It’s a horrible thought that you might have had something to do with your kid’s drug problems and their need for drug rehab. But, in the case of prescription drug addiction or abuse, there’s a good chance that it’s true.

How could you have been responsible? According to a recent study of over 70,000 people aged 12 and up, more than 70 percent of people who abuse prescription painkillers get the drugs from friends or relatives. They usually have permission to take them and, of course, the drugs are free.

Here are more alarming statistics:

• 7 million Americans abuse pharmaceutical drugs
• The home medicine cabinet is a primary place where people get their drugs
• 55 percent of prescription painkiller abusers get drugs from a family or friends for free
• 11 percent buy them from friends or family
• 5 percent steal them from friends and family

And then there are the prescription drug overdose deaths:

• Prescription drugs cause more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.
• Prescription drugs are involved in 75 percent of all overdose deaths in the U.S.
• Three out of every four deaths from pills involve opioid painkillers like oxycodone. OxyContin addiction is widespread, but people also die from hydrocodone and methadone.

And other problems brought on by prescription drug abuse:

• Prescription drugs are often the reason for gang violence and for people starting a life of crime
• People who abuse prescription drugs become addicted then turn into drug dealers so they can make money to support their habit
• Doctors and pharmacists are also turning into drug dealers to make more money
• 25 percent of people who abuse painkillers chronically get their drugs from doctors

I think the statistics speak for themselves. Prescription drug abuse is not something to mess around with. They kill people – and that’s not something you want to be responsible for.

If you or someone else in the family is already abusing prescription drugs – or even addicted to them simply by taking them as your doctor prescribed them – it might be time to look for another solution. But, first, find a good drug rehab program that is experienced in helping people get off prescription drugs.

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A recent story said that the number of teens dying from poisoning increased by 90 percent over a period of nine years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the huge jump in these deaths is because of an increasing number of teens taking more and more prescription drugs. In fact, every day another 2,500 teens try prescription drugs. Why is this happening? How can you prevent it? And do they need prescription drug rehab?

A lot of kids experiment with prescription drugs – even those who wouldn’t think of trying the drugs on the street. Why?

• doctors prescribe them, so they must be safe, and it’s not actually like taking drugs
• their parents take the same drugs for their various conditions: including just wanting to feel better, less upset, more relaxed, and so on – things that kids feel a need for, too
• the drugs are readily available – right in the medicine cabinet in their own house or a family member or friend’s house
• they’re being offered these drugs at parties/raves and just for everyday use by other kids
• other kids are taking them and fitting in or being cool is desirable at that age

Okay – so, as parents, which of the above can you eliminate?

The most obvious are taking the drugs yourself, and having them available in the house. True, you’re not going to quit taking drugs that control your outrageously high blood pressure or do something else that may be potentially life-saving.

However, if you’re suffering from back pain, perhaps you could go to a chiropractor instead of popping pain pills. There are also natural remedies for other types of pain –arthritis, for example, has been practically cured with certain nutrients.

And if you’re having trouble sleeping, maybe you could go to a naturopathic doctor who will give you a remedy other than drugs, or maybe even find out what’s causing the problem and cure it.

If you’re upset in life in general, maybe you could look over your life and see what’s upsetting you – then, do something to change that part of your life rather than taking pills that make you less aware of the problem.

By finding non-drug remedies for life’s problems, you are not only getting the drugs out of your medicine cabinet, you’re also doing something even more valuable – you’re teaching your kids that drugs are not a solution to life’s problems and that if you want to feel better about life, you should do something to change your life, not take drugs to make your life look better.

As for whether or not they need prescription drug rehab, that depends on how many of those drugs they’ve done and how often, whether they do other drugs as well, which ones and how often – there are a lot of questions.

Your best bet is to speak with an experienced drug rehab counselor to get all your questions answered.

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Kentucky’s doing a lot to try to handle their prescription drug addiction problem. Not only is a bill nearly passed that will enable another 5,000 people a year to get a drug rehab program paid for by Medicaid, they’re also trying to get a bill through that monitors the number of painkiller prescriptions written by doctors so they can get the docs who are, basically, pushing drugs.

Unfortunately, the bill didn’t go through. The main objections were patient privacy and the possibility of prosecuting doctors who aren’t doing anything wrong.

They’re after the doctors, not the patients, and for good reason: these guys are among the worst criminals in the U.S. More people are dying from prescription drugs than from heroin and cocaine combined. And one of the biggest problems we have to handle in order to prevent those deaths is get the doctors who are over-prescribing under control.

It’s safe to say that these doctors are killing people. And we can’t even investigate them properly? Tell that to the parents, spouses, children and friends of those who are dying.

As for prosecuting innocent doctors, I don’t think that’s likely to happen. They’re not looking for docs who hand out what seems like one or two more prescriptions more than usual – they’re looking at docs who prescribe thousands of pills every day. And often they prescribe them for the same people over and over. And, if they see the patient at all, it could only be for a minute or two.

If someone you care about is using prescription painkillers and you think the situation is out of hand, do two things: One, visit their doctor with them and find out how many pills the person is actually getting. Second, whatever they’re suffering from – other than prescription drug addiction – try to find other solutions to the problem. Third, get them into prescription drug rehab now.

Also, if you suspect that the doctor is up to something, go ahead and report him. You’ll be protecting the people you love, and probably hundreds of others.

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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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Can you imagine living in a State where poverty is rampant and employers can’t find enough people to hire who pass a drug test? That’s the situation in West Virginia, and this year officials plan to figure out what they can do to get these people into drug rehab and work out an overall handling to reduce the number of people who are drugged.

West Virginia is a good example of what happens on a smaller scale – in families – when drugs and alcohol enter the picture. Sometimes it’s the parents with the drug or alcohol problem, and sometimes it’s the kids. In either case, the result is the same.

How did West Virginia become, basically, an entire State with the same problems drugs create in a family. West Virginia was one of the hardest hit States when the OxyContin addiction problem surfaced in the U.S. Purdue Pharma. Purdue promoted OxyContin as less addictive than previously used painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet – and was later fined $634 million for intentionally lying to the public and doctors.

Not only were people getting addicted to the drug left, right and center, OxyContin pills were also labeled as ‘killers’ because of the rapidly escalating toll of overdose deaths connected to the drug.

People in West Virginia tended to be older and suffer from many chronic illnesses and debilitating diseases caused by years of working in the mines, so they jumped all over OxyContin.

And, now, many years later, the State is still caught up in prescription drug addiction. And many of them can’t afford to get off the drugs – since they’re almost impossible to stop taking without a drug addiction treatment program offered by professionals. There just aren’t enough of them – not good ones, anyone – offered free of charge by the State.

Back to families – this is, of course, is tearing families apart. Not only are parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and kids suffering from addiction, the kids who want to make something of their lives are likely to move to another State to do it. They want opportunity, and there’s not much of it in West Virginia. So, they leave, and the families are left behind.

Anyone who has a family member abusing alcohol or drugs needs to get help immediately. It really will tear the family apart, and someone may even die.

We have enough to regret in our lives without also having the fact that we could have helped someone, and saved their lives, but didn’t do it. A successful drug rehab program is the answer.

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It’s the new year, and it’s time to start taking drug rehab, for yourself or someone you care about, into consideration. Do you really want to go through another year of hell living with drugs?

If you are looking at drug rehab options, there’s one specific method of so-called drug treatment that you really don’t want – and that’s methadone treatment.

Methadone treatment is used for people addicted to heroin or other opiates – like prescription painkillers.

Sometimes methadone is recommended as a ‘stop gap’ – a drug to take that will prevent withdrawal symptoms but does not get you high. You should know that people who are put on methadone for this reason almost never get into drug rehab. They are given methadone for years. Sometimes for life.

Other people, usually those who have gone back to taking drugs after drug rehab, are told that their body is no longer capable of producing the natural endorphins that make us ‘happy’, and that their only choice is to take methadone.

What has usually happened there is that the person hasn’t done a good drug addiction treatment program – and there are plenty out there that usually don’t work.

People who are on methadone, and have been on it for some time, say that the drug has no negative affect. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that it does.

A recent study in Norway, for example, found that people who are on methadone are twice as likely to have car accidents as those who are not on it. For the study, they spent two years following 2,500 people who were on methadone.

Perhaps the worst thing about methadone is that it’s almost impossible to quit. It’s harder to get off it than heroin and the prescription painkillers the person was taking before. In fact, many drug rehab centers won’t even accept someone on methadone because getting off the drug is so very difficult – even when being treated by professionals who’ve gotten hundreds of people off heroin and prescription opiates.

The real solution to opiate addiction is a good drug rehab program. One that has a very high success rate. At Drug Rehab Referral, we’ve helped thousands of people get off those drugs.

If you’re looking into drug rehab, check with us first. We can help you find the addiction treatment program that’s most likely to guarantee success. Of course, there are no real guarantees, but you might as well start off with a program that has a better chance of success than with one that has a low success rate.

The alternative is having an addict go through treatment and fail – in which case they lose their faith that they can actually get off drugs and are more likely to fall for the idea that they need to be drugged forever – on methadone.

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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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About 10 years ago the number of people who die from heroin and prescription painkillers were about 2,000 – 3,000 a year. Cocaine was slightly higher. But over the last decade, deaths from prescription painkillers have increased by leaps and bounds over heroin and cocaine each year. Anyone taking these pills should be made aware of the dangers and gotten into OxyContin rehab at the first sign of trouble. Any OxyContin rehab program can also help with other prescription painkillers.

In 1999, there were about 2000 deaths from heroin, a little more than 2,500 from prescription painkillers, and nearly 3000 from cocaine.

In 2000, they all remained about the same but in 2001 prescription painkiller deaths went up to more than 4,000. Over the next several years, heroin deaths didn’t really increase at all, cocaine gradually increased to about 6,000, and deaths from prescription painkillers climbed to a whopping 12,000 in 2007! The situation is even worse now. In 2008, the numbers had already climbed to nearly 15,000.

Some other startling facts:

• More than 70 percent of those who have abused prescription painkillers got them from a friend or relative who had a prescription.

• One in three young people aged 12 and older started abusing drugs by taking prescription drugs for non-medical purposes.

• A survey of teens said it’s easier to get prescription drugs than beer.

Lipitor, a drug used to lower cholesterol, used to be the most prescribed drug in the world. Sales in the U.S. reached $12.4 billion in 2008. Now, prescriptions for just one prescription painkiller – Vicodin and others containing hydrocodone – are twice that. And that doesn’t include OxyContin and several other prescription painkillers.

Why is this happening? Are more and more people in chronic pain? Not likely – since 70 percent of people who take these drugs get them from friends or family, and since even kids experimenting with drugs now start with prescription drugs.

No one is really escaping this problem, and until something is done to curtail the sales of the drugs, more and more people will die.

Do you know someone who is taking prescription painkillers? Do you know someone who is taking other drugs and could possibly experiment with prescription painkillers?

Get them into a drug rehab program as soon as possible.

These drugs are killing people because they’re dangerous. Don’t let someone you care about become one of the statistics.

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I guess the day had to come sooner or later: Accidental overdoses of prescription drugs – primarily opiates like OxyContin, hydrocodone, methadone and other painkillers – were the leading cause of accidental death in 2010. And to think that prescription drug addiction treatment could have prevented those deaths.

This information comes from Dr. Ted Parran, an affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Dr. Parran commented: ““It was not motor vehicle accidents,” Parran said. “Cars come with airbags, Oxycotin doesn’t.”

He also said that doctors have to get better at differentiating between people who need a prescription because have a drug problem and those who have a legitimate medical use for them.

He also said it’s important that people who do actually need them get better at hiding them so they are not readily available to kids or someone else who might want them just to get high or for experimentation.

You also need to avoid sharing your drugs with anyone. For example, if you have a friend with a bad headache, don’t just say ‘Here, take one of my OxyContin. That’ll help.” If you do, you’re setting that friend up for possible OxyContin addiction.

I know that sounds extreme – but, really, it’s true. That person could take one OxyContin, have their headache go away, go to their doctor to get their own prescription and, next thing you know, they’re hooked. It’s that easy.

In fact, it’s not only that easy, it’s one of the primary ways people get addicted to prescription drugs. They start off actually needing them because of an accident, illness, surgery, dental work, etc. and then, when the time comes to stop taking them, they can’t.
One reason for this is that the withdrawal symptoms – the things that happen to the body just when you try to stop taking the drugs, which includes pain – make you think that you still need the drug. So, you keep taking them.

In fact, the pain you experience under those circumstances doesn’t have anything to do with the reason you needed the drug in the first place – it’s because that’s what happens when you try to stop taking them.

Also, the more you take the more you need to get the original effect. So, while 1 pill may have reduced your symptoms for a while, it might take 2 pills later on. That’s one of the reasons for overdoses.

It’s amazing that prescription drugs have become this country’s number one villain. Who would have thought?

And how many parents would have thought that when they take a prescription drug to feel better their kids get the message that these drugs make you feel better so they want to try them, too?

How many parents have lost their kids to these drugs? I don’t know, but if you check the news you see stories like that all the time.

Drugs aren’t fun. Drugs aren’t for experimentation. Drugs should be used to only to help with real, life-threatening situations. After all, the drugs themselves threaten your life. Why use them for something that isn’t also life threatening?

Parents really have to educate themselves on this subject, and they have to get back to thinking of drugs as the last option. And teach their kids the same thing.

That’s the only way to really protect yourself and your family. Heaven knows, you can’t depend on anyone else to do that. And if you or someone you care about has a problem, get into a drug rehab asap.

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A study was recently evaluated regarding drug deaths across the country. As of 2009, they surpassed deaths from traffic accidents. In 2009, 37,485 people lost their lives to drugs – one every 14 minutes. Prescription drugs are blamed for the rising death toll – and not necessarily just from people who abuse them. Prescription drug addiction and dependency is also a big problem with people who you would never suspect would even take ‘drugs.’ They got them from their doctor.

The drugs causing the most deaths are painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. Fentanyl, which is similar to morphine – although 100 times more powerful than morphine – is also becoming more widely used. It’s a painkiller, available in patches, but also marketed as lollipops.

The report also said that these drugs cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

According to a report in the LA Times, deaths from traffic accidents, unlike drug-related deaths, have been dropping for decades. Why? Because there have been huge investments in auto safety.

Obviously, the same cannot be said for prescription drugs.

When it comes to auto safety, the manufacturers are held responsible. It doesn’t take very many deaths, or even accidents, for the cars to be recalled. Notices are sent out, it’s written about in the newspapers, dealers issue recalls to those who have purchased the ‘dangerous’ cars, and so on.

No one says “Only 10 people died from accidents caused by or worsed by these cars; think of the hundreds of thousands of people who got where they were going without mishap. The benefits outweigh the risks.”

But that’s exactly what happens with prescription drugs. Thousands of people – not just 10 – die from some of these painkillers and it’s justified by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people took them and got rid of their pain. So, the benefits outweigh the risks.”

The worst that happens to the drug manufacturers is that they are told to put a warning on the drug containers and in their advertising. You hear the warnings, some of them, on television ads and you see them in magazines. Drug ads usually take up two pages – one for a picture of a happy person who is taking the drugs and the other, in very, very fine print, for all the side effects, warning, contra-indications and so on.

They’re not taken off the market. Even when Purdue Pharma had to pay out $634 million in fines because of fraudulently marketing OxyContin – which resulted in thousands of cases of people needing OxyContin rehab and who knows how many deaths – they were still allowed to make and sell the product.

And no one went to jail – no one was really held responsible for the damage caused to the individuals who took the drugs. The only people who saw any real money out of it were government agencies that paid for people on Medicare to receive them.

And the company didn’t even need to do anything to make the product safe. And they couldn’t have anyway – because the drugs aren’t safe. Period. There’s no way to change that.

If you or someone in your family is suffering from prescription drug addiction, abuse or dependency, there is something you can do about it:

First, realize that these drugs are not safe. That’s why one person is dying every 14 minutes. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they’re still on the market. It’s not because they’re safe, it’s because the pharmaceutical companies pull more weight than the government.

Second, get them into a drug rehab program that has specific experience with prescription drug rehab.

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