Just how prevalent is this oxy addiction thing among our young adults in top privates?

[Anonymous]

Teach your child that getting high on anything is a bad choice and a slippery slope. Parents put down your booze and joints - you are part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Well I see this thread is going well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teach your child that getting high on anything is a bad choice and a slippery slope. Parents put down your booze and joints - you are part of the problem.

+1 Agree

But you better get under a chair. I find pot smokers especially get extremely defensive and angry if you criticize them even a little.

[Anonymous]

Let me break out my 25.0 power reading glasses to read this thread.

Pro tip: When engaged in a battle of the minds on the internet, there's no need to copy and paste the entire argument every time you reply.

[Anonymous]

I am a different PP, but one of the ones you questioned earlier. I think methadone / suboxone can be beneficial if used properly - it seems again like it comes down to whether the person WANTS to get better. I am wondering why you feel that that point isn't valid. I have a unique POV in that I know several former addicts - trust me, if they don't want to get and stay clean, they won't. Why do you think kids get shipped out to intensive rehabs and are cured of all physical dependence, then come back nd replaces 6 months later? Rinse and repeat. If the internal motivation and sense of personal responsibility isn't there, they will turn to it again, absolutely. My brother, who has been clean for 8 years, told me when he hears someone talking about it now he still feels a momentary internal urge to use...the high is just THAT good. When it came to finally getting clean, he had to make that conscious choice himself...and then he had to commit himself to the hard work of staying there. And he actually did use suboxone - he started under the care of a doctor. He said weed helped him get through the toughest initial days. But underlying everything was that he finally decided he wanted to do it

Argh. Once again, I never said there's no role for motivation and self-control. Obviously, there is. It's just not as simplistic as "the addict has to WANT to change." It's much more complicated than that. You also have to have the resources to change (medical support, social support, a place to live, maybe a job to look forward to). And sometimes the addict needs support even to be motivated to change in the first place. And the self-control needed to resist urges needs to be learned; it's not necessarily an intrinsic trait. Also, the whole point of methadone and suboxone is that they REDUCE the urge to use. Hence, these medications actually reduce the need for willpower and personal responsibility to recover. Which is a good thing, because drug addiction undermines the ability to use willpower.

PP insisting on "personal responsibility" is really just making an argument that there should be no taxpayer funded addiction treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that some people (teens too) are getting addicted to opiates under the care of a doctor. They are not taking the drug recreationally, they are taking it for pain and become addicted.

Yes, this was discussed earlier. But you're not arguing that private school and high school kids are all addicted because they had some sort of long term chronic pain managed by prescribed opioids right? Because the vast majority of them are using it recreationally.

I know a few addicts since my niece is one and all her current friends (that she met in group) are all addicts.

I don't know 1 that started the drugs for recreational use. All of them started with a prescription from a doctor and none of them could stop when the pain stopped. Each had mental healthy issues before their injuries so they were especially prone to addiction, but not one of them just bought a pill from somebody at school for the fun of it. They got addicted from their legal prescription and could not stop.

Maybe her specific group is geared towards this situation, but i don't think so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that some people (teens too) are getting addicted to opiates under the care of a doctor. They are not taking the drug recreationally, they are taking it for pain and become addicted.

Yes, this was discussed earlier. But you're not arguing that private school and high school kids are all addicted because they had some sort of long term chronic pain managed by prescribed opioids right? Because the vast majority of them are using it recreationally.

I know a few addicts since my niece is one and all her current friends (that she met in group) are all addicts.

I don't know 1 that started the drugs for recreational use. All of them started with a prescription from a doctor and none of them could stop when the pain stopped. Each had mental healthy issues before their injuries so they were especially prone to addiction, but not one of them just bought a pill from somebody at school for the fun of it. They got addicted from their legal prescription and could not stop.

Maybe her specific group is geared towards this situation, but i don't think so.

I am glad you brought up the mental health angle. It is big. There are estimates that people who have been abused are 20 times more likely to have an addiction (this includes alcohol) than those who do not. Add in those self-medicating for untreated/undertreated anxiety, depression, and bipolar, as well as physical pain. I agree that mental health is a huge fator between those who get a scrip and don't even finish it and those who find every way possible to continue getting the drugs when the script runs out.

[Anonymous]

RXs from doctors. By the time they realize they are addicted it is too late. Opiate addiction is notorious as the hardest to kick - by far. GREED led us down this path, from big pharma, hospitals, MDs, small pharma...

[Anonymous]

No oxy problem, they have graduated to heroin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am a different PP, but one of the ones you questioned earlier. I think methadone / suboxone can be beneficial if used properly - it seems again like it comes down to whether the person WANTS to get better. I am wondering why you feel that that point isn't valid. I have a unique POV in that I know several former addicts - trust me, if they don't want to get and stay clean, they won't. Why do you think kids get shipped out to intensive rehabs and are cured of all physical dependence, then come back nd replaces 6 months later? Rinse and repeat. If the internal motivation and sense of personal responsibility isn't there, they will turn to it again, absolutely. My brother, who has been clean for 8 years, told me when he hears someone talking about it now he still feels a momentary internal urge to use...the high is just THAT good. When it came to finally getting clean, he had to make that conscious choice himself...and then he had to commit himself to the hard work of staying there. And he actually did use suboxone - he started under the care of a doctor. He said weed helped him get through the toughest initial days. But underlying everything was that he finally decided he wanted to do it

Argh. Once again, I never said there's no role for motivation and self-control. Obviously, there is. It's just not as simplistic as "the addict has to WANT to change." It's much more complicated than that. You also have to have the resources to change (medical support, social support, a place to live, maybe a job to look forward to). And sometimes the addict needs support even to be motivated to change in the first place. And the self-control needed to resist urges needs to be learned; it's not necessarily an intrinsic trait. Also, the whole point of methadone and suboxone is that they REDUCE the urge to use. Hence, these medications actually reduce the need for willpower and personal responsibility to recover. Which is a good thing, because drug addiction undermines the ability to use willpower.

PP insisting on "personal responsibility" is really just making an argument that there should be no taxpayer funded addiction treatment.

Well, sure, I agree...but in a thread about private school kids in DC, I'm pretty sure having support and a place to live is not at play. With the types of addicts who are the subject of this conversation, it does come down to whether they WANT to get clean or not. It cannot be forced, at least not sustainably. And I agree that methadone and suboxone are (or can be) helpful because they help alleviate the physical addiction symptoms, and have no problem with their use by individuals who, again, WANT to get better and have made the choice to. Where they become controversial is where they're being used by people who are just feeding a continuing addiction, with no intention of getting clean or weaning themselves onto lower doses in furtherance of this.

I don't know what the answer is and I'm not saying we should abandon people who become addicts, but I do think it ultimately tends be an absolute waste of money and resources to send someone forcibly to rehab. If they don't want to be there themselves, if they don't WANT to take responsibility for their own actions and change, they WILL relapse down the road - most in the very near dutjre

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No oxy problem, they have graduated to heroin.

Is that really true? Re kids in private here? I don't get it. Even 15 years ago when I was in high school everyone knew that heroine was something you DON't touch, not even once. Even the kids doing coke and E knew that

[Anonymous]

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Again, what does your "faulting the kid" really do here? Do you realize how ignorant you are about addiction? If it were as easy as the kid waking up and saying "I am not going to do drugs anymore," then there wouldn't be a drug problem. The personal responsibility required to kick an addiction is nothing at all like the personal responsibility required to say, study for a final.

It makes that PP feel better about themselves, for some reason. That's what it does.

It actually does. I'm frankly sick of people blaming everyone else for their problems. Acknowledge that you raised a kid who made bad choices and is now an addict. That doesn't mean he/she doesn't deserve help, doesn't deserve to get better, but it does mean you stop living in denial and making everyone else to blame so you can feel better about yourself.

Well, that's good, I guess.

Right, like who among did not make what in retrospect were some really bad choices when we were teens and in college? There really is nothing that happened during that period about which you do not say to yourself, "What was I thinking?" Making bad choices and then realizing the consequences you lacked foresight to see when you made them is actually part of becoming an adult. Too bad that when it's oxy it can have such devastating consequences.

Actually, (I'm the PP you are responding to) this is the sort of discussion we should be having - yes, kids make BAD decisions sometimes and it is up to us to help them avoid these mistakes. Is it something parents can control 100%? Obviously not and obviously this is a distressing thing for us parents. But making up self-serving lies about how it's not your kids' fault or infantilizing them to the point of comparing to toddlers and wall sockets are just tricks you do to make yourself feel better. Face it, teenagers have to seek out dealers and opportunities to use - they are making an effort to get high. No one is holding them down and shoving a needle into their arms.

Agree with this. I absolutely sympathize with parents of teenage addicts and don't necessarily think it is the parents' fault, per se (although in many cases, I do think the parents could and should have done more. But not all cases). I have NO problem with someone saying "My kid was a good kid who made a stupid decision, and the price he's paying feels much higher than it should be." I get that. But acting as if your child is innocent, blameless, and a victim - nope. Not doing anyone any favors, him especially

Straw man. I don't see any parent of an addicted child claiming their child was blameless. I do seem them correctly pointing out environmental contributors to the addiction (legal prescriptions, the highly addictive nature of the drug, actual brain-based differences that make some people more prone to addiction). But you moralists are so caught up in blaming that you can't stand to hear that sometimes even if people weak, they still deserve society's help. Parents must give JUST the right note of contrition before they're deserving of your concern. Nope. Not your business.

It is my business, actually, if they're going to try and convince me that their child's addiction is entirely a product of everything else EXCEPT their child's shortcoming or poor decision-making, because their child was a complete victim who had no control over the situation whatsoever. Go upthread and you will see exactly this.

Who made that argument? Why do you care so much how a parent frames their child's addiction? Why does it bother you so much that something in addition to personal responsibility or decision making may be at play?

The lady with the child with chronic pain, for example. But several others as well. And, because addicts are bad for all of society...and especially when it's a teen or young adult addict I think the family's involvement in preventing, mitigating, dealing with, and solving the problem are huge - and it's clear that people with the adoremenrioned attitudes are not stepping up to do so

Is it clear? How do you know what their attitude is? Can you point me to peer-reviewed research that shows that being insufficiently guilt-ridden and blaming helps prevent and overcome addiction?

Uhhh, because an important element of achieving (and maintaining) recovery involves recognizing the element of personal choice involved - you control whether or not to dedicate yourself to getting clean and taking the necessary steps, you control whether or not to set yourself up for failure or success, you control whether or not you turn back to those drugs a month down the line when an urge hits. And that's not going to happen when your own parents are telling you you're an innocent and a victim of your circumstances.
See, e.g., common sense.

Again, you're getting yourself all roiled up in imagined scenarios about how you think these parents approach recovery. I seriously doubt they're telling their kids "Honey, you're innocent, you just sit there and don't lift a finger to recover." You're creating some kind of bizarre and baseless fantasy about a really difficult situation (maybe the most difficult a parent can face short of child death) for your own need to blame addicts and your parents. I wonder why. BTW what's your viewpoint on Methadone and other maintainence drugs? Do you think they're bad because they reduce the "personal responsibility" needed to recover?

People on methadone aren't recovered. They are just addicted to another opiate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teach your child that getting high on anything is a bad choice and a slippery slope. Parents put down your booze and joints - you are part of the problem.

I drink half a beer, a few nights a week, when the weather is warm. Every once in a while, I go all out and have a whole beer. I don't think that I'm part of the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

People on methadone aren't recovered. They are just addicted to another opiate.

I am pretty sure that the PP wanted to know your opinion about methadone treatment. Unless that's your opinion -- that methadone treatment is bad, because addiction to methadone is still addiction?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am a different PP, but one of the ones you questioned earlier. I think methadone / suboxone can be beneficial if used properly - it seems again like it comes down to whether the person WANTS to get better. I am wondering why you feel that that point isn't valid. I have a unique POV in that I know several former addicts - trust me, if they don't want to get and stay clean, they won't. Why do you think kids get shipped out to intensive rehabs and are cured of all physical dependence, then come back nd replaces 6 months later? Rinse and repeat. If the internal motivation and sense of personal responsibility isn't there, they will turn to it again, absolutely. My brother, who has been clean for 8 years, told me when he hears someone talking about it now he still feels a momentary internal urge to use...the high is just THAT good. When it came to finally getting clean, he had to make that conscious choice himself...and then he had to commit himself to the hard work of staying there. And he actually did use suboxone - he started under the care of a doctor. He said weed helped him get through the toughest initial days. But underlying everything was that he finally decided he wanted to do it

Argh. Once again, I never said there's no role for motivation and self-control. Obviously, there is. It's just not as simplistic as "the addict has to WANT to change." It's much more complicated than that. You also have to have the resources to change (medical support, social support, a place to live, maybe a job to look forward to). And sometimes the addict needs support even to be motivated to change in the first place. And the self-control needed to resist urges needs to be learned; it's not necessarily an intrinsic trait. Also, the whole point of methadone and suboxone is that they REDUCE the urge to use. Hence, these medications actually reduce the need for willpower and personal responsibility to recover. Which is a good thing, because drug addiction undermines the ability to use willpower.

PP insisting on "personal responsibility" is really just making an argument that there should be no taxpayer funded addiction treatment.

I'm one of those PP and that's not what I'm arguing. I repeat over and over that just because addicts bear personal responsibility doesn't mean they don't deserve help or that you shouldn't help them. Once again, it's just unbelievable that something as simple as "personal responsibility" for taking recreational drugs is as controversial as it is to people like you.