Our Views

I read an article this morning about the Terrills, a family that lost everything to their son’s heroin addiction. It was a model family. Parents who were really involved with their kids – four boys, all of whom were promising baseball players, kids who were devoted to their parents, a new ‘dream house.’ They had it all. Then, having been introduced to OxyContin in school, one of the sons became a heroin addict. From there, everything was lost. But it could have been avoided through a good drug detox program followed by drug rehab.

The major mistake made by this family was not getting their son into drug detox and drug rehab when they first realized he had a problem. His drug use went on for years before they did something about it. In fact, they weren’t the ones to finally take action: the boy was arrested when trying to rob a convenience store.

After his arrest, he went to a 30-day drug treatment center. In my experience, a 30-day treatment program is not enough to handle heroin addiction. First they have to get through withdrawal – which, for many addicts, causes such severe symptoms they can’t stop taking the drug. Some may require a separate medical drug detox before they’re even ready for rehab. Then, in rehab, you have to address the reasons for their addiction, give them the tools to live life drug free, and build them up physically to handle the deterioration that occurs with addiction.

That can take a while. Addiction doesn’t happen overnight, neither does rehabilitation.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a heroin addict, or someone addicted to any opiate, will get through it on their own steam. 95% of those who try aren’t successful. Drug detox and a long-term residential drug rehab program is the only chance they have. Waiting too long has devastated many families, and lost many lives. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can always do something about it tomorrow.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Families constantly struggle with alcohol or drug addiction, and it can tear them apart. But some families pull together and help each other through drug detox, drug rehab and whatever else they need to fully recover – as is the case with one recent Novus client.

“Ms. Hayes, many thanks for the wonderful treatment you and the Novus staff have provided our family over the last four months. I never thought I would have to assume the role of parent for my Mother. The difficult task was made much easier through communication from Novus counselors. When she was admitted to your facility I thought it would break my heart. The small home like setting and the energy of the young people who met us and hugged her took so much of the pain away for both of us. She has struggled with her drug problem but the turnaround your facility provided to start in the recovery direction has provided so much peace to our family. The follow up of staff calling to ask how she was doing, weeks after returning home, meant so much to her. And last but certainly not least….the timely assistance and information you provided helping her with insurance filing before and after treatment was way beyond our expectations.

”Please convey our thanks to your staff and we wish all of you a joyous holiday season and are certain the joy you have given will be returned.”

If you have a friend or family member who needs an alcohol or drug detox program, give us a call at Novus. We’ll take care of them.

Popularity: 17% [?]

In a recent article regarding Florida’s prescription drug addiction problem, Sgt. Lisa McElhaney of the Broward County Sheriff’s office said that although putting drug dealers and unethical doctors in jail will help, the real problem is in your medicine cabinet and you should be locking them up so your drugs don’t get into the wrong hands. However, if the drugs are in your medicine cabinet, they may have already reached the wrong hands – yours – and you may need to find a Florida drug detox.

Billions of dollars are spent by the U.S. every year finding, investigating, staking out, catching and jailing criminals who perpetuate the drug problem. And, recently, more attention seems to be directed towards crime involving prescription drugs.

But right under our noses, the biggest and most dangerous criminals in the prescription drug addiction industry go unidentified as such. Big Pharma – the guys who manufacture and market these drugs, for profit. More of it, in fact, than any other industry.

They are the true criminals – each pill is a bullet, and each dead or addicted consumer is another notch in their gun belt.

If you’re one of the many Floridians locking your medicine cabinet to make sure your drugs don’t get into the wrong hands, have a good, hard look at whether those wrong hands might be yours or the hands of someone you love. And if you suspect that might be the case, find a drug detox program in Florida that can help you or your loved one live life drug free.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Low self-worth is often behind alcohol and drug addiction. Even someone who appears to be doing very well in life may not feel they’re accomplishing what they should be, or may not feel they’re living up to their own or another’s expectations. Alcohol and drugs provide some temporary relief – numb you, really – and nothing does it quite like heroin. Unfortunately, heroin makes you feel even worse about yourself so, in the end, you’ve gained nothing, and lost a lot. However, heroin addiction can be overcome and when you do, you’ll also experience a renewed sense of self worth.

Heroin addiction is often accompanied by a feeling of such deep apathy that it’s unusual to see an addict get into drug detox on their own—unless they have spiraled down and decide that it is either detox or death. If you know someone taking heroin, you’re going to have to put yourself in the driver’s seat – perhaps even literally – and take them to a drug detox center where they can get help.

With that done, and if you’ve chosen a medical drug detox center that understands heroin addiction, detox and rehab and creates an individual program for every person who walks in the door, I can tell you that far more than half the battle is won. And, amazingly enough, when that detox and rehab program are over, self-esteem will have been restored and the person has their life back.

When we say that drug detox and rehab changes someone’s life, we don’t just mean it ends their heroin addiction – we mean they’re now in a position where they no longer need it and they, not the drug, control their life. A truly rehabilitated life.

Popularity: 19% [?]

According to a recent article, overdose from prescription drugs is now the leading cause of death for adults under 45 in West Virginia. In 1998, there were 21 deaths from poisonings, mostly drug overdoses, and by 2006 the number had escalated to 460. Seven of the top ten killers were prescription drugs - methadone, hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl - aka Dolophine. Lortab. Vicodin. Percodan. OxyContin. MS Contin and Duragesic. OxyContin addiction is getting most of the press these days but the other drugs are just as dangerous, and they all require the same drug detox procedures to quit.

Why has the death rate increased in such alarming numbers? Partially because the number of prescriptions written for these drugs has quadrupled in West Virginia since 1998. But even ‘quadrupled’ is a long way from the difference between 21 and 460. The problem is that the many patients who start off with a prescription have trouble getting off the drugs. When they can no longer get a prescription, they hit the streets instead of going to drug detox for help. People also are introduced to the drugs by ‘friends’, find them in their parents’ or friends’ medicine cabinets, or get them in exchange for sex or other favors. The article even mentioned trading them for car payments.

Drugs beget more drugs, and deaths: Increase the number of prescriptions written by four times, and the death toll increases by 22 times.

If you or someone you know has an OxyContin addiction or a problem with any others of the drugs on that list, get into drug detox fast. Don’t become one of the statistics, and don’t risk the same happening to someone else.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I read an article today about Errol Dodson, a weightlifter and wrestler who became addicted to prescription drugs when he received a Vicodin prescription for pain. Over the next few years he developed a Lortab and OxyContin addiction, as well as Vicodin, and was paying $400 a week to buy the drugs illegally. He eventually got off the drugs with a rapid detox procedure but, unfortunately, he’s now tied to another drug, Naltrexone, and can’t even experience the natural high of exercise. Not the ideal way to handle OxyContin addiction.

Rapid detox involves putting a patient under general anesthesia for several hours while he is given other drugs – usually Naltrexone - to force withdrawal. In theory, the pain and shock of a days-long cold turkey withdrawal is still experienced by the body but is condensed into the shorter time period. In practice, and as confirmed by a National Institute on Drug Addiction study, rapid detox is not rapid or pain-free.  Most rapid detox patients take many days or even weeks to recover from the procedure which is not only dangerous but a severe shock to the body. This is especially true when the body has already gone through years of degeneration caused by OxyContin addiction. 

To make matters worse, many patients are often prescribed Naltrexone for a period of a few weeks to two years after the procedure.

Dodson tried cold turkey withdrawal prior to the rapid detox and experienced severe pain and discomfort. He said he felt like snakes were trying to crawl out of his body. So, unfortunately, he chose rapid detox and is paying the price and has exchanged one addiction for another one.

But there is a safe, relatively comfortable OxyContin detox method that avoids the severity of a cold turkey withdrawal and doesn’t require prescription drug support afterwards.  The patient is given drugs to help with the withdrawal symptoms, but the drugs are weaned during the week or so of the drug detox procedure. Novus Medical Detox offers such a drug detox program. Give them a call if you are having a problem with OxyContin addiction.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Several new sites are opening in Vermont to dispense methadone to people who are addicted to or dependent on opiate and opioid drugs such as heroin and OxyContin. The sites are called ‘medicine dispensing sites’: people who want to get off drugs come to the sites and, instead of being put through detox and rehab, they’re given a ‘medicine’ and they are just transferring from one addiction to another. In the end, they’ll need methadone detox.

Methadone addiction is possibly the most difficult drug from which to detox. Why go through that when you can just do a medical drug detox to get off the heroin or OxyContin in the first place?

If you or someone you care about wants to get off drugs, don’t just go to a methadone clinic – go to a medical drug detox center that can help you through withdrawal and then go to a drug rehab center that can help you address the issues behind your drug addiction so you can be drug free.

There is almost twice the number of deaths from methadone than from heroin every year.  If you’re on methadone now, get help with a medical methadone detox. And if you’re considering methadone treatment, think twice. Don’t just trade one addiction for another.

Popularity: 29% [?]

A recent article professes that OxyContin addiction and addiction to similar prescription painkillers and other opioid prescription painkillers has been blown out of proportion. The author voiced concern that people in chronic pain – back pain, for example – are reluctant to take painkillers for fear of developing a Vicodin, Percocet or OxyContin addiction. The author also said that only 3 – 16% of those who take painkillers for an extended period of time become addicted. What they somehow forgot to mention is that it is almost guaranteed the person will become physically dependant and, when it comes to withdrawal, the line between dependence and addiction is almost invisible.

Whether you have an OxyContin addiction or dependency, here’s what can be expected when you try to get off it: In the early stages you will probably experience anxiety, increased respiratory rate, sweating, tearing or crying, yawning, runny nose, goose bumps, restlessness, anorexia, irritability. If you don’t take more OxyContin the symptoms will probably escalate to include insomnia, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, abdominal cramps, rapid heartbeat, abnormally high blood pressure, muscle spasms, muscle pain and bone pain

Having gone through it myself, I can tell you that there will be plenty of times you would trade how you feel during withdrawal for your original pain in a heartbeat.

OxyContin addiction and dependency has been all over the news for months – ever since Purdue Pharma pled guilty to misleading the public about the dangers of the drug and was fined $634 million. Sure people are afraid of it, and for good reason. Most of that $634 million was used to reimburse various states for the costs incurred trying to help people out of the mess they’d gotten into with the drug.

To my mind, this article smacks of the drug companies fighting back – salvaging what they can of the OxyContin empire by targeting the people least able to resist painkillers: the people who really hurt.

If you have to take OxyContin for a legitimate situation, that’s understood. But you’re right to be wary – as soon as possible get into a medically supervised OxyContin detox that can help you get off the drug safely and with a minimum of withdrawal symptoms. I just wish that I had gone to a good medical detox and spared myself the pain.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Having spent many years myself as a working mother, it’s hard to imagine coping while also suffering the side effects of prescription drug addiction. But there are countless working mothers doing it, and you may be, or know, one of them. We know prescription drug addiction can creep up on you – you take a couple of pills from your doctor and, next thing you know, you have trouble living without them. And getting off them isn’t always easy. And without a good prescription drug detox, it’s almost impossible. But, it can be done – as one working mother can attest.
 
“It was the best. Safe, warm, loving, full of care and all needs imaginable met with a smile. I came on seven meds from opiates to amphetamines, all doctor prescribed. I was existing, not living my life. Thanks to your support, love and security, I am now going home Drug Free. I now have so many options because my head is clear and I can think for myself and feel real feelings rather than walking around in a drug induced coma. I would like to thank each and everyone from beginning to end.  Thanks from my heart and soul.”

If you are, or know, a mom who has a problem with prescription drug addiction, do her, and the kids, a favor – help her get into a prescription drug detox program.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Former Palm Beach, Forida doctor, Denis Deonarine, now an inmate, who was convicted of repeatedly over-prescribing addictive drugs to addicted patients had his prison sentence reduced last week on a technicality – what he was doing was apparently not ‘trafficking. He was supposed to be in prison until 2029, and now it looks like he’ll be getting out early. After fuelling the prescription drug addiction of many patients when, as a doctor, he should have been getting them into drug detox and rehab, he’s getting a break.

The story I read about this doctor focused on the death of one of his patients, Michael Labzda – a 21-year-old boy still living at home, going to college, and now dead from a lethal combination of drinking and prescription drugs. His prescription drug addiction was fed by the former doctor now serving time.

The law is not as rigid as we are sometimes led to believe. A judge has the duty to serve justice. There’s an ethical principal involved – it’s not black and white. What’s this former doctor going to do when he gets out early?

If someone you care about has a prescription drug addiction, and especially if they’ve been a patient of Denis Deonarine, get them into A Florida drug detox program fast. Their next pill could be their last.

Popularity: 9% [?]