WESTERN PA. HELP FOR PREGNANT WOMEN!

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, Inc.

Welcome to the the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, Inc. (ADAS) website. Our goal is to provide informative articles, links, and other resources relevant to substance abuse. Suggestions are welcome and may be submitted to:director@adasonline.org

ADAS is the Single County Authority (SCA) for Cameron, Elk and McKean counties. Pregnant women receive preferential services and are a priority population for treatment. There are no treatment service limitations for pregnant women.

ADAS welcomes new Prevention Supervisor

Jennifer Young

Jennifer Young of Saint Marys  joined the agency June 25th as the Prevention Supervisor for ADAS, Inc. Jennifer is a 2010 graduate of Clarion University of PA, where she earned a B.S. in Rehabilitative Sciences. Prior to coming to ADAS, Jenn had worked as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor for Abraxas I in Marienville.

As Prevention Supervisor, Jennifer will  oversee the provision of Drug and Alcohol Prevention and Intervention services  in Cameron, Elk, McKean and (contracted) Potter counties.   ADAS maintains Prevention staff in the Port Allegany, St. Marys, Bradford and Coudersport office locations and provides a wide variety of prevention and intervention programming, including:

• Student Assistance Program consultation
• Evidence/Research Based Alcohol, Tobacco  and Other Drug prevention programs in local schools
• Preparing for Drug Free Years (PDFY)
• Prevention/Education group facilitators at the elementary and secondary levels
• The Incredible Years Program
• Community based programs for youth, women, and businesses.
• First time offenders programs
• Red Ribbon and holiday drunk and drugged driving prevention campaigns
• Healthy Kids Program
• Youthful Offenders Program

Jennifer will be working out of the St. Marys office and can be reached at  814-781-1700 or youngj@adasonline.org

PAINKILLERS FOR KIDS

OxyContin maker wants FDA backing to label addictive drug for 6-year-olds
By Karen Keller Monday, July 2, 2012


OxyContin is not currently labeled for use for children, but some doctors prescribe it to them anyway.


The maker of OxyContin is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to label the controversial painkiller for use by children as young as 6 in a move that could serve to extend the company’s expiring patent on the lucrative drug, The Daily has learned.

Purdue Pharma has paid dozens of clinical sites around the country to document what happens when OxyContin, an addictive pharmaceutical widely abused by recreational users, is given to children.

The company says that its motivation is to help doctors who currently prescribe the drug off-label to children, a common practice in the treatment of pediatric conditions that involve moderate or severe pain.

But three physicians working with Purdue on the trials said the Stamford, Conn.-based company appears to be doing the research to get a six-month extension on their patent for the original formulation of OxyContin, which expires next year.

“They are doing (the pediatric trial) for patent exclusivity, there’s no doubt about it in my mind — not out of largesse,” said Dr. Elliot Krane, director of pain management at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. “That’s important for their bottom line.”

The family-owned pharmaceutical company earned an estimated $2.8 billion in revenue last year from sales of the powerful opioid, part of the same drug family as morphine and heroin. Purdue is fiercely guarding its exclusivity in the market through ongoing legal battles, and now, it appears, through a pediatric trial that could stave off competitors for another six months.

The Purdue trial involves 154 children ages 6 to 16 and is slated for completion in August of next year, according to a filing submitted to the FDA. The document says that the study is currently recruiting participants.

Many of the nation’s top pediatric pain experts say Purdue’s children’s trial is, all in all, a good thing. But critics, citing Purdue’s history of criminal marketing practices, worry that use of the drug by children could expand and lead to greater addiction and abuse woes.

“There’s good medical evidence that suggests a brain that’s not fully mature is at greater risk at developing the disease of addiction,” said Andrew Kolodny, president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing and the head of psychiatry at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City. The pediatric community underestimates those risks, he said, because they have given too much credence to drugmakers, who have systematically downplayed the dangers.

“Much of that misinformation (came from a) campaign funded by Purdue.”

In a landmark case for the pharmaceutical industry, Purdue in 2007 admitted in court that it misled doctors and the public about OxyContin’s risk of addiction. The company and three top company executives, each charged with a felony, paid $635 million in fines.

Purdue confirmed it is seeking permission to label the drug for pediatric use and pointed to a need to better understand how opioids affect children.

“We feel it is beneficial for clinicians who are treating pediatric patients with chronic, moderate-to-severe pain to have access to this information in scientific publications and in the product’s label, whether the results are positive or negative, so they can make better decisions about the care of their patients,” company spokesman James Heins wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.

Last year, 0.3 percent of OxyContin prescriptions were written for patients 19 and under, according to Purdue.

Numerous pediatric pain experts consulted by The Daily supported the company’s rationale, saying the trial will yield valuable data about a drug that children are already being prescribed.

“It’s clear in children certain drugs are definitely metabolized differently,” said Dr. Jeffrey Galinkin, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on drugs and research director of anesthesiology at Children’s Hospital of Colorado.

Purdue’s pediatric trial will help clarify how best to use the drug, he said. “It’s information we really do need to have.”

Purdue spokesman Heins told The Daily that the company does not plan to seek the right to market OxyContin to pediatricians — a separate category of FDA approval above and beyond labeling permission that would likely bring additional scrutiny of the company’s motives. A federal green light to market OxyContin for use in children, some worry, could lead to a higher rate of prescribing the drugs for kids and an army of Purdue sales representatives pressuring doctors to prescribe the drug more.

Krane, the physician involved with the study, doubted the company’s disavowal of any desire to market the drug to pediatricians.

“That’s probably disingenuous,” he said. “I believe (an FDA approval for marketing to pediatricians) is where they’re going.”

The question of patent rights looms equally large over the pediatric drug trial.

Purdue has been aggressively seeking to protect its original patent for OxyContin, which is scheduled to expire next year. The company has filed a raft of lawsuits against generic drug makers and is trying to get the FDA to ban generics of the original, easy-to-abuse formulation outright. Purdue released a new tamper-proof version of the drug in 2010 and that patent expires in 2025.

But the clinical trial for children offers another way to extend the life of the original patent.

In recent years the FDA has been encouraging pharmaceutical makers to test drugs for pediatric use and offering six-month patent extensions as a reward. Historically testing drugs for use in children is not something the pharmaceutical industry does, because the pediatric market is much smaller than the adult market.

As a consequence, pediatricians and family doctors simply use adult drugs on kids, making educated guesses about dosage amounts and side effects, several pediatricians said. Today more than 60 percent of drugs prescribed for children are not FDA-approved for pediatric use.

But in the case of Oxycontin, Kolodny and others worry that children are especially vulnerable to addiction. He also points to a 2005 study from the University of Michigan finding that children who are prescribed opioids are more likely to abuse painkillers in later life.
Teen abuse of OxyContin has already taken an epic toll on communities across the country.

“We’ve had 10 people die since May. Constant funerals lately,” said Joanne Peterson, founder of Learn to Cope, a Massachusetts-based group that helps parents of pill-addicted youth. All of the young people died from heroin overdoses, but their addiction started with OxyContin, she said. They moved to heroin because it provides a similar high but is cheaper. “I’m not going to ever trust anybody who mismarketed that drug on purpose.”

OxyContin's track record for abuse so far is stark. Last year painkillers - mainly oxycodone (OxyContin) and hydrocodone - caused more deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. The opioid epidemic has killed more than 100,000 people since 1999, more than U.S. military deaths during the Vietnam war.

Yet a broader view among pediatricians is that addiction risks for children properly prescribed the drug are manageable.

“We’ve been using (OxyContin) for over 10 years,” said Dr. Steven Weisman, pain management director of the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. “And we haven’t had any problems with addiction or diversion” of the prescriptions to addicted family members or to the street for resale, he said.

Weisman, along with Krane and Galinkin, received consulting fees from Purdue in recent years. Their hospitals get paid by Purdue to do the trial but there is no direct personal financial benefit to doctors, they said. Purdue is working with many of the nation’s top pediatric pain experts for the trial.

Krane said he’s not worried that Purdue will aggressively push OxyContin on pediatricians. The bad press, fines and criminal convictions in 2007 have changed the game for Purdue, he said.

“From top to bottom, I think they’ve learned from that experience and … they can’t get away with that again,” he said.

He told The Daily he would be “astounded” if OxyContin prescriptions for children rose by more than “1 or 2 percent” if the drug were to get FDA approval.

However, he conceded, it’s possible that even a tiny increase in the rate of prescriptions could do harm.

“We are possibly opening the door to (OxyContin) being abused by a younger, more vulnerable population,” Krane said.

Karen.Keller@thedaily.com@karenakeller

What is codependency addiction?

 ADDICTION BLOG    By Lisa Espich

What Does Codependency Mean?

Are you wondering, “Am I codependent in a relationship?” Simply put, codependency is an emotional and behavioral condition that results in unhealthy relationships. Some of the negative patterns that develop include enabling, denial, low self-esteem, and control issues. Codependency is also sometimes called “relationship addiction.”

In families that are dealing with an addicted member, codependency is a common problem. It is difficult to be in a relationship with an addict and not fall into codependent behaviors. While these patterns don’t happen overnight, most people who live with an addict for a sustained period of time eventually take on codependent tendencies.  How to stop a codependent relationship takes time, awareness, and effort.

What Are Codependent Behaviors?

So what do codependents do? What typically happens is, as the addict gets worse, the family members become mentally and physically unhealthy as well. They spend sleepless nights worrying, suffer from stress-related illness, lie to avoid shame or embarrassment, become financially strained, and grow increasingly resentful toward the addict. This is why addiction is often called a family disease.

While there are many destructive patterns involved with codependency, two of the most common are enabling and denial. Let’s take a closer look at these two behaviors:

1. What Are Enabling Behaviors?

When somebody you care about is suffering with an illness or a disease you naturally want to help. As a result, loved ones often step in to save the addict from the devastating consequences of their actions. This is called enabling. It is difficult to be in a relationship with an addict and not get sucked into enabling behavior.

Family members believe they are doing the right things when they help to save the addict’sjob, help him or her to stay out of jail, help to pay their overdue bills, or save them from whatever horrific thing is getting ready to happen. But, in most cases, it’s not helping. Instead it is making it easier for the addict to continue drinking or using drugs because the consequences aren’t bad enough to convince him or her to stop.

If loved ones can learn to let the crisis happen for the addict, the consequences could be enough to convince the addict to accept help. So how can somebody love an addict without stepping in and enabling the addiction? You do this by treating the addict with respect (expecting him or her to handle their own responsibilities), getting educated to understandaddiction, and offering hope and words of encouragement.

2. How Is Denial A Drug?

Along with enabling comes the behavior of denial. The addict denies his or her problem, the family denies how bad things have gotten, and emotional or psychological abuse is often denied as well.

When family members refuse to admit that the addiction is causing serious health, relationship, and financial problems – this is called denial. Denial is a defense mechanism. Sometimes we are faced with something that is too uncomfortable to accept, so we reject it, insisting that it is not true despite evidence.

As addiction becomes more severe, the family’s denial may get worse as well, until the problems become so obvious that denial is no longer possible.

Help Getting Over Codependency

If you have a loved one struggling with addiction, and you have fallen into these codependent patterns, now is the time to reach out for help. If you can’t find the courage to do that, then how can you expect the addict in your life to find the courage? Set the example and lead the way to positive change.

Family support groups, such as Al-Anon, are one of the best forms of support available. Through these groups you will learn how to handle the challenges of living with an addict, learn to set healthy boundaries, and discover how to create an environment that encourages recovery.

Recovery Connections: PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS

Recovery Connections: PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS: By Will Godfrey   THE FIX According to a new government report, an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse is causing more fatalitie...

PAIN KILLER DEATHS TRIPLED IN TEN YEARS

By Will Godfrey  THE FIX

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"

The United State of AA

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.