Mission of Addiction Treatment Center Hotline

Make 2016 the Year of Your Recovery

Our mission is to provide the best addiction treatment options for alcohol, prescription drug, opiates, crystal meth, heroin, marijuana and other addictions…and to simplify the difficult task of finding the rehab option that works for your specific needs so you can return to a healthy wholesome productive life. Hotline assists in locating the center that can provide the best level of care and closest location for every client. 

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OxyContin - Time Bomb

It was touted as a miracle pill: a narcotic pain reliever that could change the lives of people suffering from chronic pain, but with little -- so its maker claimed, and thousands of doctors believed -- risk of addiction.

Since OxyContin was introduced in 1996, Canada has recorded the second-highest number of prescription opioid painkiller addictions -- and the world's second-highest death rate from overdoses.

"It's helping your pain, but then you get immune to it, so then you go to the family doctor and he says 'Well, you're gonna need more,'" a woman who became addicted to OxyContin tells the fifth estate's Linden MacIntyre. "So he puts you on the 40 milligram (dose) and you're on that for a month, and then you get used to that dose and he puts you on the 80s."

But how did a little pill that only appeared in 1996 become so big, so fast? In 1998, Canadian sales were just a few million dollars. Twelve years later they had soared to $243 million. In the U.S., sales were $3.5 billion in 2010. Though there were differences in corporate style and legal structure between Purdue in the U.S and in Canada, a similar marketing approach proved wildly successful. the fifth estate examines why medical schools, GPs and specialists in pain clinics readily embraced the drug at first, and why some have now changed their minds.

OxyContin was dropped from provincial health plans in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada. The manufacturer has now stopped making it altogether, replacing it with a new formulation known as OxyNeo. But is it too little, too late? Did the drug's maker low-ball the risks? Did they know their time-release miracle pill was really a time bomb of addiction, waiting to go off?

http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/what-big-pharma-does-not-want-you-to-know-about-the-opioid-epidemic/

What Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Know About the Opioid Epidemic

The prescription opioid epidemic is not new. It began when Pharma rolled out and aggressively marketed time-released opioids like Oxycontin, driving “pill mills” that distributed as many as 9 million Oxys in a six-month span. What is new is the media finally calling Pharma out on the many cagey ways it got people hooked on opioids and heroin (and continues to do so), how the FDA unabashedly helps Pharma with shocking new approvals, and how people in real pain, especially the poor and African Americans, are some of the hidden victims of the epidemic. When all the reports are in, the Pharma-driven opioid epidemic may be one of the biggest and deadliest cons in recent history.

Your Patients Won’t Get Addicted, We Promise!

When Purdue Pharma and other Pharma companies began to aggressively market opioids for even minor pain, promising practitioners they were not addictive, it had been decades since the need to tightly control narcotics had been the mandate. Many newly graduating doctors, young medical professionals and their patients did not remember the opiate addictions of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s and the many U.S. troops who got hooked on heroin in Vietnam. (Certainly no one remembered the notorious opium dens of early America.) Why should these drugs be so highly restricted, said Pharma, banking on the U.S.’ short memory. Why should they be restricted to short-term surgical pain, accidents and treatment of cancer and terminal pain conditions?

The misinformation was abetted by a perverse pro-opioid movement of users who claim the real problem is the media’s “misunderstanding” of opioids and overly tight controls on the pills. (After all, you are never addicted until your source is cut off.)  Such vocal defenders are not a coincidence. They are the result of Pharma’s deliberate, multimillion-dollar campaigns to cast chronic pain and other nonmalignant pain conditions as requiring opioids and Pharma’s thriving parallel addiction business. Twenty years ago, none of the pain conditions now presented as requiring opioids would have been presented that way. Nor were between 40 and 52 people a day dying from opioids.

Read more: What Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Know About the Opioid Epidemic

 

Overdose Deaths Are All-Time High

Drug overdoses leading to death were at an all-time high in 2014, and drug overdose rate spiked 137 percent since 2000. That’s one and a half times more deaths than those resulting from car accidents.

According to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths rose from 2013 to 2014 for both men and women of all age groups 25 and older. The states where the death rate increased over the same period were Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The five states with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths were West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio.

More than 60 percent involved heroin or prescription narcotic painkillers. Heroin deaths have more than tripled in the past four years, and deaths from synthetic opioids almost doubled between 2013 and 2014, according to CDC data. Experts believe prescription opioid abuse is a factor that could lead to using heroin. Heroin is often cheaper and more available than opioids.

What is Addiction?

Understanding Chemical Dependency and Substance Abuse

Despite numerous rehab and detox programs, there are still many people who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction. 

Substance use disorder (SUD) and addiction are complex diseases that often require professional assistance to prevent the cycle from continuing. Over time, addicts not only destroy their own lives, but also the lives of the people closest to them. The negative effects that drug and alcohol addiction have on individuals and their loved ones, often go unnoticed. 

So what is addiction? Addiction is a brain disease that occurs overtime from using substances that have the power to alter brain chemistry. 

Alcohol, prescription drugs, street drugs, and some designer drugs are made up up chemicals that change the way individuals feel. For example a prescription medication for pain is created to block the nerves that tell the brain the body is in pain. When individuals abuse those drugs the brain becomes used to having them there and begins to crave them.


What is addiction to alcohol and drugs?

When someone is dependent on drugs or alcohol, it is not because they lack moral values or discipline, but that they have a compulsive brain disease characterized by substance seeking behavior, even though it may be negatively affecting many parts of their lives.

The reason it is classified as a brain disease or disorder is due to the changes that occur in the brain’s chemistry. The substance-abusing behavior, or self-destructive patterns, is therefore a symptom of the disorder and not the cause.

A person is considered an addict when they experience three or more of the following symptoms of addiction:

• A tolerance has developed – The repeated use of drugs and alcohol causes the user to build a tolerance to the substance leading to higher amounts required to achieve the same results.
• Withdrawal symptoms occur – With physically dependent substances such as alcohol or heroin, withdrawal symptoms from not having the substance can cause both mental and physical health issues. The body becomes accustomed to the presence of the chemical and counter balances it by doing things such as shutting down receptors. Without the drug, the body becomes unbalanced until the normal function can be restored.
• Cravings happen with substance avoidance – Cravings can be both physical and psychological. Physical cravings occur when the brain’s chemistry changes as a result of continued drug or alcohol abuse. Psychological cravings occur when there is a lack of effective coping skills, resulting in the use of substances in order to self-medicate; creating a reliance.
• Negative consequences are ignored and don’t stop use – Oftentimes, even when a person is aware of the negative consequences, such as relationship problems and physical health issues, the use of drugs or alcohol still continues.
• Neglect to other areas of the addict’s life – An addict will stop engaging in activities that they had once enjoyed in favor of drug or alcohol use. Their responsibilities in areas such as work or the home, can become neglected as their addiction progresses.

Attempts to give up the addiction have failed – Addiction can be difficult to break by oneself and addicts who attempt to stop, often fail due to the fear of withdrawal symptoms, physical or mental addictive behavior and brain disorders that cause drug or alcohol seeking behavior, among other things.

Behavioral changes – People who become addicted to substances often undergo behavioral changes and do things they would not normally do, such as commit a crime.

How does addiction form?

Understanding how addiction forms is an ongoing task, and while there is one reason that causes addiction, there are several factors that increase the likelihood of it to occur. Factors that can cause addiction include the following:

• Biological factors – It is believed that the genes you inherit from your parents play an important part in the probability of addiction.
• Environment – If a person is constantly in a drug or alcohol abusing environment then the risk of addiction increases.
• Development – Critical developmental stages in an adolescent’s life can influence the risk of an addiction.

What is Addiction Treatment

Medication and behavior therapy are the two major approaches to addiction treatment and the best results are usually achieved through a combination of both methods. 

Medications are often used during the detox period to aid in the process and help with further recovery by blocking the effects of substances and balance brain chemistry. 

Behavioral therapy engages patients to help them modify their behavior and attitude related to substance abuse.

Commonly used behavioral therapy methods include the following:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) – This method aims to help a patient recognize high-risk situations where drug or alcohol abuse is probable and provides them with the skills needed to cope with those situations.
• Motivational incentives – With this system, positive reinforcement and rewards are used to encourage change in a person’s behavior and avoidance of drugs or alcohol.
• Multidimensional family therapy – Aims to help adolescents and their families with substance abuse and addiction. Multidimensional family therapy is designed to address the family structure as a whole, including the several influences that occur.
• Motivational interviewing – This method increases internal motivation for behavioral change in the patient, helping them to cope and avoid drug or alcohol abuse.