According to a new government report, an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse is causing more fatalities than heroin and cocaine combined.
Just in case anyone still doubted the extent of the prescription drug epidemic gripping the US, along comes a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detailing a huge surge in painkiller abuse and overdose deaths—which have tripled in the past ten years. In 1999, 4,000 people died from painkiller ODs. By 2008, that had risen to 14,800 attributed fatalities—Heath Ledger was the most famous of them—or 4.8 per 100,000 population. And with 12 million Americans—5% of those aged 12 and over—using these drugs unprescribed in 2010, mortality rates are unlikely to have dropped since, as the report notes. Death is typically caused by respiratory depression, which stops you breathing. Sales to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices of opiod painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin have quadrupledsince 1999. In 2010, enough opiod painkillers were sold to give every single American adult a 5mg dose of hydrocodone every four hours for a whole month.
Painkiller abuse is highest among white and Native American populations, in rural and poor areas, among men and among middle-aged people. Many get hooked on legitimately prescribed drugs, quickly building up a tolerance. In some areas, many of these addicts move onto use heroin—although to describe this as an escalation of the problem is perhaps missing the point, when prescription pain pills themselves now kill more US citizens than heroin and cocaine put together. What's more, these stark stats actually underestimate the lethal impact of painkillers, because many death certificates fail to specify the drug responsible. So where's the hope here? Well, the government can hardly ignore numbers like these; a federal prescription tracking program has been approved by every state except Missouri and New Hampshire this year. And the nature of supply is more concentrated, and so perhaps more easily targeted, than the countless street-level dealers of previous illegal drug epidemics: one study showed that just 3% of doctors account for 62% of all the opiod painkillers prescribed in the US, and they can now expect to find themselves under more scrutiny than ever. "It is an epidemic but it can be stopped," says CDC Director Thomas Frieden"
By Susan Cheever THE FIX
After hundreds of meetings in almost as many places, our intrepid columnist discovers the one thing, despite the diversity and differences, they all they all have in common: a state of mind.
I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting long before I was an alcoholic. On a summer evening, when I was in my 30s, after dinner with my parents at their house in Westchester, my father suggested that I keep him company at one of the meetings he was going to every night. He had been sober a few months after spending 28 days at Smithers, a New York City rehab.
In that short time our family had come alive again. There were no more drunken fights and taunts, no more Daddy passed out in the living room, no more delirium tremens, and no more scary late-night racing to the local hospital ER. (My brothers and I were stealing the signs in the hospital parking lot, expressing our grief as larceny; we agreed that when he died we would steal the largest one—the big red-and-white “One Way” arrow.)
The AA meeting that summer night was at a long wooden table under high windows in the parish house of the local Presbyterian church. As the last daylight faded, I listened to people I had never seen in my life talk with startling honesty about their problems and their feelings. One handsome man in a suit and tie confessed that he was afraid of what his son might be up to at college; another man was worried about his marriage because his wife had gotten a job and seemed to have lost interest in the household. The woman next to him talked about her anger at her boss. My father confessed his fear that he might drink on an upcoming trip to Russia.
I have found the same connection among strangers at Jitters, the Log Cabin, the Dry Dock, Morning Glories and the Shoes That Fit.
Somehow, I felt at home at that long table in a room that smelled of furniture polish and coffee. I raised my hand and thanked them all for helping my father. Even though I was not an alcoholic, I said, I had really enjoyed the meeting. The handsome man in the suit smiled in unconditional welcome. “Keep coming back,” he said.
That same sense of connection was present in the meetings I went to with my father in the ’70s, in the meetings I went to when I first got sober in the ’80s and in the meetings I have been going to since 1992 when I had what I pray was my last drink. I have been to meetings in Vermont and California, Florida and New York City. Alcoholics often name meetings, and I have been to Jitters in Minneapolis, the Log Cabin in Los Angeles, the Dry Dock in San Francisco, Morning Glories in Cambridge, Mass., and the Shoes That Fit in Saratoga Springs.
In Vermont AA members complain about snow removal, tree problems and balky oil burners. In Los Angeles they complain about the movie industry. In New York they complain about real estate.
Alcoholism and recovery are great levelers, and meetings often include Harvard grads, high school janitors and homeless men, famous actors and half-recovered alcoholics with uncontrollable tics, rich people who complain that AA won’t accept their money (there is a limit of $3,000 on annual giving) and people who are hoping that the meeting will end with someone paying for their dinner (it very often does). Many meetings are held in grotty basements where cockroaches roam and fluorescent lighting shows worn linoleum. It doesn’t matter at all. That sense of belonging with strangers that I first felt in the Presbyterian church parish house almost always hits me within a few minutes of walking through the rusty door. It’s more than the psychology of the group, and it has a power beyond what I feel in church on Sunday.
“The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element of the powerful cement that binds us,” the book Alcoholics Anonymous explains in chapter 2, titled "There is a Solution." “But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.” The joining feels like magic. And this particular magic, this freedom from anxiety, this temporary peace and feeling of belonging, is almost exactly what I looked for in the bottle when I was drinking. A drink could calm my mind and shift improve my perspective. A drink could make me feel at home in the world. In a dark bar I had what I thought was a deep and meaningful connection with the other drinkers—that is, I had it until the lights went on after last call and I wondered if I looked as drunk and shabby as they did.
This particular magic is almost exactly what I looked for in the bottle when I was drinking.
The great psychologist Carl Jung famously explained to Bill Wilson that the only cure for alcoholism—the disease of drinking spirits—is spirituality. Only the spirit (spiritus) can conquer the spirits (spiritum). “You see, ‘alcohol’ in Latin is ‘spiritus’ and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison,” Jung wrote Wilson in 1961. “The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.”
What creates this magical experience, this powerful, healing spirit, these “vital spiritual experiences” and “huge emotional displacements and rearrangements” that Jung described.
Clearly, it is not necessary to think you are an alcoholic in order to have this feeling of belonging in a meeting. Is it the spirituality of the group, the common prayers and litany, the shared relief of finding a way to stay sober? Is it the power of men and women with similar experience? Our stories are often very different, but we have all faced the same kind of despair.
It is all that and something more. As Bill Wilson wrote, “We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.” AA meetings are where we find that fourth dimension of existence.
Susan Cheever, a regular columnist for The Fix, is the author of many books, including the memoirs Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle, and the biography My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson—His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Authorities in Michigan plan to deliver PSAs to a captive male audience. You can hear them here.
If you've ever thought, “Gee whiz, there should be more ways to deliver anti-drunk driving PSAs,” you're in luck. Michigan officials have come up with a radical idea to interact with drinkers: talking urinal cakes. Motion-activated, the talking cakes will shower captive audiences with some golden advice: shake off any notion of driving drunk. Authorities plan to deliver 400 of the devices to 200 locations in time for July 4. “Listen up. That’s right, I’m talking to you," the talking urinal cakes begin, in a warm, mellow woman's voice. "Had a few drinks? Maybe a few too many? Then do yourself and everyone else a favor: call a sober friend or a cab. Oh, and don’t forget to wash your hands.” The cakes are made by Wizmark, and the Maryland-based company claims to manufacture the first and only interactive items of their kind: some sing and flash lights, others help keep the streets clear of drunk drivers. Authorities aim to drive home their message by making it part of the inevitable final bathroom break that men take right before they leave the bar. The talking urinal cakes also take advantage of bathroom “guy rules,” as the Detroit News points out—by which it's socially mandated that men must only look straight forward or down while at the urinal, never talking or making eye-contact with neighbors. The only sound remaining—almost—will be the speaking urinal cakes. Listen up to a couple of the prototype messages:
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Posts in category Capital Area Events
EARLY MORNING RECOVERY 21ST GROUP CELEBRATION
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENT
WRITTEN BY ADMIN
EARLY MORNING RECOVERY
21ST GROUP CELEBRATION
50 ESCHER STREET
(BASEMENT) REAR
TRENTON, NJ
JUNE 16, 2012
8:30 – 11:00 AM
FOOD, FUN, & FELLOWSHIP
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER
Recovery Weekend XXVII Speakers Wanted!!!
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENTWRITTEN BY ADMIN
Speakers Wanted!!!
Do you have experience and a working knowledge of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions?
Would you like to share the experience, strength, and hope of your journey through the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions?
Sign up today and join us at
Recovery Weekend XXVII
Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, 2012
Contact:
Michele S. 
(609) 731-5192
Ted T. (609) 647-8174
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER
Recovery Weekend XXVII
MAY21
2012LEAVE A COMMENTWRITTEN BY ADMIN
Recovery Weekend XXVII
Sept. 28 through Sept. 30, 2012
YMCA Camp Ralph S. Mason
23 Birch Ridge Road Hardwick, N.J. 07825
$ 115 per person early bird
Free t-shirt included
$ 120 per person after August 30th
(No personal checks accepted after August 30, 2012)
There is a charge for day visits. Please call for info
Lodging, meals, canoeing, boating, fishing, archery, riflery, nature walk,
NA MEETINGS, and new this year “Zip Line”
Please bring with you: bedding or sleeping bag, pillow, clothing, toiletries.
Optional: flashlight, folding chairs, fishing gear, etc.
We are staying in SPRUCE LODGE again this year.
Make check or money order payable to CAASC
Mail to: Capital Area Recovery Weekend
P.O. Box 649
Trenton, N.J. 08605
Contacts: Michele S. (609) 731-5192
Ted T. (609) 585-8055
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE REGISTRATION FORM
Mission & philosophy
The mission of The Bridge Way School is to offer a strong academic program to students in grades 9–12 who are in recovery from substance abuse and/or addiction that allows them to focus on learning in an environment in which sobriety is required and supported. We believe that a sober school that incorporates 12-step principles is a key component on the continuum of treatment and recovery management.
While the paramount objective of The Bridge Way School is to provide a meaningful and challengingeducational program, we recognize that our students need time during the school day to develop tools and strategies for maintaining sobriety. These combined objectives will help our students succeed on the life-long road to recovery as they continue to live, work, and play in their communities.
Finally, The Bridge Way School strives to empower students to continue their road to recovery beyond their attendance at our school as they continue onto another secondary school, college, or career.
Welcome to The Bridge Way School– Philadelphia’s first recovery high school.
We are accredited by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and provide a challenging academic program for students in grades 9 – 12 in an environment that requires and supports sobriety utilizing 12-step principles.
The Bridge Way School may be right for you if
you have at least 30 days of sobriety
you are actively working a recovery program
you seek a strong college-preparatory program that recognizes individual learning styles
Summer Session from July 9 – August 17
Offering summer credit-recovery courses, sober outdoor activities including horseback riding, certified clinical recovery supports and professional drug testing. For more information.
An Insider’s Perspective
Charlie Hugo, a young adult sober since the age of sixteen, talks about his experiences attending a recovery high school and later college. Attending a recovery high school allowed him to build lasting relationships with others, facing similar problems. “Treatment alone isn’t enough.”
Watch the video, an »insider’s perspective on recovery education.
The Bridge Way School
4101 Freeland Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19128
267-437-2194
About us
Horizon High School is an emotional growth, recovery high school. This means that although there are aspects of the program targeted at teens in recovery, anyone that needs an alternative to a traditional high school setting is welcome.The classroom setting is small, in order to promote an individualized curriculum and to allow for students' needs. Horizon High School's guideline for enrollment is to maintain a student-teacher ratio of five to one. Currently Horizon has a part time counselor, full time teacher and part time director. As more students enroll, more staffing will be considered. Our student population varies and is usually between 6-9 students.
To maintain an engaging and educational atmosphere, Horizon High School incorporates guest speakers and field trips. Generally, an outing is planned every week. Speakers who highlight many topics of interest, particularly related to recovery, make occasional presentations.
Since our creation, we have served over 60 young people. Today many of these are enrolled in colleges and colleage universities, employed, or in the military.
Curriculum
The Horizon High School curriculum integrates interest groups and differentiates students based upon their career goals and academic needs. Institutional approaches focus on discussion and hands-on rather than busy-work. However, there are classes that students need to take, both to fulfill credit standards and to have a traditional classroom experience in preparation for post-secondary career or vocational goals.
Our History
In March 2004, 6 individuals (mostly parents with kids in recovery) got together for coffee at SunPrint on Odana Road, to discuss the concept that one of us (Shelly Dutch) described as essential for teens struggling with alcohol and drugs: recovery schools, where our kids could go after getting out of AODA treatment. We started doing research and found there were about 20 around the country, with most in Minnesota. Another member of the group had intimate knowledge of the local school system and advised that attempting to charter would probably not succeed. That November we received a $10,000 gift from a family, which was enough to start up. In December we incorporated, got all the paperwork together, hired a young teacher and in late January 2005 opened operation with 5 students in a church basement. Soon we had 9. And as they say, the rest is history.
For more information, contact:
Traci Goll, Director
608.335.0387
ttgoll@tds.net
Or write to:
Horizon High School
P.O. Box 45045
Madison, WI 53744in
5005 University Ave
Suite 130
608.442.0935
