Posts Tagged ‘pain medication’

Increasing Substance Abuse levels in older adults

Friday, January 15th, 2010

According to a press release by SAMHSA, treatment providers and families should be expecting a “dramatic increase” in substance abuse among adults 50 and older.The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the US government agency faced with the goal of improving the quality and availability of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitative services for in the substance abuse and mental health fields. SAMSHA’s latest report, published on January 8th, states that services for those of the aging baby boomer generation should be expected to double by the year 2020.

“This new data has profound implications for the health and well-being of older adults who continue to abuse substances,” said Pamela S. Hyde, J.D, the SAMHSA Administrator. “These findings highlight the need for prevention programs for all ages as well as to establish improved screening and appropriate referral to treatment as part of routine health care services.”

The stats point to a rising trend in marijuana use, with 8.5% of men between 50 and 54 reporting having used marijuana in the past year.  And with a rise in prescription drug abuse (up from 1% to 5% of treatment admissions from 1997 to 2009), one can only expect that drug abuse will increase. The National Institute of Health reports that nearly 20% of adults have used prescription drugs for non medical reasons.  Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of Geriatric Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center, stated: “We need much better support services for the number of older adults who are going to have substance abuse problems.” The New York Daily News even picked up on the story, stating that the Woodstock generation still has a tendency to get high.

So what do we do? Become better educated for prevention and awareness. Talk to your loved ones if you’re concerned about their use. Learn about the signs and symptoms of drug abuse. And when you need it, ask for help. Addiction is a disease of silence; keeping secrets keeps loved ones sick, and the only way to get better is through outside help.

If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, please call us at 877-320-0247 or visit us on the web at www.a-i-r.com.

Also, for those in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, we will be presenting a family education series in conjunction with Hazelden on February 8th.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcohol, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, drug addiction, intervention, older adult substance abuse, pain addiction, pain medication, prescription drug abuse, SAMHSA, substance abuse, Treatment
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A new year, a new start.

Friday, January 8th, 2010

With a new year (and a new decade as well, depending on who you ask) upon us, we in the addiction world often see many people come to us with New Years resolutions, things such as:

“2010 will be the year I get sober.”

“Maybe I should cut down on my drinking.”

“This is the year I talk to my son about his drug use.”

“This is the year of big changes in my family.”

We at AiR encourage these resolutions- they can be a big catalyst for change, and help people get on the path to recovery. However, what’s important to remember here is how many times one has made these said resolutions. If you find yourself saying for the fifth year in a row that it’s time to quit drinking, it’s probably time to seek outside help. If you’re a family member and you’re hearing the same resolution year after year- we can help with that too.

Since the holiday season seems so volatile (as we’ve covered here), now is the time to act. A new year can bring about new changes. If you’re a family member and your loved one is hurting from a compulsive behavior, reach out. Ask for help. If you can’t make the phone call yet, then check out our book, It’s Not Okay To Be A Cannibal (available here); some good advice is available there, but be sure to get outside assistance when you decide to move forward.

If you or a loved one are in crisis, please call us at 877-320-0247 for immediate assistance, or visit us on the web at www.a-i-r.com.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, drug addiction, drugs, eating disorders, gentetics of addiction, heroin addiction, intervention, mental health, methamphetamine, pain addiction, pain medication, prescription drug abuse, recovery assistance, Recovery Assistance Program, substance abuse, Treatment
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Addiction at Home and in the Workplace

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Dr. A. Thomas McLellan, one of the leading researchers on addiction and a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, recently shared his story with the New York Times. Dr. McLellan recently accepted a position with the U.S. government, at the invitation of Vice President Joe Biden, to be the nation’s number two drug control officer. This gave him an interesting choice- to stay a professor, or to go work for the new administration. However, some experiences in his home life led him to move to work with the administration.

Last year, Dr. McLellan’s 30-year-old son passed away from an overdose of anti-anxiety medication and alcohol, at the same time as his other, older son was in residential treatment working on his own addiction issues. This, McLellan said, is what led directly to him making the post. With the help of Gil Kerlikowski, the nation’s drug czar, he hopes to turn addiction from a punitive crime into one where we can see more people get help instead of jail time. From the article: “Dr. McLellan said that of the 25 million substance abusers he estimated were in this country, only about 2 million were receiving treatment. He and Mr. Kerlikowske want to triple that number, partly by spending more money and partly through other tactics, like integrating addiction treatment into the primary health care system.”

An interesting quote from Dr. McLellan: “If it has to happen, better it happens to me, I’m an expert, right? I didn’t know what to do and none of my buddies knew what to do, and let me tell you they were experts. So I said, “˜What the hell are we doing?’ ”

So what happens when the experts don’t know what to do? Well, that’s why we’re here. At Assistance in Recovery, we’re available to coach you through all those difficult questions, whether you’ve been researching addiction for 30 years or you know absolutely nothing about it, and everywhere in between. In the struggle with chemical dependency, it can happen to ANYONE- and is always better having an outside perspective on what to do.We can assist on all of those difficult questions and help put a solution in place.

Call us at 877-320-0247 or visit us on the web at www.a-i-r.com.

Tags: addiction, addiction genes, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, anti-anxiety, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, drug addiction, drug deaths, methamphetamine, overdose, pain addiction, pain killers, pain medication, prescription drug abuse, substance abuse, Treatment
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Another high-profile addict loses his battle

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

On Friday, we lost another high-profile drug addict, Adam Goldstein- also known as DJ AM. DJ AM had a long history of addiction and recovery, but he lost his final battle with his inner demons. Having recently survived a plane crash that killed four other passengers, he could add that to the long and terrible history of trauma in his life. A sad tale, but one that had a happy ending until this past week. Goldstein was noted for his compulsive behaviors; having struggled with overeating, he lost nearly 150 pounds following gastric bypass surgery and got clean in the late 90s. He had a long and detailed list of abuses from his father, who was verbally abusive and dealing with his own demons. Goldstein also talked about his suicide attempt where a gun jammed, saving his life. So Goldstein wasn’t just doing drugs to do drugs; he was masking and blotting out his pain.

Relapse can happen, even to those who have a history of recovery. These losses, as grave as they are, are good reminders to those of us in recovery to keep up our daily maintenance. Recovery is like any other disease; should you stop treatment, the disease will come back in full force. For DJ AM, his disease crept back- possibly through pain killers- and just was too much for him. Did the doctors know about his addiction? Were his sober friends monitoring his pain medication intake? Did Goldstein admit he was having problems with his sobriety to anyone? These are the answers we may never know. With a long history of making it through the fire relatively unscathed, he lost his final battle with his addiction.

His final message to the world: “New york, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in new york aint always what it seems.” A sad ending to a tragic life. But there is hope. If you or a loved one are suffering today, call us at 877-320-0247. Help is out there, when you ask for it.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, crack addiction, dj am, drew pinsky, intervention, pain addiction, pain killers, pain medication
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Commercials for Drugs

Monday, July 27th, 2009

An article in the New York Times this weekend talked about the commercials put out by the prescription drug community. With all the hubbub as of late with prescription pain killers and their disasterous potential (and addictive) side effects, more and more awareness is being brought out by the government about pharmaceutical companies and their advertising. Considering in our not-too-distant past we could see ads for cigarettes on TV- and that beer commercials are some of the highest-budgeted in the advertising industry- this is a little bit of a non-shocker.

However- when you think about it- why are we talking about regulating ads for Cialis and Latisse when alcohol commercials are so prevalent in prime-time television and sporting events? Alcohol is linked to 75,000 US deaths a year, according to a government study- and that’s the third-leading cause of mortality. Even more shocking- the fact that half of Russian deaths in the 90s are blamed on alcohol-related consequences. So who’s the bigger criminal? The prescription drug market trying to get us to buy more restless-leg-syndrom drugs? Or the TV regulators that consistently allow alcohol ads- that kill 75,000 Americans a year- to have prime television real estate? This should be an easy call.

So, government, get rid of the “Just Say No” campaign and get to the bottom of this- stop allowing drug and alcohol companies to determine their amount of mind-share. We deal with enough problems already with people making their own decisions- the last thing we need is more convincing.

For help with a drug or alcohol problem, contact us directly at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, alcohol, alcohol advertising, alcohol-related consequences, alcoholism, assistance in recovery, beer advertising, pain medication, prescription advertising
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Pain Killers

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Has there ever been a doubt that pain killers can be addictive? With the death of Michael Jackson and the revealing of years and years of pain medication abuse, the light is being shed on the dangers of these “legal” drugs. Andrew Wainwright, our CEO, talked on CNN a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of pain killer abuse (you can see the transcript here), and brought up a few key points: that off-label prescription drug abuse doesn’t carry the stigma of, say, a meth addict, and that in 1996 Oxycontin hit the market as “the” pain killer and was marketed as such. However- here’s a stunning fact: Overdose deaths involving prescription pain relievers increased 114 percent from 2001 to 2005, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

In 2005, drug company Purdue Pharma confirmed that there was a federal inquiry about their marketing plan on the drug Oxycontin (check out the whole article from the Roanoke Times here). Paul Hanly, an attorney for one of the clients who worked for Purdue Pharma, had quite a bit to say, including that Purdue knew about widespread abuse and addiction to Oxycontin dating back to 1997 and 1998, even though they only publicly acknowledged that there “might be a problem” in 2000 after being notified by an attorney in Maine.

This past year, drug maker Merck has been battling a class action lawsuit in Australia over their pain medication Vioxx, which was pulled from the US market in 2004 after causing a series of cardiovascular injuries- to the tune of $4.85 billion. And two of the top-prescribed pain meds in the world, Percocet and Vicoden, have been recommended to be banned by the Food and Drug Administration.

The bottom line is this- drugs, of any form, are dangerous when abused. Pain medication can be lethal- and the fact that people think that because it’s coming from a doctor, it’s ok, is just wrong. Our doctors have been marketed and pushed and wined and dined by these pharmaceutical companies- companies without the best interest of the patients in mind, but the best dollar value and profit margin. Educate yourself before you start taking pain medication unnecessarily. Find out what kind of marketing strategy the drug company has used to get to your doctor. Ask questions. If your doctor is using their Oxycontin pen to prescribe you Oxycontin, make sure to ask why he or she recommends that- and what the dangerous side effects are.

If we aren’t active, we will see many more people die before things change. Be aware and be a voice.

For more information on pain killers, or for help with a pain killer addiction, contact us at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction intervention, assistance in recovery, oxycontin addiction, pain addiction, pain killers, pain medication, pain meds, percocet addiction, vicodin addiction
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