Posts Tagged ‘andrew wainwright’
AiR to present Expanding the Definition of Recovery
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
AiR’s Founder & CEO, Andrew Wainwright will be presenting at the Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital Center for Professional Education’s Professional Education Workshops & Programs
Behavioral health issues can affect an entire family or organization and all those affected deserve equal attention, compassion and understanding. This workshop will help to educate patients/clients about their situation, empower them with solutions and direct them into action.
Andrew T. Wainwright is the founder and CEO of Assistance in Recovery (AiR) and a nationally recognized expert on addictions and intervention. He is a frequent guest on CNN’s America Morning and author of the book, It’s Not Okay to Be a Cannibal – How to Stop Addiction from Eating Your Family Alive. Unwilling to accept the status quo and impatient to improve rates of recovery for behavioral health related illness, Andrew is a tireless advocate for advancement of treatment modalities in the behavioral health industry.
Where:
Poplar Creek Country Club
1400 Poplar Creek Drive
Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
When:
March 12, 2010 from 10:00am – 12:00pm
Info:
Arrive on-half hour earlier for continental breakfast, registration and networking.
LCSW/LMFT/LCPC/LPC – 2.0 CEUs will be provided CPDUs – 2.0 CEUs will be provided IAODAPCA 2.0 CEUs – Applied for
CEUs will be awarded for full attendance only of the event. Certificates will be given at the end of the presentation upon completion of evaluation.
Cost: $20.00
Tags: AiR Assistance in recovery, Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital Center for Professional Education, andrew wainwright
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Heroin in the suburbs
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
A great article in the Washington Post was published yesterday talking about heroin hitting home in Centreville, Virginia. The death of a 19-year-old girl, Alicia Lannes, from a heroin overdose, shone a light on a heroin ring centering around teens and young adults, and many were current or former students of the local high school. Many of the students were high performing- athletes, cheerleaders, and AP students were all a part of the ring. 16 of those young people were convicted on drug charges, from 30 days to 26 years in prison.
This article showed a good perspective from the parents’ point of view, of someone who had lost a loved one to the disease of addiciton. Alicia, the girl whose death is the center of the article, had previous problems with drinking and drugs prior to the overdose. And why did this happen in such a seemingly “ideal” community? Edythe London, a neuroscientist and pharmacologist at UCLA who is at the forefront of addiction study: “Heroin is an equal-opportunity substance.” Patrick McConnell, director of Alcohol and Drug Services in Fairfax County, says many families are reluctant to believe their children have a problem. “These parents, a lot of times, will believe their kid before they believe us,” he says. “We can say whatever we want to say, but if no one’s going to listen, there are some fairly severe consequences that can result from that.”
Our CEO, Andrew Wainwright (who grew up in Washington DC) had this to say: “Sadly, this is the America I know and am all too familiar with. This is the America of the families that call us every day. This is the America of my own drug use. This is also the America of my recovery. I was the kids in that story as an active heroin addict on the streets of Washington DC and Baltimore. Now I am the 13 years sober and the CEO of the nation’s leading crisis addiction company. My only job today at AiR is to make sure that someone is there to answer the phone when the next mother calls ““ just like someone was there to answer it when my mother did.”
This morning, a blog posting in the New York Times touched on the response from a parent. Here’s a quote from Lisa Belkin, the article’s author: “As a parent of two teen sons, I am haunted by tales like these; I look at the photos of grieving parents and wonder what flimsy lines separate me from them. When I first had children I was sometimes overwhelmed by everything there was to do. As they get older I am ever more aware of what I can’t do “” the stark fact that, however much we love, and teach and stay vigilant, it might not be enough.”
For help for yourself or your loved one, please visit www.a-i-r.com or call us directly at 877-320-0247;
Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, andrew wainwright, heroin, heroin addiction, intervention, Legalization of Drugs, prescription drug abuse, substance abuse, Treatment, virginia drug abuse
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AiR joined Hazelden in celebrating 60 Years
Monday, October 5th, 2009
For 60 years, Hazelden has been the world leader and model of care for drug addiction and alcoholism treatment. We offer specialized rehab programs for women, health care professionals, and families suffering the effects of addiction. In addition to operating addiction treatment centers in Minnesota, Oregon, New York, and Illinois, we provide publishing, research, and professional education opportunities.
AiR’s CEO, Andrew Wainwright and COO, Jim Geckler joined Hazelden to celebrate.
AiR Co-Founders Andrew Wainwright & Bob Poznanovich
AiR COO Jim Geckler with Partner Peter Jackson along with CEO Andrew Wainwright with wife Jackie.
Tags: andrew wainwright, hazelden, hazelden 60 year dinner, hazelden treatment center, jim geckler
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AiR's discussion on CNN, Oct 1st
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
16 states across the nation, more people die from drug-related incidents than die in traffic accidents. AiR’s founder and CEO, Andrew Wainwright discussing why drug deaths might be on the rise ““ the CDC points to the increase in abuse of prescription medication.
Aired October 1, 2009 – 07:00 ET
CNN AMERICAN MORNING HOST JOHN ROBERTS: Some shocking new statistics coming your way from the Centers for Disease Control. In 16 states across the nation, more people die from drug-related incidents than die in traffic accidents. So what could be done about it? We’ll find out. 38 and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Startling new statistics as we said from the Centers for Disease Control. In 16 states and counting, drugs now kill more people than car accidents. While traffic accidents remain the biggest injury- related cause of death across the country, drug overdoses are on the rise. Why is this happening?
Andrew Wainwright is the president and CEO of Assistance in Recovery Incorporated and kicked his own addiction a decade ago. He joins us from Minneapolis this morning.
So Andrew, according to the Centers for Disease Control, drug- related deaths in the United States have doubled from the late 1990s to 2006. Why the rise?
ANDREW WAINWRIGHT, PRESIDENT & CEO, ASSISTANCE IN RECOVERY, INC.: Well, I think two important factors, John. One, in the mid 1990s, a mandate came down from Jaco and others saying we were under prescribing for pain medically, across the board. And we needed to write more prescriptions for pain. So that began and docs began to do that. We saw a rise in the writing of prescriptions.
At the same time, we saw the big pharmaceutical companies begin the kickoff primarily in January of 1996. (INAUDIBLE) Pharma kicked off OxyContin. So we saw the rise of the selling of pharmaceutical drugs, heavy narcotics both to the consumers and to the docs. So I think the combination of those two factors – in the mid ’90s, exactly where we are, the swing of the pendulum where we have unintended overdoses. And this is interesting, in hospital and on the street today.
ROBERTS: Is it just because of the availability of drugs? Or is it also a public perception issue? I ask you that because Margaret Warner, an epidemiologist for the Centers of Disease Control talked about this yesterday. And here’s what she said. She said, “People see a car accident as something that might happen to them. But as far as drug overdoses go,” she says, “maybe they see it as something that’s not going to happen to them.”
You know, you get in a car. You know you’re going out there in the flow of traffic. You have a license, you have insurance. You know that it’s possible that you could get into a car accident. When taking drugs, do people say, I might overdose? I better be careful here or better still, I’m not going to do it at all?
WAINWRIGHT: Well, I think we also have, let’s say 40 good years of education without car accidents. If you remember back there was a time when nobody wore seat belts. And then we saw the rise of air bags and all kinds of other safety insurance to make sure that we got safer. We’re raised with years of commercials and high school showings of drunk driving and all those things what happens to people.
I don’t know if we’ve seen that piece of education for the general public around drug addiction from prescription drugs. We certainly see it in the DARE program and others for narcotics that you find in the street but prescription drugs, they sort of see it safe. They come from your doctor. They’re prescribed. They come in a clean bottle. They’re sold to you from a clean environment. You take them home to your house where you take them. And it doesn’t seem there’s a lot of danger there.
It’s very far removed from what you see in the evening news, the drug wars in Mexico. It doesn’t seem that it’s the same thing as the narcotics that I’m taking at my house. So it shouldn’t have the same result. And so the study comes out like the ones that we’re seeing from the CDC and we’re really surprised that people, us, our kids, our friends and neighbors are overdosing. We can’t really put the two together.
So I think we’re talking about a missing educational component that this is serious narcotics that’s being probably today, over prescribed or made overly readily available or the ones that we have in our homes aren’t being destroyed quickly enough as they are being diverted to the street. All of the things I think we’re beginning to get educated about.
So I think we should be happy on some level that A, the CDC did the study; B, CNN wants to talk about it; and C, it’s going out to America saying this is a real problem and we need to get more education and understand what’s going on so that we can stop it.
ROBERTS: Well, we here at CNN always want to talk about the important topics. You know, Centers for Disease Control in terms of this idea for prescribing, its report said that one in five adults now is prescribed an opiate every year. And you talk about education, there is one new area where we seem to be getting it as a nation, and that is the danger of our children getting a hold of prescription drugs that were prescribed for adults. Let’s take a look at this PSA, I think, that many are familiar with now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The yellow one – this is for my postpartum depression. This one, sciatica – whatever that is. I got these after my hysterectomy – or my prostatectomy – some “ectomy.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: And are PSAs like that helping to illuminate the problem, at least, of young people getting drugs out of their parents’ medicine cabinet?
WAINWRIGHT: I can only say I hope so. But I think that education is key at all areas of – of going to war against, you know, what’s becoming an epidemic for us culturally. I think it’s going to be a lot of education, needs to be a lot of time, because this has become, really, a cultural issue. I think it’s -
Well, you can look at pharm parties for high school kids. I think it’s culturally part of what we do is we have heavy narcotics in our home. We’re not loathe to share them with our friends and family if they are in pain. It’s sort of, you know, we carry these in our purse, we carry them on the plane, it’s part of who we are culturally. I think a big piece of that needs to change, and so I think, yes, the PSA is going to help. It’s going to take a lot of them, and I think it’s going to take a lot more of you and I and folks like us talking about this, making it important for everybody.
ROBERTS: All right. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that the (ph) decline of road fatalities, which is one reason why drug deaths in some states have surpassed traffic fatalities is because of advances that were made in reducing traffic fatalities, but the safety administration says that it’s – it’s one of the great public health triumphs over the last few decades, to lower the number of deaths on the roadways. What can be done to make similar strides in drug abuse?
WAINWRIGHT: Well, you’re talking – you know, I’m a “change the world” guy, so I would – you know, I think it’s great that we lowered it 1 percent or 2 percent or whatever it was for traffic fatalities. You know, I’m all for making big changes. So I think that the pendulum began to swing in one direction in 1995 when we had these two major incidents happen around overprescribing of heavy narcotics. I think what – the CD (ph) study is great because it gets us talking about it, so we’re hoping that the pendulum is going to swing as far as this can go in this direction and we’re going to push it back the other way.
So let’s pick a mean, let’s say 1996, 1997, 1998 – that somewhere in there we’re going to say that’s the gold mean where we’re prescribing enough to manage and treat the pain that America is presenting with but we’re not overprescribing and allowing drugs to be (INAUDIBLE) in the street. And then we’re going to culturally change how we understand and think about the use of these kinds of prescribed drugs.
ROBERTS: Andrew Wainwright – a “change the world” kind of guy. You managed to change your world. You changed many other people’s. See if we can keep going from here. Thanks for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.
WAINWRIGHT: Thanks, John.
ROBERTS: Forty-seven and a half minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Learn more about:
Drug Addiction
Alcoholism
Eating Disorders
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Tags: america, american morning, andrew wainwright, cnn, drug abuse, drug use, prescription drug abuse
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Overdose News
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
According to an article posted yesterday night on USA Today, prescription drugs and other pills are now the leading cause of overdosing, ahead of things like heroin and cocaine. According to the Center For Disease Control, prescription pills now account for the majority of the over 26,000 fatal overdoses each year. In previous years, up through the 1990s, the majority of overdoses were brought on by illicit substances like heroin. However, with the upswing in prescriptions and the lack of knowledge surrounding the abuse of these pills, the dangers have continued to increase and, as a result, created a dangerous epidemic of abuse and addiction.
Leonard Paulozzi, a researcher at the Center for Disease Control, said that the numbers show that overdoses in rural areas have now come to equal those in cities, which is lead, according to Paulozzi, by the availability of prescription pain killers and opioids. With chronic pain become a new term, the prescriptions of opioid pain killers have started to increase, and therefore leading to additional overdose danger. And with a rise in stress and depression, the dangers of addictive behaviors are brought to the forefront.
“At the high doses used by drug abusers, the margin of safety is small,” Paulozzi said. “Combining such drugs on your own or using them with alcohol increase the risk.” The number of overdose deaths due to prescription drugs, like morphine or codeine, has more than tripled since 1999, according the new CDC figures. “The biggest and fastest-growing part of America’s drug problem is prescription drug abuse,” says Robert DuPont, former White House drug czar and former director of NIDA.
We’ve been speaking out on the dangers of prescription drugs for years, and will continue to do so until the appropriate levels of education and awareness of the dangers are reached. Here’s a clip of our CEO, Andrew Wainwright, on CNN’s American Morning talking about the dangers of prescription drugs.
For assistance with prescription drug problems, or if a loved one is struggling with addiction, please visit our main site or call us directly at 877-320-0247.
Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, andrew wainwright, chemical dependency, cnn, cnn american morning, intervention, overdose, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug overdose, recovery assistance, substance abuse, Treatment, vicodin addiction
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Heroin for Heroin Addicts?
Monday, September 28th, 2009
An interesting post in Time Magazine today touched on a new British trial, over the last four years, of providing free daily heroin injections as a method to wean them off the drugs. Since the results of the trial were positive (i.e. lower street drug use, lower crime rate among participates, etc.), officials are talking about making this a permanent addition of state-funded heroin clinics for the drug addicts in the U.K.
A quote from John Strang, one of the researchers with the National Addiction Centre (who helped lead the project): “It’s a less than perfect treatment, but for entrenched addicts, it gives them the first steps toward getting their life together. Some make a virtually complete recovery, but others, we get them from a bad place to a less bad place.” According to the research, those treated with heroin had better results than those treated with methadone. However, Paul Hayes, head of the National Treatment Agency, stressed in the Guardian this month that the services would be available to only a “very small proportion” of the nearly 200,000 heroin addicts in treatment.
So, government, if this works so well, why is it only available to a very small population? Shouldn’t this be the course of treatment for everyone? Obviously not. By giving drug addicts more drugs, aren’t we simply condoning and encouraging their habit? Why not fund a comprehensive, state-funded detoxification program followed by residential treatment? And harm reduction, in the long run is, in the words of our CEO Andrew Wainwright, simply a “band-aid on a bullet wound.” With addiction being a disease, and a malady of the physical, social and spiritual, simply medicating the addict’s “need” for the drug will not create a long term solution. We need to be moving people into comprehensive treatment, not helping them sustain their addiction.
For more information on heroin addiction and getting your loved one help, please call us at 877-320-0247.
Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, air, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcoholism, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, drugs, heroin, heroin addiction, intervention, legal heroin, Legalization of Drugs, mental health, substance abuse, Treatment
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Legalization?
Friday, September 18th, 2009
As we’ve talked about before on the blog, some of the most dangerous substances of abuse are already legal- pain medication, alcohol and cigarettes are in the mainstream and on the rise. As a matter of fact, a recent study in the British medical journal Lancet stated that one in 25 deaths around the world is now alcohol-related- making alcohol just as dangerous as tobacco was ten years ago. These numbers are dangerous, and that’s talking about LEGAL substances!
Now what about marijuana? There has been a lot of controversy lately about drug policy, and it’s been all over the news. Colorado has decriminalized marijuana possessionof under an ounce to now a petty crime, or a ticketable offense. In California and other states, marijuana has been deemed a valuable medical resource, and now with Mexico decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of even harder drugs (such as cocaine and heroin), it seems as though it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a huge issue in the US. As we know, there has already been talk about California legalizing marijuana and taxing it to try and rescue themselves from a crippling budget deficit (although that idea has been shot down as of now).
We at AiR are from the stance that keeping drugs illegal prevents widespread abuse- easier access will create more problems, not less. However, as it’s obvious to us, the current U.S. structure of the “War on Drugs” isn’t working either. Our CEO, Andrew Wainwright, talked about this on CNN a few months ago. We need complete policy reform on this subject- basically, without an overhaul, we’ll be seeing an unnecessary amount of drug addicts go to prison and not get the help that they need, creating a cycle of addiction and imprisonment- none of which is good for our society as a whole. With reforms, we can create a route that pushes drug addicts into treatment and drug pushers into jail- the way the war should be fought. The addicts on the street, currently penned up in prisons and NOT getting help, aren’t the real problem here. By providing a viable solution for those addicts, we can help the drug market get smaller.
For more information about this topic, or for help for you or a loved one, please contact us at 877-320-0247.
Tags: addiction, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, california drug policy, chemical dependency, intervention, Legalization of Drugs, marijuana, marijuana legalization, pain addiction, pain killers, substance abuse
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CEO Andrew Wainwright talks to Nicole Remini, Saturday, July 11 at 10pm
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Click here to listen to our Founder & CEO, Andrew Wainwright which aired Saturday, July 11 at 10pm on www.crntalk.com. Host Nicole Bella Remini discussed the accountability of Michael Jackon’s doctors, prescription drug abuse and addition as well as his book “It’s not Okay to Be a Cannibal.”
Click here to listen to the interview
Tags: andrew wainwright, crntalk.com, it's not okay to be a cannibal, michael jackson, nicole remini, prescription drug abuse
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AiR's Andrew Wainwright on CNN's American Morning
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Suspicions about Michael Jackson’s prescription drug use and sudden death are also putting a new focus on a serious and growing problem, and that is the misuse of prescription drugs in this country. It is now actually the second leading cause of accidental death. This is prescription drug overdoses after auto accidents.
Aired July 3rd, 2009 at 7:10am EST
Andrew Wainwright kicked his addiction more than a decade ago and created an organization to help others do the same. And he joins me this morning.
Andrew, thanks for being with us.
ANDREW WAINWRIGHT, PRESIDENT & CEO, ASSISTANCE IN RECOVERY, INC.: Thanks, good morning.
CHETRY: So you’ve been clean for 12 years now. You know firsthand how hard it can be to battle an addiction to drugs. Tell us your story.
WAINWRIGHT: I was a — I grew up on the east coast in Washington, D.C. and struggled with drugs and alcohol through college. I got sober when I was 26 and sober for 12 years.
And you know, white collar background. Wasn’t expecting to grow up and be a drug and alcohol addict. But these are the kinds of things that happened. I think they were genetically predisposed, and that’s exactly what happened to me. And I think that the rise of prescription drug abuse is beating right into that.
I think that people believe that an addict looks a certain way, and that’s not exactly true at all. I think that lots of folks are — addiction is accessible to lots more folks. I believe it can happen.
CHETRY: Right. And the danger that we’re learning about with prescription drugs is I mean when used as they’re supposed to be, they can be safe and they’re fine. But because they’re prescribed by a doctor, oftentimes people don’t believe it’s a problem.
And this was an interesting stat here that approximately 50 million Americans reported or at admitted to non-medical use of a prescription drug at some point in their lifetime. How big of a problem is it when you’re taking medicine that you’re not necessarily prescribed to treat something that you have?
WAINWRIGHT: I think it’s a tremendous problem and growing. I think that the perception is there’s less stigma, less shame, as it were, taking prescription drugs for off-label uses. Somehow that’s OK. And I think that decidedly (ph) it’s OK because it was given to me by a doctor. Things from doctors are supposed to be good. It’s supposed to make things better, not worse.
And I think there’s a lot of surprise when folks get sick or strung out or addicted from these same meds that are supposed to make them better. And I think that more and more — I think we sort of co- signed it a little bit as a society that since it comes from a doctor that it should be OK. And so, since friends or family tell me that this is why have a prescription for this it should be all right and we think that it is OK. And then we’re surprised when it turns out that folks get very, very ill.
CHETRY: Right. And you know deaths caused by overdosing on prescription painkillers, drugs like oxycodone or methadone, fentanyl, they jumped more than 90 percent just between the years of 1999 to 2002. This is according to stats cited by “The Washington Post.” Why are we seeing this jump?
WAINWRIGHT: Well, a couple of reasons. I think the big reason we’re going to put our finger on it is in 1996, when OxyContin first hit the market, we saw drug companies actively marketing their drugs, both the doctors and the consumers. And I think that big marketing push or big advertising campaign nationally told people to buy these drugs, to ask their doctors for them and gave doctor’s permission to prescribe them in larger numbers to more people for more different types of syndromes. Therefore, the use escalated.
CHETRY: And the question is, you talk about how it’s easy to get your hands on it. Doctor shopping in some cases, the ease at which you can get one of these prescriptions for painkillers or anxiety conditions. And when you truly have pain and you truly have anxiety, it’s understandable that you would want to be able to take something for that.
But why does it seem that it’s easier to get your hands on medications like this when you don’t necessarily have a condition that warrants it?
WAINWRIGHT: Well, one of the things we can point to is this. It’s that with the rising managed care at the end of the ’80s, at the end of the ’90s, we step away from everyone having a primary doctor who had a long history with an individual, also have understood what they’ve been through, where they’re going, and how to treat them.
As we became sort of individually taking orders (INAUDIBLE) for the medical records, moving through the ’90s and to the 2000s, we’re seeing more rise of people going to more different doctors for more different things and the doctors with less time and less capability to follow up and to know where those patients are coming from and what they’re being treated for. Doctor shopping, the ease with which people are able to visit multiple doctors for the same ostensible real condition…
CHETRY: Right.
WAINWRIGHT: … and get medicines from all of those different doctors.
CHETRY: Do you think that a national registry could make possibly make a difference where you have to report all the stuff and every doctor would have access to it? Is that something that is in the works any time soon?
WAINWRIGHT: Well, the Bush administration talked about it. The Obama administration certainly talked about it. And it’s something we’d love to see. The unfortunate piece is it’s many years down the road to get everybody onboard so in effect you’re walking around with a piece of paper or a chip, electronic record to tell you exactly who you are, what type of blood type you have, all of the things that you need and all the things that you’re taking.
So in terms of short term, it’s not something we’re going to see anytime soon. So I think we need to look at more immediate short-term solutions to the problem that’s in front of us.
CHETRY: All right. Well, it’s certainly is a growing problem. And so we need to try to find those answers.
Andrew Wainwright, president and CEO of Assistance in Recovery. You also wrote the book “It’s Not Okay to Be a Cannibal” joining us from Minneapolis, MN this morning. Thanks so much.
WAINWRIGHT: Thank you.
_______
Trascript taken from CNN.com
Tags: american morning, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, cnn, michael jackson drug abuse, prescription drug abuse
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The face of substance abuse today
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
As posted July 3, 2009 on CNN’s American Morning
From my desk on the front lines of addiction treatment, the view is staggering. Prescription drugs are prevalent, proliferating and have introduced a new generation to the wonderful world of drug addiction.
These are people who otherwise might never have experienced addiction. The previous barriers to entry of stigma and circumstance were too high. Dangerous neighborhoods and unsavory characters, untrustworthy chemicals to be taken in unspecific amounts and the fear of becoming addicted kept most amateurs on the sidelines. But in 1996 that all changed.
In January of 1996, Purdue Pharma, a privately-held pharmaceutical company, launched the marketing campaign for their new pain relief product OxyContin. OxyContin was supposed to be nonabusable thanks to a special time-release ingredient. Unfortunately, this proved not to be true.
This might not have been such a big deal had Purdue not launched a multi-million dollar national advertising campaign, targeting both doctors and consumers alike. This campaign had a two-pronged approach. First Purdue incented doctors to prescribe their products then they encouraged consumers to request them by promising legitimacy, safety and lack of consequences.
From a purely business standpoint it was the right thing to do ““ if you can drive demand you can sell more product. From a “What are the long term effects on our society?” standpoint ““ it was devastating.
Today, three percent of our population is abusing prescription drugs. Prescription drug abuse accounts for forty percent of all treatment center admissions. Prescription drug abuse is growing fastest among teenagers and young adults.
These are the worst stats we could hope for.
Now, 13 years later, we are beginning to understand what happened. The question that haunts us all is “What are we going to do about it?”
Long-term solutions are indeed challenging, but here are three ideas you can adopt right now that will foster immediate positive change.
1. Restrict readily available supply. One of the easiest ways prescription drugs get diverted to the street or abused is through unmanaged access or theft from American homes. If you have leftover, unused portions of prescription pain medication in the medicine cabinet at home ““ get rid of them.
2. Talk to your doctor. The more information you give your health care professional(s) about medications you are on and the more questions you ask about medications the better for both of you. Avoid becoming an “accidental addict” due to lack of communication.
3. Don’t accept the status quo. Just because someone tells you, “it’s okay, I’ve got a prescription,” doesn’t necessarily make it okay. Trust your gut. Be willing to take risks to keep others safe. Be willing to be the bad guy. Be willing to be wrong.
4. Make help available to those that are struggling. If someone you know is struggling with an addiction to prescription drugs get him or her help as soon as possible. Treatment works.
Substance abuse is one of our nation’s largest health issues and prescription drug abuse is its face today. There are no easy solutions but there are solutions if we are all willing to do the work.
I also found this blog on addictiontomorrow.blogspot.com’s in-depth look into the federal advisory panel’s decisions to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin because of their effects on the liver. Addiction Tomorrow talks about the growing concern about over prescribing, long-term effects, and information from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Andrew Wainwright.
________
Andrew T. Wainwright is a national expert on addictions and intervention. He is co-author of the book “It’s Not Okay to Be a Cannibal ““ How to Stop Addiction from Eating Your Family Alive” and CEO for AiR, which provides behavioral health case management services that are a beneficial addition to the treatment of chemical dependency, mental health and eating disorders.
Tags: air, american morning, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, cnn, eating disorders, mental health, substance abuse, Treatment
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