Prescription Drug Abuse Still A Problem
I read the article in your paper last week about an employee at a local physician’s office who faces charges of, among other things, prescription fraud. Just the week prior, I read of several grand jury indictments handed down in Tazewell County. A majority of those indictments included prescription fraud. Am I the only one who can see a pattern here?
Prescription drug abuse is alive and well in Southwest Virginia! This problem isn’t going away people! I do commend law enforcement and our drug task forces for their vigilance for drug busts and subsequent indictments. For someone truly addicted to drugs, scare tactics rarely work. The threat of being arrested rarely works. The threat of incarceration rarely works. The threat of overdosing and dying rarely works. What virtually all drug addicts lack that they desperately need is hope. They need to believe that there is a possibility that they might somehow get better.
Where is the help in our area for the addicted? Shouldn’t we start at the root of the problem? Where are the resources for the families of the addicts? This isn’t a problem we can ignore. Sooner or later it will touch someone close to you. We can’t just sweep it under the rug. It is a real problem and will be present in our communities until we find a real solution.
Let’s pretend one of your family members has a prescription drug addiction. Now go to the phone book or the Internet or your local physician and try to find a treatment option. Let me know what you find. It’s an eye-opener.
We complain about the problem, but we don’t want to face it and solve it. We need to remember everyone deserves a chance to recover. Addiction is a disease, and we need to start treating it like one.
Lia Johnson
Saltville, Va.
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Reader Reactions
Lia,
Good letter. I want you to know that you have been in my thoughts. The article published last May was very good in the sense that people need to here this because there are so many people with prescription drug addiction. I commend you on that article—the honesty and pouring forth of your very soul. I cried just reading it. You are a good person.
My brother recently has admitted a hydrocodone and alcohol addiction and is trying to get clean. I am sending him a copy of your article because only someone who has been through this can relate. I think just reading your story will help him—give him hope. Thank you Lia for your courage to open up and tell all your story.
You are in my prayers, Aliese Harrison
chester & kona—- points well received. i have that opinion from personal experience.
i began doing prescription drugs and weed in high school. i kept up the trend for a few years. In 1998, i came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the life i wanted for myself. I dropped both addictions on my own. I know my wife would growl at me for writing this, but even though that was some dark times, I am proud as can be to say i did it on my own.
Some folks just have a harder time quitting anything.
To start for anyone to Blame the Drug Companies, for a Person having a drug problem, that might be putting the Blame in the Wrong place.
The “term” addiction has an encyclopedia diffintion going back to ?1599.
To be born addicted there is real truth to that!
We as a Nation<> not just SWVA have & have had, a chemical dependency problem!
It’s not the beer that makes a man or woman Alcohlic..it’s the ethyl in beer, wine, liquor, mouth wash, adult & childrens cough syrup<> for those old enough Gertiol was loaded with the stuff!
Why would one leave out<> crack/cocaine or herion?
Then there’s the big Myth problem in our Area, bull tell a Vietnam viet
who was “given” that drug during that [CONFLICT] that is still living, about the problem then, it also goes back to WWII
YES we have a drug—addiction problem.
YES we have a IGNORANCE PROBLEM
YES we have an education problem
YES we have a HOSPITAL PROBLEM
oh yes your DOCTOR OR NURSE “”“"MIGHT”“”“ BE TREATING YOU WHILE THEY ARE HIGH TOO
this might not go over to well, have you ever been arrested by a high or drunk town, city, county state tropper??
will church alone “cure” addiction?
they say there is no cure<> will any of the 12-step fellowships help?
That depends on the person!
i myself do not believe in “chemical” recovery, i believe in facing life on life’s terms!
the chemicals i used for years Well gee that’s in my past
so i hope things will get better for those who choose to write a prescription and get busted, heck the ones who write them<> they need help too
so that’s just some of my 2 cents worth
mike
Taz.
I’m sure that replacing an addiction with another addiction (organized religion) looks good at face value, but I’ll need some statistics to support that assertion if you would be so kind.
Is faith in God helps a person find their strength, that’s a good thing. Much of it would depend on the church and what’s being taught.
If a church lies, like so many do these days, the person who placed their trust in that church will be even worse off once they find out they were lied to.
And no, the hereditarily dependent cannot be “free” of addiction. They can however manage their lives without substances if the right support is there be it from church, friends, family or community.
Assessing blame is counterproductive in any event. Whether they were born with a tendency to addiction or just developed it along the way, they are now addicted and need to know that 1) they can be free of the addiction and 2) Life without addiction is so much better that it’s well worth the struggle to be free. However, in my experience, the spiritual component is key to overcoming addiction. If the average person could kick addiction in his/her own strength, they would. They need the spiritual strength that comes from God to really be able to kick it. The programs without a spiritual component have very limited success, and high recidivism. The biblically-based programs have far better track records and long term success.
Lia, excellent letter. I love your heart.
The lack of empathy in this nation for those who suffer from all kinds of self-destructive behavior is shocking. We are failing in the “our brother’s keeper” dept.
Addiction goes hand in hand with a lack of self respect. Such a lack can arise from the way one is treated in the home at a very young age. It can arise from clinical depression that can be caused by things like job loss (lots of that in Republican Economy), abusive relationships, general hopelessness….
People need to be lifted up and reminded that self-loathing only breeds misery. They are somebody, they do matter to society.
Trouble is, in it’s blindness and greed, society finds it easier and cheaper just lock up and forget about the human being. Correctional rehabilitation efforts are good in principal, but they are only as effective as those who run them.
The staffing of such facilities is a joke at the very best (any individual exceptions noted).
Hope is only seen when it’s shown.
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taz2day
Exactly.
There are all kinds of addictions and addictive personalities. Lower IQ’s tend to become addictive in nature which is why education about the root causes of addiction is so vital to solving some of these problems.
With Big Pharm flying the pill flag like they do, people are not aware that there are holistic ways of treating certain problems. But the King pharm types don’t profit off of basic herbal remedies. They profit off the laboratory.
So instead of buying witch hazel for a few dollars, people get $60 prescriptions for an anti-biotic they don’t need and in fact, often makes thins worse in the long run.
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rawbleedSyracuse
You’re about 90% correct on this one. Amazing. Maybe you’re finally learning something from the skipper, hmm?
You did drop one point like a hot potato though.
Drug addiction is NOT always a matter of choice.
The FACT is that many people are born chemically dependent. Such is dependency involving a wide variety of substances is often hereditary in nature.
LINK
The “well, it’s their own fault” attitude is just one of many reasons things are as bad as they are for sufferers of chemical dependency. It’s an excuse for the callous, lazy, and self-absorbed of our society to put on their blinders and go back to FOX News.
Addiction is a huge problem, but it’s far more widespread than people realize. As long as we accept the concept that eating or swallowing or smoking or injecting something is the solution when we don’t feel good, there will be addiction. The pharmaceutical companies tell us day after day that we need this pill or that pill for whatever is not working in our bodies. Schools want to get every busy kid on Ritalin and every depressed kid on Zoloft and bipolar disorder is the diagnosis for anyone who feels like their life is out of control. How many people do you know who are being medicated right now? Far more than we want to discuss. Until we recognize that a chemical is not a solution, we will be far from relieving addiction in our society.
Lia, you are right it is an extreme problem in our area. I have objections to a couple of your points.
1)Where is the help in our area for the addicted? Help is out there. There is an old saying though, you can’t help someone who isn’t willing to help themselves.
2) Addiction is a disease, and we need to start treating it like one.
It could be argued that it is a disease. Most diseases that people get are out of their control. Drug abuse is a choice. It’s your choice to start, and it’s your choice to stop.Just like smoking it is easier for some folks to stop. Some people need treatment to quit and others don’t.
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