Weekly ATOD Recap & Advocacy for week-ending June 20, 2014

Increased demand will follow increased access to addiction services

In Ohio—one of the most populated states in the country—the prevalence of opioid addiction and abuse might be turning a corner, according to Orman Hall, director of the Ohio governor’s  Opiate Action Team, who spoke at the groundbreaking for the Gelbman House in Youngstown, Ohio yesterday. As more individuals gain access to healthcare coverage through Affordable Care Act provisions, they are more likely to seek treatment for their substance abuse issues. “We’re seeing significant demand, especially around the issue of opiate and heroin addiction,” Hall says. “The Affordable Care Act is really important, but the other piece is Medicaid expansion.” Ohio joins 25 other states that have expanded Medicaid to include new populations that typically have not been eligible for Medicaid before, such as adults who do not have children. To continue reading, please click here.

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Thoughts on the future of peer-run services: Part 3

This three-part series started when Ron Manderscheid, executive director of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors, wrote an article on the future of peers in our workforce in a Behavioral Healthcare blog last December. Manderscheid described the roles peers could play in integrated care under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He is often able to see a vision of the future that gives the rest of us a glimpse of how things could be if we were courageous and behave ourselves. The vision he imparts in that article does just that. For example, he said an opportunity will exist for a peer to serve persons who have no behavioral health conditions. To continue reading, please click here.

Note: Part One is available here. Part Two is available here.

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Binge drinking among youth concentrated among a small number of alcohol brands; vodka often binge drink of choice

Youth who binge drink are often choosing spirits (“hard alcohol”), particularly vodka, and their binge drinking is concentrated among a relatively small number of brands, according to a new study. This is the first study to document alcohol brands used for binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row for males; four or more drinks in a row for females) by underage youth (ages 13-20). To continue reading, please click here.

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Study reveals molecular mechanism behind alcohol-related brain damage

It has been well documented that heavy alcohol use can cause damage to the brain. But for the first time, researchers from the University of the Basque Country in Spain and the University of Nottingham in the UK reveal the structural brain damage alcohol abuse can cause at a molecular level. To continue reading, please click here.

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Twelve Step Recovery and Medication Assisted Therapies

"You're not clean and sober if you keep taking that medication from your doctor!"

"You're just substituting one drug for another."

"You are depressed because you are not grateful enough."

These and other statements are often made to 12-step members who are legitimately prescribed and taking FDA approved medications to treat their addictions and other co-occurring illnesses. Unfortunately, this so- called “advice” from well-intended but misinformed members is not founded in scientific or 12-step philosophy and violates a long held 12- step policy of “AA members should not give medical advice to each other." To continue reading, please click here.

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To Beat Heroin Addiction, A Turn To Coaches

Two young men sit in a car outside a church or union hall where they just attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Both men are addicted to heroin. But they haven’t used the drug since they finished a residential treatment program a week or so earlier. To continue reading, please click here.

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A Heroin User's Story: Naloxone Gives a Mother Back Her Son, But Can't Cure Addiction

Peter Ruhry got what many other drug abusers never get: a second chance. Mr. Ruhry grew up in Nassau County, in a home without drugs. He started using drugs in April 2007; two years later, in May 2009, he overdosed on heroin, said his mother, Angie Ruhry. He was 21 years old, taking summer classes at Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. At some point between his home and the hospital, first responders gave Mr. Ruhry a shot of naloxone, a medication that is an antidote to opioids found in heroin and some prescription drugs, his mother said. To continue reading, please click here.

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Is your doctor stoned? Physicians with substance abuse problems continue to work

We trust doctors with our lives. They’re supposed to take care of us. But physicians are only human. Government studies indicate at least 100,000 doctors — or about one in 10 currently working — is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some are performing surgeries while stoned, injuring and even killing unsuspecting patients, according to TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen, who found numerous cases of doctors busted for substance abuse. To continue reading, please click here.

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Young adult men not forthright about their behaviors

A survey conducted for the Caron Texas treatment facility found a disturbing discrepancy between young adult males' assessment of their own substance-using behavior and their reporting of what their friends are doing. Authorities suspect that this means these individuals in the 18-to-25 age range are under-reporting their own daily use. To continue reading, please click here.

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Shire to test its ADHD drug in 4 to 5-year olds in U.S.

Shire Plc has agreed to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration request to study its stimulant Vyvanse in preschool children as concern rises over the diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the drugmaker said on Thursday. To continue reading, please click here.

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Psychotropic Drugs Affect Men and Women Differently

Prescription painkillers, antidepressants and other brain drugs have gender-specific effects. To continue reading, please click here.

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A Chinese Chemical Company and A 'Bath Salts' Epidemic

There were times a few years back when the emergency room at SUNY Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse looked like a scene from a zombie movie. Dr. Ross Sullivan, a physician there, recalls one afternoon when staff wheeled in a man with dilated pupils who was covered in sweat. To continue reading, please click here.

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Children use more drugs when their parents are strict

Want to stop your children from smoking pot? Don't be a tyrant, and pay attention. A recent study looked at how different parenting styles affect different behaviors. By analyzing survey results, Spanish researchers concluded that the strictest and most neglectful parenting styles correlated with a lot more illicit drug use than balanced and indulgent styles. In other words, the key to preventing drug use could be a kind and affectionate approach to parenting. To continue reading, please click here.

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Feds Seek Ways to Expand Use of Addiction Drug

The government's top drug abuse experts are struggling to find ways to expand use of a medicine that is considered the best therapy for treating heroin and painkiller addiction. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan on Wednesday pressed officials from the White House, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and other agencies to increase access to buprenorphine, a medication which helps control drug cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It remains underused a decade after its launch. To continue reading, please click here.

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6 Common Fears in Addiction Recovery – and How to Face Them

Fear is normal at every stage of recovery. Everyone enters rehab with some trepidation, even if they’ve been in and out of treatment for years. Likewise, most people leave rehab full of worry. What will happen when they leave the one place they know they can stay sober? How will they cope when the feelings they’ve been medicating come flooding back? To continue reading, please click here.

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3 Surprising (and Dangerous) Truths about Opiate Addiction

It’s been almost a month since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control hosted the National Rx Drug Abuse Summit in Atlanta, GA. There, some surprising truths about opiate addiction were unveiled. To continue reading, please click here.

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Teenage Drug Abuse. The facts, the issues, the solutions.

If you read the newspapers, listen to the radio or watch TV, you know that in this country, we have a problem with teenage abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. How big a problem? It depends who you listen to. For example, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, which collects data on drug use among students in 8th, 10th and 12th grade students, several important trends are evident. Here are some highlights:

Some of the positive trends:

• Marijuana use among eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders, which has declined a bit since the mid-1990s, appears to have leveled off with 10.9 percent of eighth graders, 23.9 percent of tenth graders, and 32.4 percent of twelfth graders reporting past year use.

• Since 2001, the overall use of drugs by young people had dropped by 24 percent (alcohol by 15 percent, marijuana by 25 percent, ecstasy by 54 percent, and methamphetamine by 64 percent). Come 2008, the decline was 25 percent ... 900,000 fewer young people using illegal drugs than there were in 2001.

• In 2008, 20.4% of 12th graders reported smoking cigarettes in the past month, a substantial decline from the most recent high of 36.5% in 1997.
• Past-year use of illegal drugs aside from marijuana is down from 13.1% in 2007 to 11.3% in 2008. The same goes for the use of crystal meth, from 1.6% to 1.1%.
• 8th, 10th, and 12th graders are continuing to show a gradual decline in their use of amphetamines, methamphetamine, cocaine, and crack.
  

Some of the negative trends:

• In 2008, 15.4 percent of 12th graders said they abused prescription drugs within the past year. Among those, nearly 10 percent reported past year nonmedical use of Vicodin, and 4.7 percent reported abusing Oxycontin, both opioid painkillers. The survey notes that seven of the top 10 drugs abused by 12th graders in the year prior to the survey were either prescribed or purchased over-the-counter.
• Marijuana remains to be the most commonly abused substance among teenagers in the United States. Of the teenagers surveyed by the MFT in 2008, 26.9% have reported using it.
  

For many parents finding out that their son or daughter is struggling with teen drug abuse is a catastrophic revelation. For many of them there are thoughts of failure, disappointment, guilt, and embarrassment. Parents need to remember that they are not the only ones to face such a situation. And perhaps more importantly, many families have overcome teen drug abuse.

Parents need to remember that today’s teenagers are not using as much cocaine, crack, LSD, and ecstasy as their counterparts did in the 1960’s. But today’s kids have found other ways and means to get high. They are more likely to turn to painkillers and other prescription drugs. And these are being abused at record levels.

What we’ve found is teens are often getting caught raiding their parent’s or grandparent’s medicine cabinets in order to get high. For the first time, national studies show that today’s teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller than any illicit drug.

The reality is - it is impossible to predict whose teenager will experiment and stop and which one will develop serious problems. So here are some warning signs you should be looking for because they are of teenagers at risk for developing serious prescription drug dependency:
• A family history of substance or alcohol abuse
• Depression
• Low self-esteem
• Feel like they don’t fit in and are not popular with the mainstream
• Frequently feel sluggish and have difficulty sleeping
• Aggressive and rebellious attitude toward authority figures

The basic fact is that teen substance abuse affects the family especially as they become more hostile, and their decision-making ability becomes impaired. Teens who are abusing drugs set a bad example for their younger siblings and create much more hostility to the family as a whole. This behavior should not be tolerated by parents and appropriate help should be sought immediately.

Here are some things that you should share with your teen about prescription medications:
• Pharmaceuticals taken without a prescription or a doctor’s supervision can be just as dangerous as taking illicit drugs or alcohol.
• Abusing painkillers is just like abusing heroin because their ingredients are similar (both are opiates).
• Prescription medications are powerful substances. When prescription medication is not used for sickness and not administered by a professional, it becomes a controlled substance and the impact on the person can be deadly.
• It is extremely dangerous to take pills that are unknown.
• Mixing drugs with other substances is very dangerous. Some people have allergic reactions to different chemicals when they are mixed together.

What can you do to help prevent teens or any other person from getting involved with prescription drug abuse? The best thing to do is keep your prescription drugs in a safe place: don’t put them in the medicine cabinet in your bathroom because that is the first place teenager’s will look. If possible, lock them up in a cabinet or safe box. Know what your teen is doing and who they are doing it with. And perhaps most importantly, talk to your teen and warn them of the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

There are many options for available to parents who have a child involved with teen substance abuse. Some of these options include: enrollment in a specialty boarding school or residential treatment center or a short-term drug detox hospital.

But first, call NCADD of Middlesex County, Inc’s Referral Hotline at 732-254-3344. We have the information and resources to put you in touch with the best course of action for your teen. Remember that there is a great deal of help available if parents are able to get the troubled teen the appropriate intervention.