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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Most people I know are saying that Amy Winehouse’s early death was inevitable. Several have said they didn’t even know anything about her as a musician – her alcohol and drug escapades, along with several arrests and trips to drug rehab, completely overshadowed her talent – a pity, since she was remarkable and had been compared to Billie Holiday and other greats. It’s hard to say whether it was inevitable or not but on thing is for sure – she never got the alcohol and drug rehab program she really needed.

Her serious alcohol and drug abuse seemed to start when she married Blake Fielder-Civil in May 2007. Even though they divorced within a couple of years, I would venture to say that the relationship left her very scarred – she continued her drug and alcohol abuse until the day she died.

One of the major problems, as I see it, is that she never really did a full alcohol or drug rehab program. Also, it was reported more than once that she was still drinking and taking drugs even while she was in the various programs she did. How this happened, I don’t know. She also never really appeared to complete a program – her stays were very brief, sometimes lasting only a few days.

A good program, for someone in her condition, would have taken several months.

They would first have gotten her off the drugs and alcohol – safely, and in an environment where there were definitely no drugs or alcohol available to her.

Next, they would have worked on physical recovery. Getting all the drugs actually out of her system and, through a good nutritional program, restored her health to the degree possible.

They would also have addressed why she got into drugs and alcohol in the first place and worked with her on these problems until she was no longer overwhelmed by them.

She would have received the tools necessary to prevent her from getting involved in similar problems in the future.

And a program, with follow-up, that enabled her to go back into the world and live without alcohol or drugs.

This takes months. Not days, not weeks. But, it would have saved her life and she would be happily fulfilling her dreams as an artist and in life.

No one really knows why she did not enter such a program, or, if she did, why she did not persist with it.

If someone you care about is in trouble with drugs or alcohol, make sure you get them into that type of program and make sure they stick with it. It is known that that can be hard to do, but  successful drug rehab programs are designed to enable the person to persist. Drug Rehab Referral can help you find one.

It’s too late to save Amy. But it’s not too late for others.

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A recent news item says that the heroin industry in Mexico is coming into high gear and, consequently, the Midwest and Atlantic states are going to turn into heroin hubs. Until now, that role has been played primarily by California and Texas. What does that mean for us – the general public? There will be a lot more heroin around, and a lot of people are going to be doing into drug rehab to help get off the drug. This is especially true for kids who experiment with drugs, and for people fighting prescription drug addiction.

The cost of heroin is already relatively low – $5 a hit, maybe as much as $10 – which is how students and young adults can afford it. For people with a prescription drug problem, like OxyContin addiction, heroin is also a cheap and readily available substitute. One OxyContin pill could cost as much as $80 on the street.

Prescription drug addiction has become a major problem in the U.S. Even the President’s talking about it. With prescription drug monitoring becoming more prevalent – which makes it harder for someone to go from one doctor to another faking symptoms to get OxyContin they can sell to others – and laws on pill mills getting tighter, more heroin will be welcome.

The article also said that the Mexican heroin dealers are changing the face of the typical heroin user. “Using savvy marketing tactics, they’ve also repositioned heroin commercially, revamping its image from the inner-city drug of yore, with its junkies and needles, into a narcotic that can be snorted or smoked, appealing to suburban and even rural high school youth.”
Pretty disgusting. Parents, especially, should make sure their kids are educated on drugs so they are not tempted. Also, anyone who has a friend or family member who tends to experiment with street drugs or pills and might be tempted to try something a little cheaper should put extra effort into getting them into a drug rehab program asap.

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According to a recent news article on a site that features airing the dirty laundry of celebrities – did the people who write that stuff grow up knowing that was their true mission in life, something that would give them a sense of purpose? –  Mackenzie Phillips is half-way through her certification program as a drug counselor. I don’t know how it will interact with an actual drug rehab program, but her counseling will apparently be turned into a TV show called No Relapse. The article called the idea of her counseling others on drugs absurd. In fact, she may be extremely successful. Here’s why.

Imagine you are a boat builder and need help figuring out a problem. Would help from an accountant, for example, who’s only boat experience has been going on a cruise really help you? Would anything they have to say be credible? Chances are high that it would be a complete waste of time.

In fact, many of the really good drug counselors have had a drug problem themselves. They understand what the addict is going through every step of the way. They know how it feels to be on drugs, they know how it feels to be addicted, they know how it feels to try and get off them.

They know about the physical pain, the emotional pain, about the experiences and feelings that lead a person to take drugs in the first place, and they know about trying to stay off them once they’re through the drug rehab program and back out in their usual environment.

Assuming that the former addict has also been trained as a counselor, there’s a good chance you won’t find anyone better to help you or someone you care about get off drugs.

Parents all over the world have tried to get their kids to stop drinking or taking drugs – as have wives with their husbands, sisters with their brothers, and vice versa in both cases, and even kids with their parents.

They are rarely successful. They usually don’t know the first thing about what the addict is going through, so their pleas, reasoning and other attempts fail.

I wish Mackenzie Phillips all the success in the world. And if you have a problem with drugs in your family, don’t be put off by the idea that a former addict may be the person able to get your family member off drugs. In fact, a former addict is usually exactly what an addict needs – which is why some of the most successful drug rehab facilities hire them.

Just as the accountant wasn’t able to advise the boat builder, airing celebrity dirty laundry for a living actually doesn’t qualify you as a drug rehab expert.

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If you know someone who is on heroin, methadone, other opiates – even prescription painkillers – you need to know this.

A recent article regarding heroin addicts in the UK says the government – i.e. the taxpayers – is spending 3.6 billion pounds (that’s nearly $6 billion dollars) to keep heroin addicts addicted to methadone. At the same time, the number of those addicts actually being referred to a drug rehab program where they can become totally free of drugs has dropped dramatically.

There is somewhere between 150,000 and 320,000 heroin/methadone/opiate addicts on the UK’s drug addiction sponsorship programs: here’s an example of what the British taxpayers are financing:

$1.2 million a year on methadone.

$2.8 billion a year on welfare payments

$1.9 billion a year on looking after the children of drug addicts

Wow.

The original intention of the methadone program – except for a very few addicts – was to use the drug to help wean them off heroin; to prevent them from having to go through the horrible withdrawal side effects that so often stops heroin addicts from kicking the habit.

Methadone is not a solution. It’s much, much more difficult to get someone off methadone than heroin. Many facilities in the U.S. won’t even accept methadone addicts in their drug rehab program. So methadone doesn’t free the person of anything – it imprisons them.

So, what about real drug rehab for these addicts? Of these 150,000 or 320,000 people (whatever the real number is) only 3,914 per year are referred for actual drug rehab. In fact, there are only 1,872 ‘affordable’ – which is being defined at about $1000 a week – beds in drug rehab facilities in the entire country.

A real lose/lose situation. Everybody loses – the addicts, the government, the families of addicts, the British taxpayer. Everyone in the country is paying to keep addicts addicted.

The very disturbing thing about this is that there is a similar trend in the U.S. Britain was one of the first countries to offer methadone as a solution. Now, decades later, it’s glaringly obvious that the great methadone experiment has failed. Let’s hope the U.S. is paying attention and learns from Britain’s mistakes.

If you know of someone who is addicted to heroin – or other opiates, which methadone is also used for – methadone is not the answer;  methadone is not drug rehab, it is continued drug addiction.

When someone you care about is addicted to heroin or other opiates, it’s tempting to do something to ‘quiet’ things down. Methadone addicts who are getting their drugs inexpensively, or, sometimes, free, often stop causing trouble. Like ‘psychiatric’ patients who are given drugs to calm them down – often to the point where they’re just sitting in a chair staring at whatever’s in front of them. Sure, with the right drug, no one causes trouble.

But is that really all you want? Wouldn’t you prefer to get them help so they can end their dependency on drugs and get back to leading a normal, productive life?

Only a good drug rehab program can do that. And by ‘good’, I don’t mean one of those 30-day things that get the person off drugs temporarily but, because they don’t thoroughly deal with why they got on drugs in the first place or how they’re going to stay off them when they get back into their regular environment, rarely gets permanent results. A good drug rehab program includes those steps. And, for the vast majority of addicts, it’s the only thing that works.

Don’t settle for less. Get your life back.

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Whitney Houston has certainly had her problems with drugs. She started her career with some incredible hits, and she was very young. Her first album was released when she was barely into her 20s. Since then, she’s won grammys, emmys – hundreds of music awards, more than any other female artist – but has had a constant battle with drugs almost since she started. Her problem? She hasn’t been choosing the right drug rehab program.

Whitney has been in drug rehab several times. Eventually, the problem got so bad her brilliant career was in the toilet. Fortunately, she’s extremely talented and was able to make a few comebacks – the latest was in 2009. But, once again, she’s in trouble – she just got out of yet another drug rehab program, a 30-day program which she says was just not enough.

She is so right. Short term drug rehab just doesn’t make it. Maybe if you have been taking drugs for a month – and aren’t totally into it, and are not in an environment or emotional condition where they will be constantly temped – 30 days might be enough. But anyone who has something serious going on needs more time.

A good drug rehab program gets the person off the drugs – which can take a while, and then gets into getting the person healthy again. Then, and without this step there’s little chance of the person staying off drugs, they get into why the person started with drugs in the first place and address that. Then, and this is the second thing that is vital for success, they look at the person’s environment, what they run into that makes them get back into drugs, and address those problems – helps them find solutions in advance.

Whitney Houston needs to really revamp her life so she understands why she is in a constant state of emotional upheaval.

A good drug rehab program will do that for her. I hope she finds it.

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There are a lot of problems connected with using drugs – the dangers of the drugs themselves are just the beginning. Here’s one young man’s story. It may have had a far different ending had he done a good drug rehab program earlier.

He’s 21 years old. Doesn’t have a great history – his probation ended just a week ago for a felony drug possession case. He then finds a drug on the Internet called 2C-E, a synthetic hallucinogen.

He takes the drug to a party and offers it to whoever wants some. I don’t know how many people took the offer, but one person died, and ten others were hospitalized. They were between 16 and 21 years old.

The guy who died was 19 years old, a college student and a new father. After he snorted the drug, he got violent – punching walls, breaking things, and yelling – was staring with dilated pupils, and then stopped breathing. He went to the hospital, where he was on life support, and died of cardiac arrest, attributed to the drug.

Of the ten who went to the hospital, two remained there for several days in critical condition.

The young man who provided the 2C-E has now been charged with murder, and, no doubt, there will be other charges as well, and facing many years in prison.

A lot of lives were ruined here. The guy who provided the drugs, the guy who died, and I’m sure the experience will have a long term effect on the others who were hospitalized as well. Although, we hope, they would have learned a lesson from this and maybe will stop doing drugs.

Would your kid have tried that drug in that situation? Perhaps. And they may not have been one of the lucky ones – those who lived.

This is the kind of thing that can happen. And it’s one more reason why you need to get your kid, if they’re using drugs, into a good drug rehab program immediately. These things happen without warning.

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A recent study found that whether or not a person turns to alcohol to relieve stress depends on how early they started drinking. Parents who instill good habits in their kids may avoid the horror of their kids becoming drug addicts or alcoholics who need drug rehab to be able to live a normal, productive life.

The results of this study are completely logical. If kids are raised to put things away when they’re finished using them, eat a good diet, save money, and so on, they tend to carry the things they’ve learned into adulthood.

Also, if kids are taught to work out solutions to problems rather than taking drugs or alcohol to ‘forget’ them, they will grow up with that life skill. It will not only help them confront life instead of escaping from it, it will also help them create the life they want.

Kids who turn to drugs or alcohol when under stress will never really learn those skills and their lives could be miserable. They may not do street drugs but, eventually, they could wind up with a prescription drug addiction – which may be even worse.

It’s also important that parents set a good example. In fact, the ‘do as I say not as I do’ approach doesn’t work very well at all. If parents are solving their problems with drugs – sleeping pills, antidepressants, painkillers, tranquilizers and so on – that teaches the kids that that’s how adults cope.

If you want your kids to face up to life and use their head to make it better, teach them the basic skills they need to do that, and set a good example.

It will really pay off for you in the end.

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A recent study showed that 40% of high school kids have tried marijuana. Many are probably not using it enough to need drug rehab yet, but, still, nearly one out of two kids is a lot.

Who’s most likely to NOT use marijuana?

• Those getting A’s in school
• Those participating in sports or other extra-curricular activities
• Those who live in a two-parent household

When raising your kids, you might want to take the above into consideration.

Many people think of marijuana as completely harmless. But studies have linked marijuana use to several physical, mental and emotional problems;

• high levels of anxiety
• depression
• wanting to kill yourself
• aggression
• psychotic symptoms
• tobacco use
• nicotine dependence
• other substance abuse
• poor sleep
• respiratory problems
• cancer
• learning, memory, and intellectual functioning problems
• poor school performance
• school dropout

And things get worse if the usage continues beyond adolescence into young adulthood and beyond.

“There is considerable evidence that it’s not just an innocent sort of thing,” said the lead author of the study, Ty S. Schepis, a professor at Texas State University in San Marcos. “This is a period of strong change in the brain. We’re very concerned that marijuana alters the ways in which adolescent brains normally mature, particularly among heavy users.”

Parents who think of marijuana as a harmless right of passage and know or suspect that their kids are using it might want to familiarize themselves with more of the research and get addiction help for their kids before further damage is done.

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