An Addict In Our Son’s Bedroom: Talking to Students

An Addict In Our Son’s Bedroom: Talking to Students: Talking to students is easy. There is nothing to it when all you do is recount stories and the horrors of parenting and loving and addict. ...

 Helpful Links Go Unnoticed

Good Morning Readers,

I was taking a look at all the helpful links we have on our blog and thought how often they go unnoticed.  So I would like to take some time and give you a chance to take a look at some of these wonderful resources. Today I chose one that is close to my heart. Addictions Victorious!

Addictions Victorious helped me to grow into the person I am today.  Whether your someone in addiction, enabler or co dependent you will be welcome at their meetings. I would imagine like any meeting you may have to visit more than one to find the place you feel most comfortable, although for me the first one was perfect. I was able to heal through sharing, encouragement, support and also most important, learned that our Savior Jesus Christ loves us regardless of our past and He is waiting with open arms for us to come home. In these meetings I found so much comfort in the stories, struggles and victories of others.  I am forever thankful to AV and also to those that shared those seats with me in the room down the hall.  I ask you to Visit the Link below and learn a little more about Addictions Victorious and I couldn't end this with out giving thanks to Dan and Rosemary Gavin. Thank you for your wonderful heart of service!

http://addvicinc.org/

December 12 v 20 POWER IN THE PROVERB
Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil;
joy fills hearts that are planning peace!
STEP 5 : Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being
the exact nature of our wrongs.
Their is a peace that transcends all understanding. I have that , it is a gift from above.How did I attain it ?Working step 5 holding nothing back! Realizing that lieing only hurt me and caused all kinds of chaos in my life.There is no such thing as a little white lie it is still lieing it will still steal your peace and joy . The Truth Will Set You free !

For More Power in The Proverb and the latest recovery news and events.
Visit : www.joseph-recoveryconnections.blogspot.com

Demi Lovato Opens Up About Cocaine, Alcohol Abuse

Lovato hit bottom at 19 years old.
Photo via Shutterstock

Demi Lovato, once a child actress who appeared on Barney & Friends, has offered the first detailed look at her past with substance abuse in an exclusive interview with Access Hollywood. “I had all the help in the world, but I didn't want it," she said.

Lovato admitted for the first time her problems with alcohol and cocaine abuse in the interview, stating that drugs were “no longer fun” and became so problematic that she even hid her use from her sober living companion. "Something I've never talked about before, but with my drug use I could hide it to where I would sneak drugs,” she said. “I couldn't go without 30 minutes to an hour without cocaine and I would bring it on airplanes.”

The star also admitted to drinking Sprite bottles filled with vodka at 9 a.m. and throwing up on her way back to her sober living house in Los Angeles, one of several moments she hit on her slide to rock bottom. "I think at 19 years old, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh my God…that is alcoholic behavior,'” Lovato said. “[I]t was, wow, I'm one of those people…I gotta get my shit together.”

Lovato has stated in the past that she suffered from bipolar disorder, which she learned about in treatment, and admitted to cutting as a means of coping with her problems. But since completing treatment in January 2011, she has been opening up more in interviews about her past issues with mental health, eating disorders, and substance abuse, and in November she published her memoir, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year, that alludes to her struggles.

POWER IN THE PROVERB

December 11 v 2 POWER IN THE PROVERB

Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

STEP 1 :We admitted we were powerless over our dependencies

And our lives had become unmanageable.

Pride can do a lot more than bring disgrace. Pride can put you into an early grave. My pride left me homeless blaming everyone in the world for my messed up life. Step one will save your life but pride does not want that. There were so many people in my life who wanted to help me, but I knew all things so they were just trying to control me. Pride blinded me to the fact that my life was out of control. Alone and desperate is where it left me.There is a saying that is true.Pride comes before the fall. Pride can kill you or save you and in my case during the fall is where I found the Step (1) that saved me.

For more Power in the Proverb and all the latest recovery news.

VIsit :www.joseph-recoveryconnections.blogspot.com

Trapped on Suboxone

Suboxone, touted as a miracle drug to help ease addiction to heroin, does not need to become your next addiction





Out of the frying pan... Photo via


By Jennifer Matesa


12/02/13


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Addicted to Suboxone
Meet the "Robin Hood" of Suboxone
Reckitt Pulls Its Suboxone Tablets From the US Market
Video: Kristen Johnston's Gutsy Suboxone Admission
The Truth About Suboxone


You got a problem with Vikes, Oxys or heroin? Go ahead, find a doctor to script you Suboxone. Or look on Craigslist for somebody selling their surplus.


But watch out, you might never get off.


The recent New York Times investigation into the “miracle-drug” that’s “saving” addicts finally began to expose something that many of us who have taken Suboxone have known for years: its manufacturer, Reckitt Benckiser, has employed aggressive tactics to find physicians interested in making loads of cash by turning the growing pool of painkiller addicts into Suboxone Lifers. And Reckitt also tries like hell to manipulate the FDA approval process, just so they can hoard the painkiller-addict market for themselves.


Reckitt can get away with convincing doctors that addicts need to be maintained on Suboxone because—as the Times story notes—common belief holds that painkiller addicts can never be drug-free. We’re told we’ve permanently screwed up our neurology. Popular thinking goes: Once you junkies take drugs, you might as well stay on drugs for life.


Today I’d rather have a good orgasm with someone I care about than all the Oxy or Sub in my local Rite Aid.


To support this belief, Reckitt and its growing army of reps offer twisted interpretations of research studies and anecdotal evidence about addiction and Suboxone. They claim studies “prove” that replacing painkillers with buprenorphine (the opioid drug in Suboxone) helps us stay “clean.” Ditch the old drug for the new drug and we stop shooting, snorting, stealing, doctor-shopping, tricking.


Same logic pharma used in the late 1800s when heroin was promoted as a “safe” replacement for alcohol and morphine.


Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying drugs are inherently bad, and buprenorphine has a place in the ever-expanding American drug arsenal. That place is primarily as a detox tool—the purpose for which the FDA originally approved the drug in 2002. Suboxone saved my life when I used it this way. In 2008 a family physician licensed to prescribe Suboxone managed my detox from the fentanyl I’d been given for more than three years for migraine and fibromyalgia, despite studies showing opioid painkillers aren’t the best treatment for these disorders. Given my genetic history and psychological profile—which were not documented as part of my medical history: in other words, the pain specialists didn’t screen me properly for risk of addiction—repeated exposure to these drugs flipped the addiction ON-switch. By the end I was changing dates on scripts (a felony each time) and being picked up for petty crimes like compulsive shoplifting.


After watching my 68-year-old father die of cirrhosis and cancer, my desperation to live drug-free increased even as my addiction flushed me further down the sewer. I knew that if I were going to try to detox, I’d have to hire yet another doctor; my pain specialist was awesome at getting me on drugs, but she hadn’t the first clue how to get me off.


If my “Sub doc” had believed—as so many doctors do—that somebody like me could never be drug-free, I’d without a doubt still be on drugs today. Hell, which of us inside active addiction believes we can do without drugs? I’d also be experiencing nasty side-effects for which people who read my addiction-and-recovery blog write in asking for help. Long-term Suboxone “therapy” can shut down the endocrine system and cause thyroid dysfunction, low testosterone, and premature menopause, leading to a cascade of other health problems including infertility and osteoporosis.


Oh yeah, and say sayonara to sex! I feel for the folks who tell me they can no longer get it on or get it up. I was on Suboxone for just two months and it killed off my sex-drive the way all the other opioid drugs did. And quite frankly that’s saying a lot, because I have a strong sex-drive. But in order to feel that part of my life, I have to be off drugs. Today I’d rather have a good orgasm with someone I care about than all the Oxy or Sub in my local Rite Aid. I cannot have that connection while I’m on drugs.


Read the comments section of the Times story and you’ll see people believe you can’t use Suboxone to get high. This is bullshit: you can. I have in my files emails from people who are in prison and abusing Suboxone; people who started using Suboxone while in rehab and discovered they could get sky-high; suburban American college kids who chip Suboxone because it numbs out their self-doubt; ordinary folks who have asked their doctors for help with a 50 or 60 mg Vicodin or Percocet habit and were kicked into Suboxone programs, where their little baby drug-habits and relatively unscathed nervous systems were bombed out with 16 to 24 mg of Suboxone—the equivalent, in binding power (not analgesic power), to upwards of 800 mg of morphine. These are the stories that piss me off, and they are not being represented in the press.


It’s damn hard to get off Suboxone. It dissolves in body-fat and sticks to the body’s painkiller receptors like Liquid Nails. For many people it’s hell to scrape off without professional management and a social support system. After quitting, it can take months for the drug and its metabolites to leave the body. I’ve spoken to heroin addicts who would feel better within two weeks of kicking smack who, after doing time on Suboxone, have never felt normal again. I know some doctors who, based upon vast anecdotal evidence, think this drug—an opioid partial-agonist, a substance that does not occur in nature—does special kinds of harm to the body that researchers haven’t yet discovered.


Just like doctors who can’t detox their patients off painkillers, most doctors who prescribe Suboxone don’t know how to help their patients quit. So the patients wind up asking me to be their doctor. One woman recently begged me to manage her detox in exchange for payment. I declined, but I was left shocked at the desperation of some folks out there to live a drug-free life, so much so that they will contact a total stranger and offer cash for an amateur detox. This speaks to the sorry state of treatment (not to mention the general health-care system) in this country.


These folks read my blog, they know I got off drugs including Suboxone, and they can see I’m living a productive drug-free life. I write them back, but I can’t be their doctor. The best I can do is keep writing stories like these, and letting policymakers, researchers, and practitioners know that they need to open their minds about how well most addicts can live, how much we can heal.


Jennifer Matesa is a Voice Award Fellow at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and is the author of the blog Guinevere Gets Sober. Her forthcoming nonfiction book about physical and spiritual fitness for living clean and sober is due out Fall 2014.

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