Monthly Archives: November 2007

Addiction Intervention, Crack Addiction, Meth Addiction

Intervention Tips – PART II

So what’s next?

Be willing to let someone else help you.

For one reason or another, it has been difficult for you to confront your loved one, or maybe you have with poor results – these poor results have reinforced that intervention may not work in your case.

This is when you bring someone in – a professional interventionist perhaps.

If you can’t afford a professional to facilitate the process, then I reccomend that you chose someone in your circle of family in friends to take the lead. Someone other than you. Someone they respect and love, but also someone that the addict does not deal with on a regular basis. Someone that has not been manipulated in the past. Someone that can be unbiased.

The message needs to be simple and clear. The group needs to stand united and deliver a clear, unified message. We love you, we support you, but we will not stand by as you continue to kill youself. Seek the treatment we have found for you, or we must burn all bridges. We will not enable you. We will not support your addiction.

Needles to say; this part is hard. Leading up to this announcement however, don’t get into any confict. Stay away from accusations. Speak from your heart. No one, especially addicts, want to hear what they are doing to themselves, and how they need help to save their lives.

Rather, what they need to hear, is how their acitons have hurt you – how their actions have hurt each and every one of you in the circle of family and friends.

Drugs cloud the mind. Logically, and emotionally.

The addict needs to hear the pain that they have caused. They also need to hear that their is hope, their is help.

Having someone act as a buffer between family and addict is important.

In part 3 we will discuss how you choose a good interventionist and also PLAN B – what if the addict chooses that they don’t want treatment.

Addiction Intervention, Crack Addiction, Meth Addiction

Intervention Tips – PART I

Intervention Tips – PART I

Intervention Tips is a 3 part article on the destructive nature of addiction, and what can be done about it before it’s too late.
Drug addiction leads to one thing and one thing only – death!

Now this may sound a tad harsh, it’s much easier to accept or ignore the actions of an addict, hoping that one day they will figure it out on their own.

The best advice that I can give you is; NO THEY WON’T!

Unfortunately, an addict needs to hit rock bottom before he or she will ever want help.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If you allow the addict in your life to hit rock bottom, I will guarantee you this. There will be PAIN!

The collateral damaged caused by an addict is serious. It will not only cause him or herself pain, but it will also cause you pain – this I assure you, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

The #1 cause of all serious drug addictions is this – no one in the addict’s life stepped in early enough, and did something about it.

You’ve heard about the snowball effect, well this is it folks. Addiction is a nasty, dirty, mud puddle of a snowball that only picks up steam the longer it rolls on.

To conclude part one of this article, I ask only one thing of you. Check you gut. Don’t let it slide because your fear of pushing your loved one away prevents you from doing so.

Love your loved one enough to say; enough is enough and I’m not going to let you DIE!

Identify the addiction early on, and do something about it.

We’ll talk more in-depth in later articles about what you can do about it, how to handle the situation properly, and how to get your loved one the help they need.

But for now, check your gut and do something about it!

Blogroll, Crack Addiction, Meth Addiction

DRUG REHAB ALBERTA

Alberta’s on crack!

Crack abuse has reached epidemic proportions in Alberta, and to top it all off, there are very few good, effective treatment centers to help manage the long demand of substance abusers seeking treatment.

I work as an intake counsellor for a private treatment centre in B.C. We get calls from all over the U.S. and Canada. Families looking to help their sons, daughters, moms, and dads get into treatment. Treatment that will not only give them clean time, but maybe, just maybe a fighting chance.

Most of the calls we get are for Crack, and Meth, but we do get calls for every addiction known to man.

WARNING! Fasten your seat belts, because you are about to be shocked.

Like I said, we get calls from all over the U.S. and Canada. And guess what? 42% of our call volume is coming out of Alberta. 42% folks!

Why? Bottom line is the oil money. I heard a statistic the other day that Alberta is now bigger than Texas when it comes to oil production. This is serious money folks.

So think about it. Oil rig workers, many of them in their early 20’s are getting pay checks between $10,000 and $20,000. They work long hours, weeks on end sometimes without a break, and then when they do get a few days off, what do they want to do? Blow their money!

And what’s the easiest way to blow money. That’s right, with Blow, Crack, Meth, Ecstacy, Mushrooms, Marijuana, and plenty of Booze. They get to live like rock stars for a few days and then get right back at it. Back on the lease, back working on the rig, back making 10K a month. And the cycle continues.

That’s until they hit rock bottom, and they do. When they hit rock bottom, they need treatment, and the only treatment that’s is readily available is the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, more commonly known as AADAC.

They get themselves on a waiting list, one that last 3 weeks before they can get a bed. Finally they get themselves into treatment, putter around a bit, spend some time in group therapy, maybe attend a meeting here or there, and 28 days later they think they are magically healed. What a joke!

Come on Alberta, wake up! Use this money wisely. Our Family members are killing themselves with death imbued cocktails of chemicals that do only one thing effectively, and that is kill them.

Alberta needs better treatment to treat the demand. If you get it right the first time, and actually heal these people, we can put them back into the work force and improve our economy with successful productive citizens. Not crack addicted Albertan’s.

Step up Alberta, spend the money, and put up proper treatment facilities, and do it now – before it’s too late!

Connor Allen, Certified Chemical Dependency Counsellor  

Alcohol and Drug Rehab, Crack Addiction, Drugs

Crack Rehab Without Prescriptions

CRACK REHAB WITHOUT PRESCRIPTIONS

I’m no Doctor, but I do know one thing about crack cocaine, and that is it seriously affects brain chemistry. Period!

Have you ever monitored the patterns of a crack addict? I like to call it the roller-coaster form hell. The highest highs one week, and the lowest lows the next.

In my case, it was my brother. Allan was a great guy – very social, very active, great athlete. Everyone liked him, and his future looked bright. I really looked up to him growing up. It was hard not to. We both grew up in a great family. There was always milk in the fridge, parents at our soccer games, and Sunday night dinners with Grandma.

That was until crack came into the picture.

I remember the first day crack came into my life. I remember distinctly. I got a call on my cell phone. It was Allan, but it sure didn’t sound like him. He sounded very quiet – without life. He went on to tell me that he was being held hostage at gunpoint, unless he paid a dealer $300. I thought he was joking. This was no joke! Of course I went to help, and I gave him the money, but I will never forget the look in his eyes. He was gone. Allan, my brother was gone. Blank stare – no remorse.

That was 6 years ago. You might be wondering why I speak of him in the past-tense, and the reason is not the obvious. He’s not dead. Not physically anyways, but at this point in his life he was dead; emotionally, spiritually, and mentally – he was gone.

For years we put him in and out of drug rehab programs. No success! That’s when the roller coaster from hell began. He would just start to build himself back up again, and then Whamo! Right back at it – right back using crack. He would sell his belongings – things that he took great pride in. I saw him sell his life away, bit by bit – chipping away at his soul.  

I know he had no intention of using, and I know he was sincere when he said that he hated that crap, and it wasn’t a matter of will power, because he has more willpower than any guy I have ever known. So what is it? From all of the studying I did on this subject, and I did much of that. I should have stock in Google for how much time I spent online, searching for the cure to my brother’s illness. I made a discovery! I discovered that it all boils down to brain chemistry. We all have a natural equilibrium of mood altering chemicals in our brain. You may have heard of big words like dopamine, or serotonin. Maybe you’ve heard of endorphins, and or neural pathways. But what does it all mean? What does it mean to my brother? Someone who I love; who’s addicted to crack.  What I found out is that when you use crack, it skyrockets those levels way past normal, and then when he comes down or stops using, it falls well below the natural level, never fully coming back to normal. So guess what. The BRAIN CRAVES CRACK, PERIOD!

Unless you treat the cause of the problem, how can you expect to fix it?Doctors want to prescribe anti-depressents, and prescription drugs. Well in my opinion, most of these drugs are worse than the street drugs that they started with in the first place. I’ve witnessed this first hand. Talk about walking zombies.

So what’s the solution? How about a crack rehab. Yes, a crack rehab! One that actually treats the cause of the problem, one that rebalances brain chemistry – naturally. One that restores damaged liver enzymes, replenishes vitamins, minerals, oils, and amino acids.

I’m talking about a holistic approach, one that analyses neural pathways, and maps the brain – to figure out what’s going on, and then treating them with natural substances. Natural substances that correct these imbalances. Sound like science fiction?

Crack is an epidemic. An epidemic that has pulled itself out of the gutter, out of back alleys and into our homes. Into the homes of teachers, doctors, lawyers, and blue collar workers. It has pulled itself into the homes of families. Families that are loving, caring, and supportive.  

Crack shows no prejudice. Whether you’re black, white, or green, it doesn’t care. It will put YOU into the gutter. So what’s the good news?

There is a solution! I found one. I’m happy to report that Allan is doing much better now. Today he is clean and sober. He has a house, a yellow lab, a good wife, 2 kids, and a solid job. He hasn’t touched crack in 2 years. So what did he do the get better? He found a crack rehab – one that treated the cause of the problem. I REPEAT — ONE THAT TREATED THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM!

Remember, in your search for a treatment program, not all rehab treatments are created equal, and they are not all appropriate for every addiction. I’m not here to promote any specific treatment centre. This isn’t propaganda. I just wanted y’all to know that there is help, there is hope, and it doesn’t come in the form of a pill. May you find your help, hope, and happiness. The truth is out there! — Jay Taylor, Calgary Alberta