It hijacks the brain and we need to arrest the addiction, not the person…to help stop the progression of the disease without stigmatizing the person as bad, but suffering from mental illness that addiction brings, by chemically altering the brains structure. The brain gets hijacked and wired only to seek what it now believes it lacks to be normal. The brain stops making serotonin and dopamine on its own and craves the opiates to feel well and not get sick. An addictive brain is a diseased brain and not a moral failure on the one suffering from addiction, but by a society/government that has failed morally to protect our citizens and loved ones from the profiteers of prescription drugs who have dirty hands in this epidemic.
We lost our morality and compass when we allowed profit over human lives. Stop the prescribing of these opiates to children/adults that are not in chronic pain. The FDA needs to be held accountable for their poor judgment of allowing these powerful opiates to be prescribed and for not stopping the many deaths this epidemic has caused by heroin addiction due to big pharma.
…My son died -- the unidentified young face of addiction that stopped Times Square the morning of April 12, 2013. He relapsed and fell into the subway and was electrocuted by the third rail. It was not suicide or anything other than another beautiful son/daughter losing their battle with addiction and the heartless society that shames them.
Opiate detox isn't the nightmare that it's portrayed on TV/movies to be. Detoxing from opiates includes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, aches and pains, and the sniffles. Symptoms decrease over time up to 10 days, with the worst being the first 4 days. It does not include "DT's" or the severity we see with alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal that does include the medical emergency of "DT's." It is more like a case of flu. This is not to say they aren't miserable throughout detox, they are. What is more concerning is the addict's behavior. Giving them methadone or Suboxone is only a temporary fix. We are substituting one drug with another. Methadone and Suboxone can be used in a needle and it too is abused by those addicted to opiates. I've seen it too many times. It's a lie that these treatment drugs "help" addicts. They do not. Detox off of methadone is a nasty long detox process that's even worse than the other mainstream opiates.
The opiate addict needs long-term addiction treatment and counseling to address addict behaviors -- lying, manipulating, hurting others, criminal behavior to achieve getting their drug. They need counseling to repair themselves and start building bridges back to their family and community. Many have had their children taken away and family members don't want anything to do with them further isolating the addict and increasing their likelihood of relapse. Rehabs need to be at least 90 days, not a 5-day detox program which is a joke. 30 days is barely enough to get them well enough to think clear. 90-day minimums should be required for the standard rehab program and continued counseling up to 2-3 years afterwards. If we don't invest heavily into real treatment options then we aren't talking about real solutions.
The stigma needs to be removed. It can happen to any family, regardless of social status. These aren't junkies in the street... these are your neighbors, the quarterback, our own children. Opioid addiction has been classified as a brain disease and the rate of relapse is extremely high.
I provide education and support for families, referral for treatment for addiction and co-dependency. It requires sustained long-term intervention and support, and Suboxone is another big-pharmacy drug that is now so widely available, abused, sold on the street and prescribed by doctors to a heroin addict in an outpatient setting without requiring or making available any well studied evidenced-based practices.
If you have someone you love living under your roof actively using opiates at the very least you should look into obtaining Narcan (Naloxone) and some training on how/when to use it. After you speak with one parent who could not revive their overdosed child, well, this is the sort of advice that sobers up the family -- get them help, or prepare for the funeral. There are no old heroin addicts, unless of course you are old when you start.
If I had the same experiences of trauma, hurt, pain, emptiness, neglect, hunger and poverty that people who live with addiction had -- I hope that I could cope half as well as they do. I hope I would have the same strength and resiliency that they do. But I can't say for sure that I would. Despite what life has given people who live with addiction, they have prevailed to the best of their abilities. If YOU were to have the same life experiences as people who live with addiction -- I hope that you would have the strength to prevail too.
Addiction does not discriminate. It is not only the "junkie" you see on the corner, begging for change who is affected. I've helped treat everyone from an Ivy League graduate from a prominent, well respected family, to an elderly Southern matriarch who became addicted after being prescribed opioids for years and has never even tried marijuana.
A search for emotional pain relief is easily as powerful a driver as physical pain in addictions. Also -- we as a society do not tell the truth about addiction's cost to the individual, their society and family. Look at people who see Elvis or Michael Jackson as heroes -- these men were desperately addicted and should be lifted up as teaching examples of the terrible price of addiction. We must confront these "icons" and say the truth, especially to our teens. I've been visiting in prisons and jails and juvenile facilities for 16 years. I also worked as a chaplain with recovering addicts at a VA hospital.
Even people who are shamelessly panhandling and ARE truly just after cash for dope really aren't shameless. They have a story, too. One guy told me his story of standing by the highway exit asking for money when someone callously shouted, "Get a job!" He was telling me, "I am looking for a job every day. I go down to the temp agencies, I fill out applications. It's hard." He wasn't proud of his addiction -- at the same time he had trouble stopping or we wouldn't have been helping him at our detox center. I think deep down, individuals struggling under addiction really do not want to be where they are. No one wants to stay there in poverty, neither in pain nor fleeting numbness. People want to have a happy life. Shaming someone by suggesting to "find employment" is no solution and isn't meant to be by the speaker. If you're the one saying it, it's just your way of inflating your own ego and voicing your disapproval of a total stranger whose story you don't care to know.
This opioid addiction is terrifying to an outsider looking in, but as a user it seems natural and normal. People don't wish to be this… it seems to just happen. No one grows up saying, "When I grow up I want to be a drug addict." I've been on both sides of the fence. I'm a person in long term recovery. …It means I haven't had a drink or drug since February 23, 2014.
I was that hopeless broken girl, the girl with no purpose, no goals, no values. I felt as though I didn't matter, I didn't have a voice, and I would just die a "junkie." I hated myself and thought "people would be better without me." I had goals and dreams, I had a great family and friends, I had the world at my hands and I traded it first for a pill that later turned into a needle. The needle took me to a whole new world of addiction. It took my morals and values away. It took my family and friends; it took my education, my purpose. Lastly, it took me.
Heroin changed me into this "other" person. When looking in the mirror I didn't recognize my reflection, I no longer was the girl I knew. …At the end my family was done, they couldn't take it any longer. I got an ultimatum get sober or get out. I always thought they hated me but I was wrong. I decided I couldn't live as an active user any longer. I've changed my life around. I work in the field of addiction and I'm a student... taking classes for my drug and alcohol license. I work in a recovery home for women. I see how powerful this disease really is from a different perspective and it's scary. I had so many great accomplishments in a short amount of time. I've rebuilt important relationships that I broke. I worked really hard to get to this point in my life.
The best part of my job is seeing that broken lost girl find her voice and purpose in life just as I did. Seeing the light come back into a girl's face and seeing her shine. I think because there are so many unsuccessful and sad stories out there we miss the successful stories. The stories with hope attached to them. The stories where mothers and children are being reunited, the stories where women are standing on their own two feet and working towards goals and achieving them, the stories where that broke lost girl finds her way and makes it. These are the stories of hope, if you look hard enough they're on every corner... Advice? Never lose hope in a person with substance abuse disorder.
Federal legislation does not allow Nurse Practitioners to prescribe buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid addiction -- even though we provide all other primary care services for our patients who often also suffer from addiction. Buprenorphine can only be prescribed by physicians and not all physicians choose to offer this safe, life-saving treatment. We have a huge demand for treatment, and a shortage of providers to offer this treatment. Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants could offer this life-saving prescription if there were changes made to this federal policy.
… We do not want to be addicts. When I was a child I wanted to be a veterinarian, not a homeless addict. We are humans, we have jobs, children, hopes, and dreams. I grew up with both of my parents, in a nice house, in a good town. I never tried drugs or alcohol in high school. I was an honor student and was selected to study abroad in Brazil for a year after high school, and that is when my life changed. I was raped, and thousands of miles from anyone I knew. I felt emotions I had never felt before, and was offered a beer and accepted. My life changed forever. Alcohol made it all OK for awhile. Years later, after coming home and keeping my secret, after a four-year abusive relationship, another abusive relationship, and a daily drinking habit, I found out I was pregnant. I quit drinking, but I was miserable until after I had my beautiful daughter, and got a prescription for opiates. I was hooked after the first one, because I was able to function, I had energy, I was "OK." I was a single mother in college, and I saw nothing wrong with taking my prescription to make me "happy" and pain-free. Before long I was buying higher doses off the street, taking more everyday, and abandoned school and all of my other responsibilities, including my daughter who I eventually left at my parents' house. I then became pregnant again, and once again got clean until after she was born. Over the next two years I sold drugs, lived in terrible places, did terrible things, got in trouble, and started using heroin. The day I decided enough was enough, I was in treatment court but was still using and I had a warrant out. I was hiding under insulation while the police searched the house for me. The next day I turned myself in, went to treatment, and even though it has not been easy, I never looked back. We are not losers who should be left to die and judged. We are people in the grips of a disease who need support and compassion. I also wish people understood that recovery is possible. I am living proof, and the programs and treatment facilities are worth the money as they save lives. Incarceration is not the answer, people become addicted because they lack other coping skills to deal with stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, anger, etc., and the drugs take away physical and emotional pain. Throwing someone in a jail cell is not going to get to the root of the problem, it will only increase those feelings and lead right back to drug use. Three years ago when I got in trouble, if I was thrown in jail instead of being able to do treatment court, I would not have a job working with recovering addicts, I would not have an apartment or car, I would not have graduated college last semester, and I certainly would not have my two beautiful children. These programs allowed me, and many others, to become productive members of society. Addiction is not a moral failing, it is a disease and the only way to stop this epidemic is for people to show compassion and understanding and stop judging and condemning addicts, because they will not come forward for help for fear of being judged and rejected. We already feel bad enough about ourselves, we don't need to hear what "scumbags" and "losers" we are. If communities come together to help build each other back up, work together on prevention, and get to the root of the problem and begin working on the solution, together we can fight this disease. I work at a peer-support recovery center and see recovery in action everyday. I also see many go back out, and I lost my best friend to heroin last year. Combating addiction has become the focus of my life, and helps me maintain my own recovery, but it takes the whole community.
Opioid addiction can (and does) impact anyone, regardless of age, gender, status. It can start with a single prescription. Addiction is an illness, not a character flaw, and there are very effective treatment options. In just a short time providing medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, I have seen people quickly regain control over their lives once treatment is initiated, restoring relationships, succeeding at work, and finding emotional stability.
My mother struggled with chronic pain and an unrecognized, except by loved ones, addiction to narcotics. After her death, from an unrelated cause, I had avoided seeking special training in addiction, as I thought it would pose too much of an emotional challenge. However, after seeing patient after patient walk through my door with opioid disorder, often having no treatment options, I felt that getting trained in buprenorphine and offering it as a treatment option was the right thing to do, for my patients and my community.
