Posts Tagged ‘addiction treatment centers’

Another Actor Lost to Drugs

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Actor Corey Haim died this morning of an apparent drug overdose.  Many who grew up during the 80’s remember him well from numerous roles in films then, and he was recently reunited on the small screen with actor and friend Corey Feldman in “The Two Coreys.”

Haim had a troubled past with substance abuse and all that comes with it – sliding career, financial difficulties and trouble with the law.

He is the latest casualty in a string of celebrity deaths that have been linked to drugs in one way or another.  Yet with all the glorification of alcohol and drug abuse portrayed in Hollywood, especially on MTV and VH1 reality shows, maybe common sense might prevail and not continue to show so much partying since these channels influence our nation’s teenagers to a great degree. 

Even Joey from MTV’s “The Real World Hollywood” wound up spinning his substance abuse from a violent tirade into a paid gig on “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew”, where he was depicted as making a joke of his drug use before entering treatment yet again.

I think it’s about time that some shows shed light on the reality of substance abuse without the glamorization of partying.  Obviously not everyone winds up dead like Corey Haim when they become addicted to drugs, but most will end up in prison or die if they do not seek effective help. 

We can help you locate successful addiction treatment centers for yourself or a loved one, whether you are seeking a California rehab center or some other location.  Contact us today by calling 1-877-372-5719.

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Splitting Hairs Between ‘Dependence’ and ‘Addiction’

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Recent reports say that the newest version of the Diagnostic and Statstical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) will change the category of substance abuse to use the term ‘addiction’ again instead of ‘dependent’.  The idea is that there are people who display compulsive behavior when they are addicted, but there are people that are dependent on prescription drugs – both of these classifications have physical and mental side effects and withdrawal symptoms.

While the American Psychiatric Association (APA) might want to separate the two so they can continue prescribing dangerous drugs to people, in most cases the difference between dependence and addiction are simply the degree of the malady.  In other words, for many drug users of any type, they start using the drug to feel better about something, then they become dependent on it because of the natural laws of our bodies, and as the tolerance builds they require more and ‘can’t live without it’, and so progress on to the level considered to be addiction.  This can be observed with kids and street drugs as well as with housewifes and prescriptions such as painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs.  Either situation can ruin someones life and usually requires addiction treatment centers or drug rehab programs to address the situation.

With such an explosion of people whose lives are becoming ruined because of legitimate ‘dependency’ from prescription drugs, no wonder they want to try and cover their asses.

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Insurance Coverage for Drug Rehabs

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Drug and alcohol rehabs both benefit and suffer from labeling addiction as a mental health disorder.  The upside is that the new insurance parity law will force many insuranc policies to pay for drug rehab centers in an equal fashion to other healthcare provided by its coverage.  The downside is that it gets attached to a law that ultimately allows for pharmaceutical companies and ineffective psychiatric-based treatments to continue to bilk billions of dollars from American taxpayers by treating other forms of mental illness because they have convinced lawmakers that they are incurable diseases that require continual treatment.

Addiction recovery shouldn’t be a life-long endeavor.  People are able to recover from alcohol and other drug addiction permanently, with no signs of relapse, and do so every day.  This means that it is clearly not the incurable disease that the afore-mentioned groups claim it to be.  At the same time, drug rehab centers that do have high success rates are able to make themselves available for more people by allowing them to be covered within the same calendar year after they have been unsuccessful at traditional addiction treatment centers.

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Hidden Heroin Epidemic

Friday, January 29th, 2010

The latest issue of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) claims that there are only about 200,000 past-month users of heroin in America, yet the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) said there were more than 260,000 people admitted to addiction treatment centers for heroin as a primary drug, and only a portion of those abusing or addicted to the drug receive help.

At the same time, the NSDUH claims that 4.7 million Americans abused, I mean “used nonmedically”, prescription painkillers.  Do you know what happens to someone addicted to say, Oxycontin for example, when they can’t get that drug or need something stronger?  That’s right – they turn to heroin in many cases.  So what’s happening here is either the Federal Gov’t is covering up that the pharmaceutical industry and negligent doctors are responsible for creating heroin addicts, or the true numbers just haven’t surfaced yet for how many people “graduate” from pain pills to heroin.  In either case, there is a hidden heroin epidemic that is currently going on or about to hit.

What do you think their solution is?  To push methadone and buprenorphine – neither of which actually cure heroin addiction or prescription drug addiction – but they can be cured.  Someone very dear to me was cured of Oxycontin and heroin addiction – no further symptoms or relapses – cured.  That is just one tiny example of what is coming down the pipeline with The New Face of Recovery – people going through successful drug and alcohol rehabs and never having to admit they are powerless or diseased, never having to go to meetings and certainly not being worried about “taking it one day at a time.”

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New Face of Recovery™ Denounces Medication-Assisted Treatment for Addicts

Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Advocacy group says putting drug abusers on more drugs is not a real solution for rehabilitation.

 

Alcoholism and drug addiction are not new, but a few decades ago they were labeled as diseases, and now there are millions of Americans being prescribed drugs that have abuse potential, heavy mental and physical side effects and may even be fatal.

The scary, inbred connection with the pharmaceutical industry and doctors has led to the current disastrous epidemic of prescription drug addiction, with legal drugs killing more people in many states than illicit substances. Despite this undisputable evidence of carnage, the majority of doctors and addiction treatment centers continue to prescribe more drugs to addicts instead of helping them end the problem permanently. 

One of the most common examples includes opioid replacement therapy for people who are addicted to drugs like heroin and oxycodone. These drugs often include buprenorphine or methadone, yet each are variations of synthetic opiates themselves and if taken over any substantial length of time require treatment just to get off them. There is also the fact that many states are seeing a significant rise in methadone and other opiate-related deaths.

Another commonly accepted practice includes an array of psychotropic drugs like anti-anxiety medication, antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics. However, sedatives such as benzodiazepines to cope with anxiety have an extremely high potential for abuse in themselves, antidepressants have been proven to cause erratic behavior and antipsychotics have been linked to causing diabetes, among other side effects.

“People seeking rehabilitation help for alcohol and other drug addictions are feeling lost and betrayed,” comments New Face of Recovery™ founding member Lucas A Catton, “They pay money to go to these treatment centers

with the hope of getting better, but many of the end up worse because of the drugs they are given there.” 

Catton says he has personally spoken with thousands of people throughout the country in recent years who share this sentiment and who are seeking a more effective form of rehabilitation program. This continuing pattern is what led to the formation of the New Face of Recovery as a patient advocacy group seeking to improve conditions in the addiction treatment field.

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