addiction – Page 7 – Opiate Nation

Celebrating our Dead & Death to Stigma

2019 11 All Souls Procession 5 Last weekend, my husband and I were part of the 30^th annual All Souls Procession here in Tucson. It is part of the Mexican & Latin American celebration of El Diá de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead – see link below for an article about it). November 1^st & 2^nd are set aside to gather as a community to show our love and respect for our loved ones who have died. I have heard that Tucson’s celebration is one of the largest in America with about 100,000 people.

While John and & were walking, carrying a large photo poster of our son decorated with marigold-colored trim & lights, a woman in the procession came up to us and asked John, “Who is that?” John responded, “This is our son who died of a heroin overdose at 25.” The woman’s face froze for a few moments as we continued walking, then she looked down and turned to walk away as she said in a low voice with a pained look on her face, “My daughter is an addict.”

We don’t know why this woman was drawn to come up to us and ask that question, Continue reading “Celebrating our Dead & Death to Stigma”

Mental Health & Addiction

John and I just returned from San Diego where we spoke at the 13th Annual CAHM Forum (Community Alliance for Healthy Minds https://www.cahmsd.org/ ). Our dear friends, Rex & Connie Kennemer, began CAHM after their 25-yr-old son, Todd, died by suicide. The theme this year was “The Power of Your Story” and we were among the presenters who shared our story of living with our son and his decade-long battle with opioid addiction. We then led a break-out group where we answered questions and discussed the nature of addiction and treatment.

Some may wonder what an addiction story has to do with a forum on mental health. The answer is simple: everything. Now that we have available data covering decades, the connection between individuals who struggle with the entire spectrum of mental health issues and those who are struggling with any addiction co-exist in almost half of those populations.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), “45% of people with addiction have a co-occurring mental health disorder. Individuals who frequently abuse drugs or alcohol are likely to develop a co-occurring behavioral or mental health disorder. While it is widely accepted that a mental health disorder can induce a substance addiction – and vice versa – researchers are uncovering what causes both conditions to occur simultaneously.” Continue reading “Mental Health & Addiction”

POWER-less or POWER-ful?

Last week I wrote about regrets that John and I deal with – wishing that we had known about some type of long-lasting recovery option for our son, JL – and the SMART recovery approach and how it differs from traditional 12-Step programs such as AA. Continuing on with the concepts about individuals who struggle with life-threatening addictions of any variety, I have a few more thoughts.

With the genetic / disease model of addiction that scientific research has brought to the table, there are many in the recovery world who feel this mindset gives those living with addiction a green light to excuse their responsibility, their power of choice. But I disagree. It is clear that we had nothing to do with our family tree, our genetic inheritance (1). We were “powerless” as far as choosing to be born into our family. Yet, this doesn’t mean we are powerless to overcome the negative Continue reading “POWER-less or POWER-ful?”

Offering Recovery Options

One of the most recurring regrets John and I deal with is wishing that we had known about some type of long-lasting recovery option for our son, JL. He was becoming recovery resistant after so many cycles of detox and recovery programs and relapse. As the opioid epidemic sped up with mounting deaths by overdose, we now have statistics that make it clear that it usually takes many recovery/relapse cycles before a person can maintain long-term sobriety – especially for the main victims of this epidemic – those who started using opioids at a young age. Like our son. It’s not that he didn’t want to be clean and sober. He did, with all his heart. But opioids don’t let go easily or quickly. Continue reading “Offering Recovery Options”

Family Addiction

I had heard about Beautiful Boy by David Sheff for several years and finally made the time to read it. I wasn’t sure it would be of great interest to me since his son’s drug of choice was mainly methamphetamine – and his son is still alive, while mine is not.

It has been hard for me to put down, for many reasons. Sheff is a great writer and tells their family’s story in a way that brings the people and events to life. But what I find most significant – and, sadly, most similar to our story – are the dynamics of a family living with addiction. And it is also very similar to other families I know and ones I have read about in other books such as Gorgeous Girl by Mary K. Pershall.

The similarities? First, there is the genetic component – mainly alcoholism – in the Continue reading “Family Addiction”

Dreamland (Young Adult Adaptation): The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (2019)

I am devoting this blog to a review by Shelf Awareness of an essential book in the battle against early exposure to opioids which has destroyed so many young lives – our son’s included – in the past 20 years. Please give a copy of this book to every teenager and young adult you know and love.

Journalist Sam Quinones’s lauded 2015 Dreamland was, according to our review, “a comprehensive and empathetic investigation into the Mexican pipeline feeding the United States heartland’s growing appetite for opiates.” This adaptation, pared down for a young adult audience, is a sharp, engrossing work of narrative nonfiction.
Dreamland snares the young reader immediately with the story of Matt Schoonover from Columbus, Ohio, who began using prescription opiate painkillers in high school, became addicted and moved to black tar heroin when the “street OxyContin” became too pricy. A day after returning from three weeks in rehab, at the age of 21, Matt fatally overdosed. Continue reading “Dreamland (Young Adult Adaptation): The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones (2019)”

What We Wish We Had Known…

August 2nd was the 5th anniversary of our son, John Leif’s, death by overdose from heroin. As we look back over the years, there is so much information available now than there was for the families of young people addicted to opioids in the early years of this century. So much we wish we had done differently with this son of our hearts – if we had only known.

In the early years of his addiction and recovery programs, we learned how co-dependency and enabling went part and parcel with alcoholism and addiction in family systems. We read all we could about it and worked hard to change from enabling and need-based love to detaching and loving with “tough love.” Sadly, as we now understand, tough love does not work for opioid addiction, because as Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says: “The concept of letting children hit bottom with opioids is not the best strategy, because in hitting bottom they may die.” Continue reading “What We Wish We Had Known…”

GMO Poppy Seeds & Opium – Thanks to China and the Taliban

In 2007, Afghanistan – which supplies approximately 80% of the world’s illicit opium – had an estimated world market value of $4 billion for their crops. Then, in 2015, there were reports of mysterious new high-yield opium poppy seeds resulting in bumper crops of opium. What would the value of these crops be and where were these super-seeds coming from?

In 2016, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that there was a 43% surge in Afghan opium production in that coincided with a genetically modified organism (GMO) seed that was developed in China and farmed ‘legally’ for the pharmaceutical industry. The GMO seeds allow poppies to be grown year round instead of the normal 1-2 crops per year while using less water. The bulbs of the poppies grow bigger and the bulbs can be scored to extract resin twice, almost doubling yield. It is clear that China lost control of their new seed to the Afghan illicit opium industry, which has had beneficial consequences not only for the worldwide heroin market, but for the Taliban. Continue reading “GMO Poppy Seeds & Opium – Thanks to China and the Taliban”

BEING A FRIEND WHO CARES

The pervasiveness of opioid addiction was made clear to my husband and I, once again, on a recent trip. We were in California at one of our favorite Italian restaurants having a chat with one of the owners – catching up after not seeing each other for a few years. Somehow, yet very common for us, the conversation turned to the opioid epidemic and our son’s death from overdose. Our friend remembered us telling him about it, paused, and asked: “Do you mind if I tell you a personal story about heroin?”

Continue reading “BEING A FRIEND WHO CARES”

ANXIETY, Part 2: Appeal of Opioids to Millennials

Is there a particular reason that opioids have such an appeal to Millennials? In an article in the New Yorker Magazine (http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/americas-opioid-epidemic.html) entitled “The Poison We Pick,” Andrew Sullivan discusses the modern American life that we pioneered and how “epic numbers of American are killing themselves with opioids to escape it.” Sullivan goes on to say: “It is a story of pain and the search for an end to it. It is a story of how the most ancient painkiller known to humanity has emerged to numb the agonies of the world’s most highly evolved liberal democracy. Just as LSD helps explain the 1960’s, cocaine the 1980’s, and crack the 1990’s, so opium defines this new era. I say era, because this trend will, in all probability, last a very long time. The scale and darkness of this phenomenon is a sign of a civilization in a more acute crisis than we knew, a nation overwhelmed by a warp-speed, postindustrial world, a culture yearning to give up, indifferent to life and death, enraptured by withdrawal and nothingness.” Continue reading “ANXIETY, Part 2: Appeal of Opioids to Millennials”