The Dangers of Drug Addiction: Before and After Meth Use
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Posted on May 4, 2012 by

Many meth addicts have already lost to the powerful and tragic effects of drug addiction.

But if ever there was a way of preventing future generations from falling under the grip of illegal drugs, it is these shocking images.

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New pictures released by the Multnomah County Sheriff department in Oregon show the horrific effects of methamphetamine abuse.

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Over just a matter of months, and in some cases weeks, eyes become sunken, skin becomes paler and blotchy marks appear.

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Most tragic of all is the look of sadness and despair on the ruined faces of those whose lives have been wrecked by the drug.

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The Multnomah County Sheriff department in Oregon has released the images in the hope that it will make children think twice before ever touching the lethal drug.

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The department has run a series of hard-hitting campaigns over the past decade as it attempts to cope with an endemic drug problem in the north west of the U.S.

The police force was instrumental in putting together the controversial 2004 ‘Faces of Meth’ campaign which was shown around the world.

Last year, the force also released a series of images called ‘From Drugs to Mugs’ .

They showed the first arrest of a drug user together with a picture taken just months later.

Government data suggests more than 10 million Americans have used meth, with around one per cent of users being pregnant women.

Meth is known for being highly addictive.  Its use has a strong association with depression and suicide as well as heart disease, psychosis, violent behaviour and anxiety.

Users of the drug are known to lose their teeth very quickly, known as meth mouth. 

Methamphetamine originally took root in California’s agricultural heartland in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a poor man’s cocaine.

see the full Daily mail photo set here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Solutions Recovery, Inc. Receives 2012 Best of Honolulu Award
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Posted on May 3, 2012 by

las vegas drug rehabSolutions Recovery, Inc. has been selected for the 2012 Best of Honolulu Award in the Rehabilitation Services category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2012 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

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Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Movie Clips Prove Useful in Addiction Treatment
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Posted on May 2, 2012 by

drug addictionWatching a five-minute video can help whitewash memories of past drug use in former heroin addicts and ease their cravings, a new study shows.

By weakening mental ties between drug-related paraphernalia and the desire to use, the method may be a powerful and long-lasting way to help people struggling with addiction stay clean.

“The process is really simple,” says study coauthor David Epstein of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, Md. “But it’s based on some really important ideas.”

The method, described in the April 13 Science, seems to work by dampening the association between using a drug and cues that remind someone of using.

Walking by a familiar corner where a dealer works or bumping into an old friend from drug-using days, for example, can be particularly hard for people battling addiction.

Led by neuroscientist Lin Lu of Peking University in China, researchers first tested the idea in animals, easing drug-seeking behaviors in rats by calling up and then dampening drug-related memories. Next, the team turned to people who were battling heroin addiction in China.

Sixty-six people underwent a two-step process: First, volunteers watched a video of either a natural scene or of people smoking and injecting heroin. The heroin movie served as a quick reminder, calling up former memories of drug use.

Each time these kinds of memories are called to mind, the former drug users become fragile, vulnerable to being rewritten or modified, Epstein says. “It’s not like a tape recorder playing something back,” he says. “It’s more like a computer pulling up a document, potentially editing the document, and then resaving the document.” This process is called reconsolidation.

read the full Science News Story here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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The Number of Newborns with Drug Addictions Triple
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Posted on May 1, 2012 by
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Newborn Addiction

An increased reliance on prescription painkillers and the resulting addiction has now shown up in the most vulnerable patients, America’s newborns, according to a report released Monday.

Addicted babies, many suffering from respiratory problems, low-birth weight and seizures, have nearly tripled in less than a decade.

That’s one baby every hour in the U.S., according to the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said Dr. Stephen Patrick, lead author and doctor at the University of Michigan Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Meanwhile, the number of mothers using opiates has increased fivefold, according to the same study.

It’s also a burden on public-health dollars, and a wake-up call about the need for better prevention, Patrick said.

Average costs to care for the babies suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, skyrocketed from $39,400 to $53,400 between the same time period, 2000 to 2009, according to the study.

In addition to seizures and breathing problems, NAS is marked by low birth weight, irritability, muscle cramping, tremors, feeding problems, vomiting and watery stools.

“Generally babies are soothed by wrapping or holding or being fed,” said Patrick. “Typically these babies can’t be consoled.”

Babies were in the hospital for an average of 16 days, and 78 percent were covered by Medicaid.

The source of their mother’s addiction? The study doesn’t address why the mothers were using drugs, nor did it explore what specific drugs they used, though NAS is most commonly linked to opiates, according to the study.

see the full Seattle Times story here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Why Addictive Habits are Hard to Break
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Posted on April 30, 2012 by

In the battle against addiction, “just say no” is magical thinking, says Dr. Nora Volkow.

She’s the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and after spending decades studying the brains of addicts, Dr. Volkow has determined that drug addiction is a chronic disease that physically changes the brain.

Dr. Volkow has found that even images of an addictive substance, such as alcohol or drugs, can produce a dopamine response in an addict’s brain, and some foods can trigger a similar reaction.

Morley Safer reports on Volkow’s revolutionary research into addiction, as well as on her revolutionary family history.

What’s your poison, your addiction? Is it legal or illegal? Whatever it is you’re hooked on, from coffee to cocaine, smoking pot to pigging out, Nora Volkow has your number. She’s the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. For three decades now, Volkow has been looking – literally – into the brains of addicts: not just hard drug users, but smokers and overeaters too.

Nobody knows more about how we get hooked and why bad habits are so hard to break. Dr. Volkow grew up in Mexico in a family with a famous ancestor and a tragic history. She’s made history herself by challenging many of the old ideas about our addiction to addiction.

Morley Safer: What do you make of that common phrase, “Just say no?”

Nora Volkow: If it were so easy I think that we would have no problem with obesity, we would have no problem with drugs. I think we have to be honest. We’ve all been in a situation where we were tempted by something. And we didn’t want to do it. And we didn’t have the self control to stop it. For example, I love chocolates, everybody knows that. And I love also coffee. But I’m very wired person, so I shouldn’t drink more coffee. But at some times, I cannot resist that. And that is because not always I have the same level of self control. So saying to someone “Just say no” is magical thinking.

Volkow’s thinking has revolutionized how science and medicine now view drug addiction: as a disease, not a character defect. Her research pinpoints how drugs affect learning, memory, and above all, self control.

See the full 60 Minutes segment here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Russell Brand Testifies for More Compassionate Treatment Of Drug Addicts
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Posted on April 27, 2012 by

Russell Brand has turned his life around in a number of ways.

Aside from kicking addictions to liquor, heroin, and sex, he’s adopted a healthy, yoga-centric lifestyle that includes whole foods, exercise and awesome outreach.

Most recently, Brand testified on behalf of addicts before the British Parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee regarding the UK’s drug policy.

In his testimony, Brand noted that while addiction is a criminal problem, an emphasis on compassionate treatment could help clean up the streets.

In his testimony, Brand explained that the current system relies on punitive and “symbolic” approach rather than a “pragmatic” one. That’s because, he stated, many addicts are suffering from much deeper emotional and psychological issues, which aren’t addressed by a night in the drunk tank or community service.

“For me, taking drugs and excessive drinking were the result of a psychological, spiritual, or mental condition, so they’re symptomatic….once I dealt with the emotional, spiritual, mental impetus, I no longer felt the need to take drugs or use drugs.”

Brand, who one MP noted was arrested “at least 12 times” when he was using, made it clear that addicts often participate in criminal activity, and that the victims of those crimes do deserve justice.

But he also calls for total abstinence–which includes not providing methadone to addicts, which is often used in tandem with other illicit drugs. Methadone and non-abstinence-based recovery can lead to further criminal behavior, Brand explained, because even those users who are being legally given methadone haven’t really made a significant change.

see the full Bliss Tree story here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Former Celtic Chris Herren Using “Project Purple” to Fight Drug Addiction
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Posted on April 26, 2012 by
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Chris Herren

Chris Herren already knows how this is going to end when the Boston sky darkens Tuesday evening and one by one the downtown buildings are bathed in a purple glow for his anti-drug project.

He will feel the tears slide down his face. He will choke up. And he will wonder how so much has happened so fast.

“Let’s face it, not even 4½ years ago I was on the side of the road, with a needle in my arm and dead for 30 seconds,” he says.

Herren is never far from that day. The car accident in which he was high on heroin and a policeman found him unconscious, slipping into death, is the moment that saved him.

And left with another chance after an adult life of addiction that destroyed his NBA career, he decided to work to save others.

This is how he invented Project Purple, which tries to help addicts get off drugs and find proper care, and keeps teenagers from tumbling into the same drug-filled abyss as him.

His dream is to make the color purple for attacking addiction as popular in sports as pink is in fighting breast cancer.

He will start with his old team the Boston Celtics, who are honoring him as a “Hero Among Us,” on Tuesday night. It will be a moment cloaked in irony, for it was on the Celtics – his favorite team from childhood – where his NBA career finally blew up. He forever remembers the nights his teammates prepared for the start of the game while he stood outside the arena in his Celtics warmups, waiting for a dealer to bring him heroin.

Now the Celtics are honoring him?

Continue reading →

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Prescription Drugs: the Fastest-Growing Problem in America
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Posted on April 25, 2012 by

Declaring that prescription drug abuse has reached epidemic proportions, New Jersey’s top law enforcement officials convened a summit on Tuesday to focus attention on the problem and efforts to combat it.

“Every 19 minutes now, somebody is dying from a painkiller overdose, which is making these controlled medications the fastest-growing drug problem in our nation,” said Brian Crowell, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in New Jersey.

The first New Jersey Prescription Drug Summit drew about 250 people, including school counselors, nurses, doctors, police officers, prosecutors and substance-abuse professionals, to a daylong conference in Edison.

“The idea that one segment of us, those of us in law enforcement, or in education, or in drug treatment … can solve this problem by ourselves is nuts,” said U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman. “The only way we can address this problem successfully … is to make sure that we are all working together.”

Fishman described prescription-drug abuse as one of the biggest dangers confronting America. The statistics, he said, are stunning.

“More people abuse prescription drugs than the number of people who use cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and inhalants combined,” Fishman said.

“On average, over 7 million people over the age of 12 used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons last month,” he added.

Visits to hospital emergency rooms by people who misuse prescription drugs, about 1 million a year, have doubled over the past five years and exceed the number of emergency room visits by people who have used illegal drugs, he said.

“More than 20,000 people a year die from unintentional prescription overdoses,” more than perish in car crashes, he said.

The health care, workforce and criminal justice costs of prescription drug abuse are estimated at more than $50 billion a year, Fishman said.

see the full North Jersey story here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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New Data Shows a Quarter of Teens Get Alcohol from Parents or Family
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Posted on April 24, 2012 by
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Teen Alcohol Abuse

In advance of the second annualPowerTalk 21® day, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is highlighting data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) showing that 26 percent of all teen drinkers (ages 12-17) get their alcohol from a parent or family member.

This, coupled with research showing that three out of four kids say their parents are the leading influence on their decisions about drinking, illustrates the important role of parents in the fight against underage drinking.

MADD and National Presenting Sponsor Nationwide Insurance encourage families to connect on PowerTalk 21 day, the national day on April 21st for parents to start talking with their kids about alcohol.

“Teen alcohol use kills 6,000 people each year, and one of the most important things a parent can do to keep their kids safe is to start an open dialogue about the dangers of underage drinking,” said MADD National President Jan Withers, whose 15-year-old daughter was killed by an underage drunk driver 20 years ago this week. “PowerTalk 21 is the day to start this conversation, but it’s also a day for parents and other adult role models to realize the power they have in preventing youth from drinking alcohol before age 21.”

According to the most recent SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the following is a ranking of the top five ways teen drinkers get their alcohol:

  1. From a parent, guardian or family member who is 21 or older (26 percent)
  2. From someone 21 or older who is not related to the teen (25 percent)
  3. From someone under 21 who is not related to the teen (22 percent)
  4. Took it from home (10 percent)
  5. Took it from someone else’s home (5 percent)

“This data shows that underage drinking prevention is not only a problem for our youth. It’s an adult problem too. More than half of teens who drink are getting their alcohol from adults,” said Bill Windsor, Nationwide Insurance Associate Vice President of Consumer Safety. “That’s why Nationwide is partnering with MADD to highlight the importance of parental involvement in keeping the next generation safe from the dangers of underage drinking.”

see the original SacBee story HERE

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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Prescription Drug Abuse Deaths in Teens Skyrocket
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Posted on April 23, 2012 by
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Prescription Pill Abuse

The Center For Disease Control and Prevention released a rather alarming statistic this week regarding teen deaths.

The incidents of teen fatalities related to poisonings among 15 to 19 year olds increased more than 90% between 2000 and 2009. The CDC’s report states that this is a result of our country’s epidemic of prescription drug abuse.

Although many teens might otherwise shy away from illegal street drugs, more and more teens are turning to prescription drugs and over the counter medicines to get high.

These drugs include pain killers that might be prescribed after a person undergoes surgery, depressants that are taken for sleep aid, depression or anxiety or stimulants such as those used for ADHD. The over the counter medicines include cough medicine and cold remedies.

Narcotic pain killers like Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet or Lortab, including the generics such as methadone and hydrocodone are highly addictive and are very dangerous.

Sadly, each day 2,500 students from 12 to 17 abuse a pain relieving drug for the first time. In fact, prescription medicine is the second most abused drug other than marijuana. Most teenagers obtain these prescription meds by stealing them from their parent’s medicine cabinets and even share them with friends or sell them at school.

So one easy way that parents can help reduce incidents of prescription medication abuse is to make sure that all old, unused prescription medication, especially the pain medication we receive after surgery is properly disposed of so they are not available to children who might otherwise experiment with them.

Next Saturday, April 28, 2012 from 10am to 2pm, The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has scheduled its fourth National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. This provides all of us with an opportunity who have accumulated unwanted prescription medicines to safely dispose of those drugs.

The last DEA sponsored event collected almost 200 tons of unwanted or expired medications. The total collected in the three prior events amounted to almost 500 tons of medicines.

read the full Danbury Patch story here

Our Las Vegas based Drug and Alcohol treatment programs will assist you in your recovery from chemical dependency, whether it be alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, or other addictive substances. We offer Chronic Pain, Detox, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential Treatment Programs. Solutions Recovery, Inc. is able to assist you in your recovery. For more information please visit our website at www.Solutions-Recovery.com.

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