What If My Child Isn’t Motivated to Get Treatment for Addiction?
Suggesting Treatment to a Loved One
Intervention – a Starting Point
Drug Use, Stigma, and the Proactive Contagions to Reduce Both
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After nine years as a homeless drug addict in Los Angeles, Jared Klickstein finally checked himself into a drug treatment center. Unlike the program he had gone to six years before, which had hot tubs, acupuncture, and trips to the beach, this one, in North Hollywood, was deadly serious about personal responsibility. Clients kept a strict schedule. They did chores. They scrubbed toilets. “No hot tubs,” Klickstein said.
Most important, they couldn’t use drugs. “If you use, they kick you out,” he said. “There’s consequences.”
It took him two attempts, but Klickstein, now 33, finally got clean. Four and a half years later, he’s independent, employed, and emotionally stable. “I was a person that you would see on one of these videos, screaming with blood and shit all over them,” he said. “And now I’m not.”
Klickstein attributes his success to the North Hollywood program’s emphasis on sobriety and accountability. “Without sobriety, there is no mental or emotional stability for me and most other drug addicts, meaning homelessness was inevitable,” he said. “Half measures and coddling do not work. Period.”
But tough-love centers like the one that turned Klickstein’s life around are becoming harder to come by. The idea that you have to quit drugs to recover from addiction has become old-fashioned, and treatment centers that insist on abstinence are disappearing. In California, changes in state law have made it virtually impossible for any program that accepts public funds to push clients to quit using.
... and before he got himself cleaned up. “Half measures and coddling do not work," Klickstein says. "Period.”
“You cannot intervene or even speak to someone regarding their alcohol and drug use,” said Reverend Andy Bales, who has worked in drug recovery in Los Angeles for decades. As a result, most homeless services and housing providers in the city allow, in his words, “a free flow of alcohol and hard drugs.” This permissive approach, Bales believes, is why California has more people living on the street than any other state in the country.
The repudiation of abstinence-based treatment in California and many other states represents the broad embrace of an approach called “harm reduction.” Instead of seeing addiction as a serious illness whose treatment ultimately requires addicts to stop using drugs, it casts addiction as a risky health condition to be managed, and insists that different people benefit from different management strategies, not all of which require abstinence.
But as the addiction crisis has deepened across the country, with the highly toxic and addictive opioid fentanyl killing addicts at record rates, homelessness exploding in California and throughout the West Coast, and drug cartels operating in the open in cities like San Francisco, the ascendance of a particularly dogmatic form of harm reduction may be exacerbating the crisis instead of mitigating it. By normalizing drug use, eschewing intervention, and shutting down abstinence-based treatment programs, critics of this radical harm reduction philosophy believe it’s keeping people trapped in addiction.
“It’s just going to end up with more death,” said Klickstein.
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The inevitable outcome of ever permissive drug policy interpretations and
The Disastrous Californian Cannabis Legalization Experiment – More than promises ‘Up in Smoke’!
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American scientists from a number of research centers and universities in Houston and New Orleans have developed the world's first vaccine…which blocks the drug fentanyl from entering the brain of rats, thus preventing the development of addiction, Pharmaceutics reports.
Specifically, it refers to opioids associated with an increase in the number of disorders and fatal overdoses. Experts note that despite the fact that drug addiction is treatable, 80% of people suffer from relapse.
The vaccine is able to generate antibodies against fentanyl that bind to consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated through the kidneys, said Colin Hale, associate professor at the University of Houston.
Importantly, the vaccine did not block the effects of other opioids. This suggests that it would not interfere with pain relief in people if other opioids were used. For complete article https://med.news.am/eng/news/33388/scientists-develop-worlds-first-vaccine-against-drug-addiction.html#.Y3tqF5WnrjA.twitter
What is more important to note is that, a general drug antagonist already exists in the market place that works on most all drugs, not just Fentanyl in preventing addiction relapse See Naltrexone
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So, let’s build these protective fences, so we don’t have to drive the heart-breaking ambulances.)
Staying on the path to health takes patience, loving relationships, and emotional resilience. People in drug abuse recovery need all the help they can get. Fortunately, tools and resources are available to help someone stay straight and to pick them up if they stumble. Learn more about life after addiction.
Family, Friends, and Addiction Recovery: One of the primary causes of relapse in pain pill addiction is an inability to develop intimate relationships. It's almost impossible to recover from prescription drug addiction alone. Learn what to do when someone you love relapses.
Rebuilding close connections with family and friends is essential to successful drug abuse recovery. This often requires the addicted person to recognize and make amends for the damage caused by past behavior. Learn how to talk to children about addiction.
At the same time, the addicted person's family will be going through its own recovery process. Re-establishing trust and mutual respect can take months or even years. Nothing can replace the healing properties of time spent together with loved ones.
Addiction Recovery Support Groups: Experts believe group therapy is superior to individual therapy for people recovering from prescription drug abuse. The group setting allows peers to both support and challenge each other, and creates a sense of shared community.
Exercise and Addiction Recovery: Drug addiction takes a toll on the body, along with the mind and soul. Exercise hasn't been studied for drug abuse recovery. However, exercise releases natural endorphins, feel-good chemicals that relax the brain and body and reduce stress.
Besides improving overall health, exercise improves mood and builds self-esteem, key areas in drug abuse recovery. Thirty minutes of daily physical activity, like brisk walking, will bring overall health benefits. Exercising with a group will also enhance interpersonal relationships and help develop connections outside the world of addiction.
Spirituality, Service, and Addiction Treatment: Many people in drug abuse recovery say their spirituality is important in staying clean and sober. Attending religious services, regular community service, and daily prayer are examples of activities that have helped many who believe a higher power is essential to their continued recovery. Reaching out to a local church ministry, or contacting the United Way in your area, can get you started.
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Seven times more people are initially accessing drug rehabilitation services after their release from prison since a new prison exit scheme was introduced in Tower Hamlets last year.
“Drugs can be a contributing factor of many crimes in Tower Hamlets, including burglaries, anti-social behaviour and knife violence.
“Prisoners returning to drug use on their release means they are more likely to end up back in the vicious cycle of committing crimes to fund their habits. However, with this new scheme we are thrilled to see we are disrupting this pattern and giving people a chance to claim back their lives free from drugs after being released.
“The prison exit scheme is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month. Its success is great news for our community as it is reducing crime and re-offending and helping people with drug addictions access support and improve their health.”
The prison exit service is commissioned by Tower Hamlets Council and delivered by social enterprise Turning Point.
(D.I. comment – This is one potential and vital outcome that is erased from the drug use exiting playbook, when you decriminalize, or worse legalize drug use. You don’t have to change the legal status of drug use to recalibrate the existing laws to facilitate exit from drug use without ultimate criminal sanctions. Drug or better labelled ‘Problem Solving Courts’ can leverage the illegality of drugs to better enable and equip exit from drug use, the cause of soooo many anti-social and community harming behaviours. Pro-drug activists care nothing for the addictive outcomes and destroyed lives of young people and their families – often irreversible harms to all.
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Start smoking – lead to e-cigarette use! Start vaping – lead to smoking! #quit
Conclusion Our study replicated the positive relation between e-cigarette use and tobacco smoking in both directions for adolescents. This may mean that the gateway works in two directions, that e-cigarette and tobacco use share common risk factors, or that both mechanisms apply.