Pathway to Prevention

The United States has been fighting a “war on drugs” since the Nixon era.

Yesterday, Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman said the fight probably will never end in Ohio and now is the time to start calling it something else.

“A lot of people talk about the reference to end drug abuse as an armed conflict because it’s a war on drugs,” Portman said during his keynote speech at the 2013 Ohio Opiate Conference. “I think it’s the wrong way to think of it. I think that in part because millions of our co-workers, our families and others suffer from addiction disorder, and it’s not really a war, it’s more a public- safety, public-health issue.”

Last week the state released data showing that Ohio suffered a record 1,765 drug-overdose deaths in 2011, the most recent data available. An Ohioan died every five hours from a drug overdose that year.

While applauding continued law-enforcement efforts to stem drug use — Portman was speaking specifically about prescription drug abuse — he said it’s “very difficult to deal with this issue unless you are doing it in a holistic way.”

“But if you can deal with it at the top end of the problem, before people get addicted, boy, the cost savings are incredible,” Portman said.

The Role of The Family

The pain and suffering of addiction is not limited to the alcoholic or drug addict. Family member share a tremendous burden as well. Shame, guilt, fear, worry, anger and frustration are common, everyday feelings for family members concerned about a loved one’s drinking or drug use. In most cases the family has endured the brunt of the consequences for the loved one’s addiction, including the stress of worry financial costs and life adjustments made to accommodate the addicted person’s lifestyle. Addiction leads the addict away from the positive influences of the family. The disease twists love, concern and willingness to be helpful into a host of enabling behaviors that only help to perpetuate the illness.

Family and friends are usually very busy attempting to help the alcoholic or addict, but the help is the wrong kind. If directed toward effective strategies and interventions, however, loved one’s become a powerful influence in helping the loved one “hit bottom” and seek professional help. At the very least, families can detach themselves from the painful consequences of their loved one’s disease and cease their enabling behavior.

This material will provide you with ten ways family member scan help their loved one and themselves.  Read more

Can parents stop their children from using drugs? Former crystal meth addicts share their advice. And Nic, the teenage son who inspired Beautiful Boy , shares what he was thinking when he offered marijuana to his father, David Sheff. Use these resources to help those battling substance addictions.  Read more

Urban Outfitters, the national retail store popular with teens, is currently selling pint glasses, flasks and shot glasses made to look like prescription pill bottles. These products make light of prescription drug misuse and abuse, a dangerous behavior that is responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than heroin and cocaine combined. Medicine abuse has increased 33 percent over the past five years with one in four teens having misused or abused a prescription drug in their lifetime. Combined with alcohol, the misuse and abuse of prescription medications can be especially dangerous, making the Urban Outfitter Rx pint and shot glasses and flasks even more disturbing.

As recent research from The Partnership at Drugfree.org shows, teens and parents alike do not understand the health risks associated with the misuse and abuse of prescription drugs. In fact, more than a quarter of teens mistakenly believe that misusing and abusing prescription drugs is safer than using street drugs.

Tongue-in-cheek products that normalize and promote prescription drug abuse only serve to reinforce the misperception about the dangers associated with abusing medicine and put more teens at risk.  Read more

With addiction killing approximately 350 Americans every day and millions of Americans continuing to struggle with drug addiction, Sheff argues in his book that fighting the war on drugs as a criminal problem does not prevent or end addiction. Criminalizing addiction has failed to stop the problem, and seems instead to have led to violent crime (including murder) and even increased drug use. Clean also pushes back against the view that drug use is a moral failing instead of a serious but treatable disease.

Watch Sheff’s discussion with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell above and read an excerpt from the book below.

The view that drug use is a moral choice is pervasive, pernicious, and wrong. So are the corresponding beliefs about the addicted — that they’re weak, selfish, and dissolute; if they weren’t, when their excessive drug taking and drinking began to harm them, they’d stop. The reality is far different. Using drugs or not isn’t about willpower or character. Most problematic drug use is related to stress, trauma, genetic predisposition,mild or serious mental illness, use at an early age, or some combination of those. Even in their relentless destruction and self-destruction, the addicted aren’t bad people. They’re gravely ill, afflicted with a chronic, progressive, and often terminal disease.

People also believe that addicts can’t be treated; at best, they can muster their willpower and manage their compulsion for a short time. But while it’s true that addicts who seek treatment are seldom cured, their disease is treatable when we reject the pseudoscience, moralizing, and scare tactics that characterize the current system. The disease of addiction can be prevented, and when we treat it the way we treat other diseases, those in its thrall can be freed to live long, full, healthy lives.  Read more

SEATTLE — With prom and graduation season just around the corner, there’s a renewed push to avoid teen alcohol deaths.

A new study highlights the true causes of underage drinking deaths, and the results are surprising to many parents.

Tragic tales of intoxicated teens crashing their cars are nothing new, but they only tell part of the story.

But new study shows drinking and driving causes just a fraction of the total number of alcohol-related deaths among people not even old enough to drink.

“I think it’s just people not knowing their limits and trying to fit in with the crowd,” said Aalyse Umbinetti with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, or MADD.

According to MADD, only 32 percent of underage drinking-related deaths are caused by car crashes. The rest have nothing to do with drinking and driving.

“There are homicides, there’s suicides, there’s alcohol-related deaths, those types of things,” said Amy Ezzo of MADD.

That’s why the organization is urging parents to talk to their kids about alcohol.

“Well, I think it’s important to have that conversation. And kids are influenced by their actions, so it would kind of explain things,” said Rolan Wong.

Sunday is Power Talk 21, which is the annual reminder that MADD gives all parents to get those dialogues going.  Read more

Enabling a loved one to do something may not be in their best interest, or yours.  This may come as a surprise, since we usually think of making something possible for someone a good thing!

But, in dysfunctional families, “enabling” means giving “help” that actually makes the situation worse.  Examples of this include:

• Calling in “sick” for the addict whenever they miss work because they are drunk or high.  “Covering” for them may feel like helping them not to lose their job.  But long term, it only reinforces the addictive behavior, and leads away from the possibility of recovery.
• Giving them money. Even if it’s as little as $5.00, the addict’s mental state is guided by alcohol and drugs, so whether they claim the money is going to food, shelter or bills, it is likely feeding their next high. You essentially become their drug dealer.
• Cleaning up their mess. This can refer to empty alcohol bottles, disheveled living situations or vomit from excessive alcohol and drug abuse. Whatever the mess may be, if you clean it up for your loved one struggling with addiction, you are merely reinforcing the idea that whatever mistakes they make while intoxicated will go away without consequence.  Read more

Were there signs?

No one ever gave me a list of signs to look for, and to be honest with you, if they had given me this list, I’m not sure that I would have been able to see it, or recognize it. Because if you take them individually, it’s normal teenage behavior, but when you add them all up, it presents an entirely different story.

Is this normal?

The first thing was, when he entered eighth grade he lost all of his old friends. But they were quickly replaced with new friends. And I thought, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? You’re supposed to socialize, and meet new friends, and do new things. But, I never met many of them, they didn’t want to come to our house, and I met even fewer of the parents. If I can’t partner with another parent, tell them what they can expect from me, and ask them what I can expect from them, it’s a real recipe for a problem.

The second thing that happened was his grades started to change. He was a B+ student and by the middle of ninth grade report card, he had failed every single subject.

My wife found a guidance center for teenage substance abusers, he’s still only 13 at the time. And he would go there once or twice a week, maybe an hour and a half a night, and after a couple of months, they said, he doesn’t have to come back anymore, we think he’ll be okay. I turned to my wife and said “See, I told you, no problem, he’s fixed.” And I think we went out and celebrated that night.

Read more

NEW YORK, April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Parents’ Lax Attitudes and Behavior Linked to Teen Rx Drug Misuse and Abuse

Nearly One-Third of Parents Believe Stimulants Can Improve Academic Performance, Even for Teens Who Do Not Have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

New, nationally projectable survey results released today by The Partnership at Drugfree.org and MetLife Foundation confirmed that one in four teens has misused or abused a prescription (Rx) drug at least once in their lifetime – a 33 percent increase over the past five years. The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) also found troubling data on teen misuse or abuse of prescription stimulants. One in eight teens (13 percent) now reports that they have taken the stimulant Ritalin or Adderall when it was not prescribed for them, at least once in their lifetime.

Contributing to this sustained trend in teen medicine abuse are the lax attitudes and beliefs of parents and caregivers. In fact, nearly one-third of parents say they believe Rx stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall, normally prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), can improve a teen’s academic performance even if the teen does not have ADHD. Parents are not effectively communicating the dangers of Rx medicine misuse and abuse to their kids, nor are they safeguarding their medications at home and disposing of unused medications properly.

Concerning Trends in Teen Prescription Drug Abuse According to the New PATS Data (2008-2012)

The new PATS data confirm that misuse and abuse of prescription drugs is now a normalized behavior among teens:

– One in four teens (24 percent) reports having misused or abused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetime (up from 18 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2012), which translates to about 5 million teens. That is a 33 percent increase over a five-year period.

 Read more

WAUSAU (MyFoxWausau) -

The family of a Wausau crash victim says addiction may have led to his death.

Authorities say 24-year-old Michael Dixon was behind the wheel of a car, when he crashed in Wausau on Saturday.

For the first time, his family is speaking about the incident, only with Newsline 9.

“I had a lot of hope that he would eventually beat it,” Michael Dixon’s father, Ralph Dixon said.

It’s been almost one week since Ralph Dixon’s son died in a car crash in Wausau.

“He talked of all his hopes, how excited he was, that he knew without any doubt that he wasn’t going to fall back into temptation,” Ralph Dixon said.

Dixon says that temptation was a drug addiction. He says his son, Michael Dixon, had begged for help.

“He told me no matter how much I do, no matter what I do, I can’t beat it,” Ralph Dixon says as he recalls a conversation with his son.

Dixon’s family says Michael got out of a rehab facility just one day before the deadly crash.

“Within one day, this drug was so powerful it was able to pull him back in,” Ralph Dixon said.

“It was such a war within himself, battling with himself,” Michael Dixon’s sister Liana Dixon said.

Wausau police say a syringe, spoon, and lighter were found in the car. Officers say the items lead them to believe heroin may have been involved. As Michael’s family sits broken-hearted, they hope their tragedy can save others.  Read more