during any given week or month. But, why did this one jump out at me? Because the young man’s mother taught him how to use drugs starting at the age of 14 or 15!

It was reported that the Wisconsin mother smoked marijuana and crack-cocaine as well as used heroin with her child. How sickening is that? And, to top it off, she’s now left without a child and facing a jail sentence. She attributes her behavior to substance abuse and mental health issues.

Many people in the world are faced with substance abuse problems. The effects of these problems are reflected in the news stories that are about drug violence, trafficking and tragic overdoses. But when parents are involving their children into the mix, it brings it to a whole new level.

Apparently there were witnesses who told the investigators of the overdose death about the drugs she was doing with her son. Why on earth didn’t anyone get them help? Were they scared? Were they fellow drug users? Did they feel like it wasn’t their place to intervene? A plethora of questions fill my mind. But, what I do know, is that if they would have spoken up, it’s possible that the boy would still be alive today. And both the mother and son could have received help to live healthy drug-free lives.

If you know anyone who is either abusing drugs or alcohol, or if, god forbid, they’re giving drugs to their children, it’s important that you speak up. Get them some help by contacting a drug rehab center or addiction specialist, before it’s too late.

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This week, the big media release was information about the actor, Corey Haim, dying suddenly in his mother’s home in California. He was found unconscious on Wed., in the very early morning hours. There’s a lot of speculation about him dying of an accidental drug overdose, which would make sense, since he’s battled drug addiction for all of his adult life.

There have been several different media stories covering this information, all with similar details. I did happen to catch in one of the articles though, that Corey entered drug rehab more than 15 times to try and beat his addiction. Can you believe that? That is a lot of drug rehab time, obviously without much of any positive and fruitful outcome. It’s a shame he didn’t do an effective drug rehab program.

I also read in another article covering the news of his passing, that Corey was trying to self medicate for illness, much like Brittany Murphy did which helped to cause her sudden death. This involves taking whatever medications you choose, based on symptoms that you’re experiencing – not because you were seen by a doctor and prescribed a medication for a particular illness. It has been made quite clear that this is extremely dangerous, and in some cases, fatal.

Whether Corey’s cause of death turns out to be accidental overdose, or something else, the rumors about overdose are warranted because Corey has struggled with drug addiction for a very long time. It’s a real shame that he didn’t get positive results from any of his drug rehab stays, and a chance to live his life truly addiction free. My deepest sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones.

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Many kids, with all of the energy that they have, are into sports. Some enter high school and become great athletes. But what if your athlete child gets an injury during a practice or a game and winds up being prescribed painkillers for their injury? What is the likelihood of them become addicted to those painkillers? Unfortunately it’s high and who would have thought that as a parent of an athlete you’d be in a position where you would be looking for a drug rehab program rather than a good college?

Unfortunately, this is quite common in the drug detox and drug rehab world and these types of facilities see this every day. They don’t just get people needing help for drugs like Cocaine, Meth or Heroin, they are helping children who have addiction problems due to sports injuries who become dependent and/or addicted to their pain medication.

As a parent, it’s important to stay on top of helping your teen with prescription painkillers or any medications for that matter. Not only because of the risk for dependency and addiction, but also because of the risk of overdose. With the rising statistics of teenage prescription drug abuse, it’s your duty to play this role in your child’s life.

And, while it can be considered controversial, there’s always drug testing. Whether at home or in school sports programs, however controversial it may be, it could save a child’s life!

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I was in a pet store the other day and asked the clerk (he could be the owner, he’s been there every time I’ve gone in there for the last four years) if Catnip is a drug – would it get my cat high, like marijuana?  He said “Yes, but it won’t hurt him, just like marijuana. It doesn’t hurt anyone.” I jokingly asked him if my cat will want to move on to other drugs once he tries catnip and will my cat eventually need drug rehab.

By then it was obvious we were no longer discussing catnip. He replied that marijuana is not a gateway drug – that whether or not someone goes on to take other drugs once they’ve smoked marijuana depends on the individual, not the drug.

I agreed – duh, I don’t know of one drug that has an inherent chemical property of making the person want a different drug. But I also told him that in all the years I took drugs I’d never once met anyone who only smoked grass. (Not to mention the number of people who wind up in a drug rehab center who’ve taken meth, cocaine, LSD, heroin, and so on, whose first drug experience was with marijuana.)

He informed me that I had now met such a person – him.

Okay. So, I’ve now met one person.

Also – every time I talk about marijuana as a gateway drug I get several comments telling me what an idiot I am. So, there’s a few more.

(For some reason, those responses are always rude and semi-literate. No one ever quotes or lists studies or offers any statistical evidence that people who smoke marijuana don’t usually go onto other drugs; they just quite simply tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I’m an idiot. The responses are akin to “Oh, yeah! So’s your mother, you ****ing ***hole!” Well, when you put it that way … that’s certainly enough to convince me! I don’t know why the scientific community hasn’t taken that into account.)

Nevertheless, the guy in the pet store did give me some insight into why people think marijuana is not a gateway drug. Because drugs don’t cause people to take drugs, people do. Just like guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

It is true? Sure. But, if you put a loaded gun in the hands of a very angry, frightened guy who feels he needs to do something drastic about his emotional state, there’s more chance he’ll use the gun when it’s already in his hand than if he had to wait until the next day, get a gun license, go to the gun store, decide what kind of gun he’d like, figure out if he wants a case for it and, if so, what kind, etc. etc. etc.

Likewise, there’s more chance that someone who’s disillusioned, worried, fearful, unsure of themselves, unhappy, confused, or, apparently, just bored, will take drugs other than marijuana if they’re already high on marijuana (or have used it before without negative affects) and someone is right in front of them offering them something else.

In fact, that can be said of any drug. No matter what drugs a person has taken, there’s more chance that they’ll take a different drug than if they had never taken drugs at all.

So, all drugs are gateway drugs – taking any drug increases the possibility that other drugs will be taken.

If you know someone taking any drug, it’s best to get them into drug treatment before they take things further.

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Tens of millions of parents, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, are in a state of frustrated despair about the drug taking or drinking habits of a family member. And most of them think the person will never change. That may be true if you leave it up to them. But, for the most part, if they could do it on their own they would have quit already. Isn’t it time to take the bull by the horns and get them into an alcohol and drug addiction treatment center, no matter what it takes?

Really, you don’t have to live like that. An alcohol and drug addiction treatment center gets them off the drugs or alcohol, works with them to find the reasons they’re drinking or taking drugs, helps them resolve whatever those issues are, and works out the changes they need to make in their lives so they can stay sober. And it actually works! It’s not a hopeless situation.

The state of New York is currently running a new campaign to get people to quit drinking and taking drugs. They have a website with alcohol and drug recovery stories – stories of parents who got their kids back, or long-term addicts who’ve served jail time and, after getting help through an addiction treatment center are now, and have been for years, up-standing members of their community. Read the stories – you’ll see that it is possible.

There are some things in life we have little control over – but alcohol and drug abuse in the family is not one of them. Get your family member through alcohol rehab or a drug addiction program and it will change their lives, and yours.

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Anyone interested in non-drug, natural or alternative health care is very aware of the medical establishment’s resistance to these methods. But, nevertheless, many of them work and, unlike drugs, don’t make you sick in the process. One such example is the use of acupuncture in dealing with drug addiction.

One addiction treatment center, in a prison, treats 700 inmates every year – many of them hard core drug addicts who have tried other treatments without success.

Not only are the prisoners behind acupuncture, one decades-long heroin addict says nothing has worked as well. It’s also enthusiastically supported by a local judge who has sent many people “kicking and screaming” for acupunture treatment only to be thanked later. 

No one follows up on the addicts after their release, although it is known that some people stay drug-free.

One of the major hurdles for continued sobriety is probably that many of them don’t have health insurance to continue their treatment, or their coverage doesn’t include acupunture.

That’s where the medical establishment’s resistance comes in. If acupunture was accepted and its benefits acknowledged the insurance companies would follow.

Acupuncture has been a successful treatment method in Asia for centuries. The health care system in Japan, for example, which has its own style of acupuncture, is ranked (by the World Health Organization) as the 10th best in the world. The U.S. comes in at # 37. 

Acupunture is also very effective in the treatment of pain – instead, we favor painkillers, one of the biggest causes of prescription drug addiction.

There’s a lot more to handling a real drug addiction than acupuncture, and a good addiction treatment center offers all the other services necessary. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that getting rid of medical prejudice against non-drug therapies like acupunture could help alleviate our drug problems.

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An interesting commentary article from the Phillipines talks about enablers – people who somehow support the bad habits of their friends and family. Gamblers who are loaned or given money, and drug abusers, and dealers, whose parents and family members turn a blind eye instead of getting them into an addiction treatment center where they can get help.

One of the problems mentioned in the article, which leads to ‘enabling,’ is trying to avoid conflict. I would say that’s a major problem – especially within a family.

When someone tries to talk to their husband, wife or kid about their drug or alcohol problem, there’s a good chance they’re going to meet with hostility. The addict, or alcoholic, will throw everything you’ve ever done wrong in your face, or will be beligerant and angry, will storm out of the house or go into another room and slam the door, and so on.

In other words, they attack the person who’s trying to help them and make the situation so uncomfortable the person either backs down or gets so embroiled in the argument themselves they can no longer do what they’d set out to do.

How can you avoid this? First, don’t try to speak with the person when they’re currently on drugs or drinking. When they’re sober they’re more likely to agree they have a problem. Second, try not to get upset when they do so you don’t give them anything to fight with. Generally, it takes two to argue.

Third, and most important, be ready to take them to an addiction treatment center right then and there. Have it set up beforehand so as soon as you get the person to admit they have a problem, you can put them in the car, on a plane, whatever it takes, to get them into treatment before they change their mind.

If you can’t do this, get help from an interventionist. They can help you see the whole thing through to the end. In fact, most interventions aren’t what you would expect. A good interventionist can get the job done without a lot of drama.

All the reasons you have wanted a loved one to stop drinking or taking drugs, all the fears you’ve had about it, are a reality. If you haven’t yet experienced the worst of it, ask anyone who has. And then get help through a drug addiction treatment center.

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It’s unbelievable to me that various states are fighting to keep their drug court funding. It costs far less to send someone to drug rehab than to prison and they get rehabilitated so they can stay off drugs, hold down a job and live a better life. They also stop their involved in the drug-related crime that affects so many lives in addition to their own and costs individuals, businesses, health insurance companies and the government so much money. When you consider that the majority of people who go to prison end up back in prison, the expenses are even higher. There are so many things desperately in need of the tax dollars used for prisons – all the money saved could be diverted to something other than locking someone up.

Nevertheless, lawmakers are threatening to cut drug court funding in Virginia (which has a serious prescription drug addiction problem and needs help more than most other states).

This is an issue the general public really should be up in arms about. It helps everyone – parents who are worried about their kids being exposed to drugs will have less to worry about, the environment will be safer overall, the cost of private health insurance could go down if we’re not paying for people showing up in hospital emergency wards because of overdoses or drug-related accidents – the list of potential benefits goes on and on.

As taxpayers, we have the ability to influence how our tax dollars are spent. If you don’t want our money to be wasted on systems that don’t work, like our penal system, get active – speak to your congressman to get them to back up drug courts, addiction treatment centers and other things that can effectively handle the drug problem.

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Many people feel that a drug rehab center is the last place they want their loved one to spend Christmas. But for alcoholics and drug addicts, it can be a relief. One center in Canada even says admissions are higher during Christmas than other times of the year. It’s an ideal time for families to get together, do an intervention, and send their loved one to get some real help.

So, what about the idea that Christmas is a happy time when everyone lets by-gones be by-gones. Some experts say it’s a myth. And anyone who has an alcoholic or drug addict in the family would probably agree. The addicts are filled with guilt, the families are embarrassed and frustrated, and it often ends with recrimination and hopelessness.

Imagine the relief of knowing that the person you love will feel good about themselves this Christmas, and the family will feel they’ve given a gift that’s really life-changing. It’s not too often you get to give someone something like that.

Here’s the story of one alcoholic who is thankful she spent Christmas without alcohol and without guilt.

It’s not hard to find an addiction treatment center than allows visits from family and friends at Christmas – some even have their own celebrations and parties. Check it out.

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Isn’t it time somebody did something about the University of Wisconsin? The place has been in the top ten party schools list for years, and the drinking problem is so bad the police don’t even have the resources to take care of anything other than some of the binge-drinking students who might die from alcohol poisoning if the cops weren’t personally carting them off to detox. And how many of them get into an addiction treatment center so they can really get down to the bottom of the problem? Not many.

Now UW has a drug problem – in 2008, so far, 35% of the students have taken some form of illicit drugs – which includes prescription drugs obtained illegally.

Police budgets have been cut, as have other law enforcement agencies, whose resources are so stretched that cases are just being dismissed because they can’t get to them, and the drug problem is getting even less attention than alcohol.

If I were a parent, I wouldn’t care if I lived next door to UW, which, thank God, I don’t, I wouldn’t let my kid go there.

Parents need to demand that something be done about it before their kids end up with a cocaine, heroin, meth or prescription drug addiction problem.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Start squeaking.

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