That’s one in five. That means that if you’re in a room with four other people, there’s a good chance one of you is taking prescription drugs – painkillers, stimulants, or sedatives, all of which are addictive – for no medical reason. And that person needs to get prescription drug rehab.

According to Medline, ‘experts’ don’t understand why so many people take these drugs. They assume that the fact that they’re so available has something to do with it.

But it takes a lot more than ‘being available’ for someone to take drugs. Bridges and tall buildings are available too, but that doesn’t mean people are going to jump off them.

So, why do they take them?

The reasons are actually pretty obvious, despite the fact that people who take them might say they’re just doing it for ‘kicks’ or because they ‘like it.’

The real reasons center around the fact that the individual taking them is unhappy, frustrated, confused, overwhelmed – and all those other conditions that indicate the person has something going on in their lives that they don’t feel they can do anything about.

And when you consider the world we live in right now, feeling that way about life should come as no surprise.

Also, because tens of millions are taking these same drugs as prescribed by their doctor, they think that the drugs are safe and see no reason why they should take them, too.

But they are deadly addictive. It doesn’t take long to get addicted to them, but what it takes to get off them is, guaranteed, far worse than whatever the person was experiencing that made them take the drugs in the first place.

They are likely to become ill with a variety of side effects, and sometimes life-threatening conditions. They are also going to have problems in their family, their job, their finances, their friends and other relationships. And they’re going to have to do a drug rehab program, which can take several months, will cost them a lot of money and their lives will be disrupted even more.

After all that’s done, you would have a hard time finding someone who says it was worth taking the drug. The only way that might be true is that a good drug rehab program will help them figure out solutions to the problems they were having in life that drove them to drugs in the first place.

Isn’t it a lot easier to just do that – face our problems and find solutions – than to take drugs, go through hell, put our families through hell, only to end up having to do the same thing?

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Years ago I had a friend who grew up in ‘the projects.’ Drugs, guns, crime, gangs – they were everywhere. And there wasn’t much else to do. Until some bright person started dance classes in a school yard. I don’t know how many kids were saved from a life of drugs, guns, crime, gangs, prison and drug rehab, or how many didn’t die when they would have otherwise, but my friend was one of them. In fact, he became a professional dancer and, after that, a very successful businessman with a great family.

All from one guy who cared enough to give the kids something to do that was fun and challenging enough to get and hold their interest.

Many parents get their kids involved in one thing after another – partly to teach them different skills, partly to enable them to achieve something, and partly to keep them out of trouble.

But these are ‘minivan’ parents – families with cars, money and the time and flexibility to ferry their kids around from one activity to another.

This is not the case in inner cities. A higher percentage of parents don’t have jobs or, because they work for a relatively low wage, need two incomes to make a go of it. But, as they will tell you, they can’t afford the daycare, transportation, eating out of the house, appropriate workclothes and so on that are needed for both parents to work. In fact, those expenses can cost more than their pay. So, mom is at home. And usually without a car, without a support group that can help her, and so on.

That doesn’t leave extra money they can pump into helping their kids achieve their goals.

If you’re in that position, or know someone who is, you could make a big difference by finding people who would volunteer their services for community programs that the kids will attend. You could do a little survey of the local kids, speak to them individually, and see what they would like. Then pick the things that the majority of kids say they would like and get something going.

Community activities like this can change an entire neighborhood. If you have the opportunity to do it, you could save lives, and help many kids achieve something that they’re proud of and can carry them forward to create a good future, free of crime, guns, gangs, prison, drugs and drug rehab programs.

And the personal satisfaction for you will be out the roof.

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According to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMSHA), the number of people going into drug rehab for prescription drug addiction has increased by 430 percent over the last ten years.

That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. Where one person out of ten may have gone into treatment for prescription drugs 10 years ago, there is now 4.3 out of ten.

And that’s only the people who go to drug rehab, not the people who are addicted to or dependent on prescription drugs but don’t get help for it.

SAMHSA says the prescription drug addiction problem is largely due to ‘pill mills.’

Pill mills are basically so-called pain management clinics that don’t do anything to address the problem; they just give out drugs. Since there are few questions asked, it becomes known that getting drugs from these doctors is a piece of cake. That attracts people who are already addicts.

However, the worst thing about pill mills is probably that they don’t offer any other solutions to the pain people are suffering. There’s no attempt to get them the treatment they need to get rid of the pain so, of course, they become addicts. There’s really no way to avoid it.

It’s hard to say how many people get addicted to prescription painkillers (OxyContin addiction, for example is really widespread) by first being given the pills by their doctor, but it’s considerable. Many of the people getting prescription drug rehab are in that situation.

That’s really criminal medicine.

What can you do? The solution is to first find a drug treatment program that will help get the person off the drugs, and then find alternative solutions to the pain. Chiropractic, acupuncture, natural medicine – they all offer possible solutions.

If these types of treatment were used, prescription drug addiction would be far less a problem.

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When I was much younger I thought that if something that got you high was legal then it must be safe. After all, if it wasn’t safe the government would ban it, right? Or restrict it in some way. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, some of the ‘legal’ drugs people are using are not only sending the users to drug rehab, they’re also making them go crazy.

A person using ‘bath salts’, for example, stabbed a priest. Another, also using bath salts, jumped from a third-story window.

I think a lot of people still think that the substances they’re using are safe if they’re legal. Same with prescription drugs. Most people think that if a doctor would prescribe a drug, then it, too, must be safe.

The truth of the matter is that people are inventing synthetic drugs all the time, and many people are getting hurt before anyone figures out what’s going on, and before the government catches up and actually makes the substance illegal, or illegal under certain circumstances.

What are these ‘legal’ drugs?

They have some pretty strange names – bath salts, K2, Spice, Meow Meow, Molly’s Plant Food, 2C-E – and there are plenty more.

They sound pretty innocent. But as you can see from the bath salts examples, that’s not the case.

It’s hard to believe there are people around who would do this – invent these substances that make people crazy, then pass them around, and sell them, with no concern about how much damage they’ll do.

One biochemist named Alexander Shulgin, a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and former research chemist at the Dow Chemical Company, re-discovered the synthesis for MDMA (Ecstasy) in 1976 and is ‘credited’ with making it popular. He also published the syntheses for more than 170 designer drugs of his own invention. He was a school teacher, so was his wife.

Thanks, doc.  Perhaps your intentions were good, but it didn’t work out in the end. Did it?

Fortunately, the government has caught up with a few of these drugs. A few days ago the House voted to classify several synthetic drugs as Schedule 1. That’s so restrictive that even researchers will have a hard time getting them. Perhaps it’s better that way. Haven’t we proven that drugs are not the answer to life’s problems?

Watch out for these drugs.  And if someone you care about is into drugs at all, get them into a good drug rehab program that will put an end to any desire they have to continue taking them. Really, that’s the only guarantee that their lives will not be ruined.

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Here’s a new twist on buying drugs online – nothing gets sent in the mail, you just listen. That’s right, it’s called ‘sonic drugs’, ‘digital drugs’ or ‘i-dosing’. If that sounds harmless, think again. Someone experiencing digital drugs is likely to want to try the real thing, says a frequent i-doser who is currently in drug rehab for the real thing.

Does i-dosing actually have an effect on the brain like real drugs do? Absolutely.

A brain imaging expert, who studied the effects of i-dosing on one person’s brain said he could definitely see the brain firing more erratically. He also said that the part of the brain associated with having seizures became more active. He said it’s troubling.

There are thousands of videos on youtube.com showing people’s reactions to sonic drugs. They are “twitching, screaming, appearing spaced out and confused.”

I watched several of them, and they look anything other than pleasant. I mean – this isn’t ‘music,’ it’s not kicking back to your favorite band, it’s electronic sound intended to stimulate certain reactions in the brain. And some of the reactions look really nasty.

Here’s what one video-poster had to say:

“My little brother tried the i-doser gate of hades because i was too scared to, and after about 15 minutes into it he started freaking out then he started balling his eyes out while he was still dosing.. but after a while he said “somebody help me” i turned off the camera and he ripped off the thing that was on his head and he was crying really bad i was hugging him trying to calm him down and he told me that a devil creature with horns was chasing him and pulled out a big knife and started stabbing his chest and took out his heart and held it in front of him. He only lasted 18 minutes though… THIS IS NOT FAKE”

Gates of Hades is one of the many i-doses you can listen to. You can also buy – that’s right, I said ‘buy’, minimum cost is about $7 a ‘hit’ – Hand of God, Death and others intended to mimic the effects of heroin, cocaine, and so on.

Can sound create that kind of effect? Of course – look at the scary movies you’ve seen. The thing that makes some of the scenes frightening isn’t necessarily what you see, it’s the sound track.

Same with romantic comedies. Does watching Tom Hanks walk through a park to see Meg Ryan make you cry? Nope. But it does if you have the right music playing. And, of course, if you’re susceptible to that sort of thing.

How about the Bourne movies? The soundtrack leaves you on the edge of your seat.

Those aren’t necessarily harmful. But when you tell someone to lie down, turn off the lights, and then shoot electronic sound waves designed to make someone experience ‘Death’, or ‘Gates of Hades’, that can also create seizures, you’re talking about something dangerous.

And it has nothing to do with whether or not the person will, later, take real drugs.

However, if the person i-dosing has a good experience – and, if they’re in really bad shape, even if the experience is bad – I can certainly see it leading to taking the real thing.

If you have kids, even kids in their late teens, early ‘20s, consider making websites that sell sonic drugs inaccessible on their computer. This new ‘high’ could be a bad trip. And if your kids are into drugs at all, get them into a drug rehab program asap. Get them to the point where they don’t want to experience those things, where they want to live and enjoy life without an altered mind.

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Not too long ago I wrote a blog about more people being in drug rehab for marijuana than any other drug. Someone left a comment on the blog calling me an idiot, saying that those people were sent to drug rehab by the court system and that there really isn’t anything wrong with marijuana. In fact, there is plenty wrong with marijuana, and here’s another one: a new study shows that someone who’s been smoking marijuana is twice as likely to get into a car crash.

The study looked at the results of nine prior studies regarding the relationship between marijuana and motor vehicle accidents. All but one study showed that the risk of having a motor vehicle accident while smoking marijuana – i.e. within 3 to 4 hours – was increased by nearly three times. And the more marijuana was smoked – both how much was smoked and how often – the greater the risk.

The authors assume that the reason for this increase is because marijuana decreased reaction time and coordination.

So, why should you get your family members into a drug rehab program if they’re smoking marijuana?

• We now know that there’s a much greater chance of them having a car accident.
• There is evidence that it causes brain damage.
• It causes disassociation – marijuana smokers are less connected to reality and the people around them.
• Someone could unknowingly buy marijuana that is laced with other drugs.
• We also know that the THC content (THC is the substance in marijuana that makes you high) is normally between 7.5 percent and 24 percent – whereas it used to be about 5 percent. This cause more physical and mental impairment, and more impaired judgment.
• Impaired judgment could increase the chances of the person taking other types of drugs.

True, you don’t see some of the most obviously distasteful sights associated with other drugs – not too many people are hunkering down in filthy alley smoking marijuana. Maybe that’s why some people don’t think marijuana is a problem.

But the facts above are very good reasons to not smoke marijuana, and to get help for those who do.

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In Louisville, Kentucky, a community mental health clinic that services 30,000 patients in the area is no longer going to prescribe the sedative Xanax or its generic version, alprazolam. They’re hoping this move will prevent prescription drug addiction, overdoses, deaths, and the need for drug rehab. They are also hoping to reduce the ‘constant stream of patients seeking Xanax” and the drain on resources caused by “pacifying, educating, bumping heads with people over Xanax.”

They started weaning people off the drugs in April, and plan to have all patients weaned off them completely by the end of 2011.

Xanax and alprazolam aren’t the only addictive prescription drugs causing problem in Kentucky. OxyContin addiction has been a major problem, as have other prescription painkillers like hydrocodone and methadone.

In fact, they been so busy trying to address the painkiller addiction problem that benzodiazepines like Xanax have kind of slipped through the cracks. But abuse and addiction to benzos is also widespread.

Alprazolam, for example, was the eighth most prescribed drug in the country in 2010. And there was an increase of 89% in emergency room visits.

The medical examiner in Kentucky said a combination of opiate painkillers, like OxyContin, and benzodiazepines, especially Xanax, is common in fatal overdoses.

Unfortunately, the clinic is going to replace Xanax and alprazolam with other drugs that don’t give you the ‘high’ that keep people clamoring for Xanax and alprazolam. Also, the body builds up a tolerance to Xanax and alprazolam so people have to take more and more of the drugs to get the same effect. This makes them even more prone to overdose.

Who knows where the other drugs will lead?

But, the clinic is also committed to spending more time with patients and actually working with them to relieve the anxiety they’re experiencing in life so they don’t need drugs at all.

Doctors get paid more for seeing a patient for 10 minutes and prescribing a drug than they do for actually sitting down with the patient and helping them work out the problems in their lives that are causing their emotional state. So it’s possible that their new protocol will affect their bottom line.

It’s good to see a clinic willing to take the hit in order to reduce the damage done by these dangerous and highly addictive drugs. Now, if we could just get them to stop prescribing dangerous drugs altogether …

If you or someone you know has a problem with prescription drug addiction, dependency or abuse, contact Drug Rehab Referral for help in sorting out how to get them into a drug rehab program that will enable them to live drug-free.

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It’s impossible to make up for the loss of a loved on, but it is possible to make something good happen because of their death. And that’s what’s happening in the UK now because of the tragic death of Amy Winehouse. More people are checking into drug rehab centers than ever.

Some phones are ringing off the hook – people look at what happened to Amy and know they have to do something about themselves if they want to make sure the same doesn’t happen to them.

I believe this indicates some sort of change in the alcohol/drug climate. In years past, kids knew that celebrated musicians and artists took drugs, and that drugs killed them. Parents, in an effort to discourage their kids from taking drugs, would use these celebrities as examples – especially those the kids admired and wanted to emulate.

However, many kids had the viewpoint that what made these celebrity musicians great was the drugs. And the kids wanted to be great, too, so they also wanted to take drugs.

In some cases, the fact that those musicians were now dead didn’t seem to get through. Maybe the fact that they were young, still feeling invincible, and hadn’t had much experience with death in their family or with friends, made the death part of the situation somewhat unreal to them. As other kinds of danger are to many young people.

If Amy Winehouse’s death causes more people to seek out an alcohol or drug rehab program that can straighten them out, she can add that to her legacy.

Still, she’s gone. And her death is a lesson to parents all over the world – don’t let the same thing happen to your kids.

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Prescription drug addiction and abuse is now causing more deaths than any other drug in the state of Florida.

In 2010, there were over 9,000 drug-related deaths, which is up nearly 10% from 2009.

The worst drug is Oxycodone, which goes under the trade names Tylox, Percodan and OxyContin. OxyContin addiction has been taking the country by storm for years – ever since it gained popularity as a prescription painkiller when the manufacturer (Purdue Pharma) lied to doctors and the public by saying it was less addictive than other painkillers. Purdue was taken to court and fined $634 million for lying about the drug, but that did not stop the firestorm of addiction.

Florida has been one of the hardest hit. In fact, of the 9000+ drug deaths in 2010, 1516 were related to OxyContin addiction and abuse. Also, even though 2010 drug-related deaths were up about 10% from 2009, OxyCodone (mostly OxyContin) went up 28%.

The second type of drug involved in the deaths was benzodiazepines (sedatives) at 1,304. And methamphetamine was third at 694. Other drugs, obviously, were all less than methamphetamine. Alcohol is also on the list – it isn’t often that you see a drug overshadowing the damage done by alcohol.

It’s obvious that prescription drug addiction is leading the way with drug-related deaths in Florida: they are responsible for nearly 1/3 of the deaths.

Many people believe that prescription drugs are safer than others since they are given out by doctors. Nothing could be further from the truth – the statistics speak for themselves.

If you know or suspect that you or someone you care about is suffering from OxyContin addiction, or benzodiazepine addiction, or is involved in other types of prescription drug abuse, you can get help. Not all drug rehab facilities are experienced with prescription drugs but many do an excellent job. At Drug Rehab Referral, we can help you find the best programs for your situation. Call us at 877-211-7428 for help.

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I recently read an article asking why we just don’t understand drug addiction. As if that lack of understanding was the source of the problem. I think drug addiction is quite well understood – the real problem is that we don’t know what to do about it. In fact, even finding a drug rehab facility that understands the real solutions is difficult.

Why are people addicted to drugs? There’s a list – but, surprisingly, it’s not too long.

• Poverty
• Frustration and worry in life
• Emotional trauma caused by association with those who don’t have our best interests at heart
• Low self-esteem and feeling like a failure in some way or other
• Physical dependency on prescription drugs
• Lack of education and the resulting inability to get ahead in life
• Feeling a lack of purpose in life, or having that purpose thwarted
• Growing up in an environment where illicit drugs and alcohol are accepted
• Growing up in an environment where prescription drugs are considered to be a remedy to life’s problems
• Taking dangerous drugs for kicks and becoming addicted

There may be more, but they would probably be versions of the above.

What we lack – on a broad scale – is the ability or wherewithal to do something about those problems.

Among those listed above, however, is one item that, if it can be resolved, may lead to a resolution of many of the other problems. And that item is feeling a lack of purpose in life.

When an individual has a purpose in life, and that purpose is constructive, and it is THEIR purpose, not a purpose instilled in them or forced upon them by family members (like the classic example of a family that wants their creative son or daughter to become a lawyer, like their father and grandfather, instead of a musician or artist), and the person is taking meaningful (in their estimation) steps to accomplish that purpose, that tends to override almost anything we go through.

You hear great stories about people who overcome incredible obstacles in order to ‘follow their bliss,’ and that same thing that makes them want to get up in the morning, ready to go, interested in and enthusiastic about the day ahead of them, can also keep them away from drugs and alcohol.

If you want your children to grow up without drugs or alcohol, do whatever you can to support them in those things they are passionate about. And if they’re already into drugs or alcohol, get them into a good drug rehab program that will help them work things out so they then feel able to achieve something that truly interests them.

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