Drugs

Authorities seized over $200 million in a single raid from a Mexican meth ring in 2007. I was sent this picture of the money stacked up, it weighed over two tons, but decided not to write up a post because of the age of the story. That’s a lot of money though and I’ve had a hard time shaking the image out of my thoughts. It is easy to focus scrutiny on the immediate and obvious damage of drug and alcohol abuse; overdose, crime, neglect/abuse, infidelity and violence, but rare is the mention of what these things have cancelled out.

What if the wife wasn’t a meth widow? What if the son wasn’t abused and grew up in a healthy environment? It’s downright depressing to think about what good could have come out of this $200 million dollars if it hadn’t been squandered on drugs.

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Dope Games News is a site dedicated to providing an interactive resource for researchers and anyone else who would like to track or be informed of drug seizures and arrests. Check out the interactive map that allows you to drill down to your location and see the busts going on in your home town. Although the site operators have taken an apolitical stance, they have set up the system where users can comment on the stories.

Very interesting site, check it out.

Take a look inside the brains of mice on drugs! Every drug of abuse has its own unique molecular mechanism. You’ll learn how these various drugs disrupt the synapse to make the user feel “high”~ The Genetics Science Learning Center at the University of Utah

Want to know how cocaine, heroin, and alcohol affect your brain? Well this animated production produced by the University of Utah is by far one of the best learning tools I have seen explaining this complicated science. Make sure to turn your volume up, after you get past the 70’s retro-porn soundtrack a very nice lady will explain the progression of slides.

Hat-tip to TheJunkysWife.com

That's right, time for a little honesty out their my fellow alcoholics and addicts. I have been participating in some discussions with a few of my brethren in an effort to produce some anecdotes that would help explain the power of addictions to those not afflicted. One of these has already been the subject of a blog here (But I'm a Good Parent), and it generated a few spirited discussions at the meeting hall. The subject of this one will be just as painful to reflect on, but if we are to better explain addictions to others we must explore and revisit our past actions together in recovery.

I wanted bad things to happen. I wanted tragedy, death, and misery; if it didn't happen on its own, I would often cause it myself.

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"How many need opioids but don’t get them? Those numbers are hard to come by, but “pain is really undertreated in our society,” opioid specialist Dr. Christopher Evans of the University of California, Los Angeles, told the NIH meeting."~ AP Story on MSNBC"

This recent AP story is supposedly about the development of abuse-resistant painkillers but the quote above found about midway through the article makes its clear that its not just the drugs that are the problem. I do not doubt that there are legitimate cases in the US where people who really need opioids are denied them because of financial, insurance, or bureaucratic reasons. But in a society where one can limp to a doc-in-a-box and proceed to walk out with a pain medication script, sometimes twice in the same day, I find it hard to believe that pain is really undertreated in our society. I know of people with chronic pain that rely upon these drugs to restore a measure of the quality to their life; this is not an attack on them. It is more of view from the other side of the fence, because clearly the sources used to develop this AP story were medical, professional, and well intentioned but just slightly out of touch with the real world.

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Yeah right. They say confession is good for the soul and certainly there is a feeling of liberation when we unburden ourselves to our peers. I think I’ve heard it all from “I have been a terrible friend” to “I should have been sentenced to life”, but it is extremely rare to hear anyone speak of how of bad a parent they are. Sure, we’ve probably all heard the regrets of the parents with older estranged kids or those lamenting the fact their children have been taken away. It is my experience however, that those still using or drinking are much more likely to say, “But, I’ve been a good parent.”

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" Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered the most effective treatment for stimulant addiction. No medical treatment currently exists for stimulant addiction, which include methamphetamine and cocaine. At the MATRIX Institute on Addictions in San Bernardino, CA, methamphetamine and cocaine addicts attend evidence-based (proven effective) behavioral therapy groups. The program includes participation in weekly recovery skills groups, individual and family counseling, drug testing and 12-step or other mutual support groups."

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The results, Vinson found, were anything but boring. In fact, he says, they were remarkably consistent. "The association of alcohol and injury is strong and clean and it's consistent over race and gender," And the risks kicked in much faster than Vinson expected.

I think a better title for the Illumination’s Antecedence to Injury would be Scientist Spend $1.1 Million to Learn Drunks Go Boom!, but of course that would not sound quite as scholarly now would it. So let me get this straight, there is a clear correlation between drinking and falling down in both black and white men, and gasp, yes even women. I bet if we gave the University of Missouri $10 million they might even figure out that alcohol and drugs are major contributing factors to divorce, automobile accidents, child and spousal abuse, suicide, depression, school dropouts, crime, and missed work.

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"Dr. Kathleen Brady is a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School of the University South Carolina, and an expert in addiction and co-occurring psychiatric disorders. Here she discusses how underlying disorders like anxiety, depression or trauma can lead to addiction or relapse, stressing the necessity of treating these mental disorders and addiction simultaneously."

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