She's on her way home.

[RN0441]

I blame the doctors too. Some of us at least in the beginning don't know what we're dealing with. How could we? It comes at you from left field.

THEY need to be aware that SOME people are addicts and act accordingly.

My husband had finger surgery a few months ago and had to beg for a few pain killers. So when my son got 30 from a doctor he saw for the first time and a refill we were like what the hell is going on???

 

[RN0441]

Why can't all our kids just be like SWOT's daughter and just do it on their own!!!
Wishful thinking right.

 

[JLC]

I totally agree that 15 days is useless. I was advised to take her off my insurance in order to qualify her for medicaid. This was her sub abuse therapist. She said daughter would qualify for longer rehab without private insurance. I can't change my insurance until the new year according to my company HR. That is three long months away.
Kathy, I need bluntness. Doesn't make it easy to hear, though. Sometimes I don't read these posts until I feel solid enough.
Sister's Keeper, I sorta do think the PA (not even a doctor) should know better, as we've called them for detox help and they did follow up last February when she had a withdrawal Grand mal seizure.

 

[JLC]

Do any of you have experience with naltrexone

 

[Kathy813]

Naltrexone is marketed as Vivtrol. The shots are very expensive without insurance (app. $1000) a month. I've read that it can be very effective and I hope my daughter gets to try it when she leaves the program she is in. She wants to get the shots but has to find out if her insurance will cover them.

You can also take it as pills but then the addict would have the option of skipping them which makes it less likely to be successful.

It is not a long term solution since there can be side effects but it would help with early recovery.

My daughter always does great in structured programs but relapses when she is working and living on her own. She thinks Vivitrol would help her when she moves out on her own.

I wish medications like this were available to everyone . . . not just the haves in our society. So many addicts don't have insurance so what are they supposed to do?

~Kathy

 

[Sister's Keeper]

A few things. JLC, if your daughter has been on benzodiazepines long term they cannot just stop them or stop prescribing them. She WILL have a seizure and there is an actual risk of death from abrupt withdrawal of benzos. They need a very slow and medically supervised detox.

Naltrexone only works with opiates. It won't work with benzos or alcohol, and it will only work if the addict is compliant with it, it can't be forced on someone.

I think it is very easy to place the blame on someone else. To say it is the doctor's fault because they prescribed it, they got them hooked, but that is making a huge assumption and giving doctors a whole lot more credit than they deserve. There is no way to tell who will become and addict. That is a very special blend of genetics and psychology, one that a doctor cannot possibly be expected to recognize.

The other is that addicts are great liars and manipulators. If someone comes in requesting pain medicine for whatever condition, unless they are covered with track marks or are actively stoned or drunk how in the world is a doctor supposed to know that they are an addict. They lie. They claim they are allergic to certain medications, or have ulcers that preclude them from taking NSAIDs, and NSAIDs will very, very rarely ever be prescribed to someone with any type of claim of kidney disease because they are metabolized through the kidney, same as a person with liver disease will never get tylenol.

My sister is the type of drug addict that everyone here thinks of as the gross and untouchable. She is a long term IV heroin abuser covered with needle tracks and homeless half the time, probably, begging on the street. It would be nice or, maybe, make me feel better if I could blame someone else for her addiction, but truth, and hard and painful truth, is her addiction is her fault, her responsibility, her choice She chooses to keep using, she chooses this life for herself. She has had and has the opportunity to change this, she chooses not to.

That is part of recovery, accepting responsibility for your own life and choices. It doesn't help our addicts accept responsibility of we make excuses for them.

 

[RN0441]

I honestly don't truly blame anyone but my own son for his addiction BUT I do blame doctors for writing so many scripts for prescription medications (and refills) that are abused without even knowing anything about the patient or the patients history and with knowing that addicts lie!

I am hoping with the move towards medical records all being electronically tracking that eventually this will be a thing of the past.

 

[Sister's Keeper]

I honestly don't truly blame anyone but my own son for his addiction BUT I do blame doctors for writing so many scripts for prescription medications (and refills) that are abused without even knowing anything about the patient or the patients history and with knowing that addicts lie!

I am hoping with the move towards medical records all being electronically tracking that eventually this will be a thing of the past.

Please tell me how a doctor, or any health care provider is supposed to know that someone is an addict unless that person decides to divulge that information?

Are they supposed to assume that everyone is an addict and lying then not appropriately treat someone who is in pain? Imagine if you are a patient and you actually do have pain, how would you feel if a doctor you just met accused you of drug seeking? Or denies you adequate pain relief because you might be lying or because other people lie.

Narcotics absolutely have a place, and many, many people take them appropriately. To say that a doctor made some one an addict is unfair and untrue. No one has any way of knowing who will become an addict and who won't. Unfortunately it is a crap shoot. If someone is going to become an addict or remain an addict it will happen whether, or not, they receive a prescription. If they are already addicts if they can't get the prescription they will get it on the street. If they aren't there is no saying what the start up will be. Will it be the beer at that frat kegger? The percocet your BFF gave you for cramps? The ceremonial wine at church?

Recovery is about taking personal responsibility for your actions, your behavior, and the consequences of those things. Our addicts are all where they are because they haven't accepted responsibility for their own lives.

 

[RN0441]

I see your point and appreciate the debate. Again I do not blame anyone for my son's addiction but him.

However I do stand by what I said about doctors. In our personal case, he has been over-prescribed more than once. He had a doctor once give him a 3 month supply of benzos, again not looking at any history of anything ever. That is not an opinion but a fact.

 

[mof]

Our son took natrexone, and had the shot. Insurance covered them. The pills we're only $6 a month.

These are tools in early recovery. You must wear a medication bracelet while on them. Yes, they work for alcohol too.. Many alcoholics will not opt for them.

You really need to. Be with a addiction specialist... But great tools early on top deal with cravings.

 

[JLC]

This experience has gotten beyond ridiculous. I went to family day at rehab today and it was a disaster. Her attitude is rebellious and angry. Her junkie drug supplier was there. I cried all the way home. The realization that things are going to continue to get worse really hit me. I don't even know her anymore. I have little hope that any good will come of the money we are pouring into rehab.

 

[pasajes4]

She's not ready. You are going to have to make some hard decisions. We are here for you.

 

[Kathy813]

Sadly, sister's keeper, I can give you two examples of doctors that knew about the addiction and gave my daughter prescriptions anyway. When my daughter was 17-years-old, I went with her to see a p-doctor and he was given a full history of her alcohol and drug abuse history. When she went to see him the next time without me, he gave her "samples" of ambien which she took on the way home and hit something which to this day she can't remember. She scraped the entire side of the car against something (we think it might have been a guardrail).

When I called him irate the next day, he was shocked to hear she had taken them and then driven home. He is listed as an addiction specialist.

The other example I can give you is when my daughter was in Florida after her first three month stay in rehab. She was in a half-way house and the director recommended that she go see the doctor he used. The doctor was also in recovery. So what he did describe my daughter? Xanax. He knew full well that she had a history of benzo and alcohol abuse but decided she still needed it for anxiety.

So, I agree with you that in many cases doctors are misled or aren't told the patient history but there are others that don't care.

Ultimately it is up to the addict to quit but it isn't made any easier when there are doctors like the ones I described. When I went to our NAMI classes several years later I mentioned the doctor who had given my daughter the Ambien and the first words out of the mouth of the person that was teaching the class was "Oh he is a known pill pusher. We don't recommend him at all."

~Kathy

 

[Sister's Keeper]

I am not saying that medications aren't over prescribed or inappropriately prescribed. We, definitely, have a problem with prescription drug abuse in this country, and, yes, some doctors are unscrupulous and only care about the money.

What I am saying is that it is unfair and wrong to "blame" a doctor for someone's addiction. A doctor who is seeing someone for whatever condition has no idea that any one person has any greater of a chance of becoming an addict. There is also no saying that that person would not have become an addict anyway. Maybe that oxycodone after a root canal, or that 0.25 of xanax to use as needed until the SSRI kicked in did start them on the death spiral, but there is no way to say that it wouldn't have happened anyway.

Yes, if a doctor knows of a patient's history of addiction then, unless there is no other alternative, it is inappropriate to prescribe them a narcotic, but if a doctor doesn't know of a patient's history or if the patient has no history of drug abuse then prescribing these medications may be appropriate.

As an aside, and interestingly since you mention Florida, Florida was one of the states that had the biggest problems with "pill mills" being, mostly, pain management clinics that prescribed opiate pain medications with little oversight. A few years back they had a dramatic uptick of prescription drug overdoses they overhauled their system and now Florida is, actually, one of the more difficult states to get long term narcotic pain medications.

Many states are now using prescription drug databases (I live in NJ, I know that it is used here) in which doctors can look up what medications were prescribed, when, and by whom. The problem that exists right now, though, is it is a state-to-state thing. So, even though I live less than 15 minutes from a bordering state, you can only see the prescriptions filled in that state. So, if, for instance, someone has a very long history of prescription drug abuse in NJ then can pick up and move to another state and there is no record of them ever having filled a prescription.

My issue is with "blame." It is easy to blame and put the anger off on someone else, but the truth of the matter is that addicts choose to be addicts and remain addicts. If someone wants to maintain their sobriety they are honest with their healthcare providers about their history, they refuse narcotics if offered. They don't take advantage of the situation.

I have a co-worker whose father was a recovering alcoholic. He was so serious about his recovery that he refused narcotic pain medication even when he was dying of cancer. He told his family, "I f@#^*! up a lot of years, I intend to go out of this world as a sober man."

 

[jetsam]

I don't understand why doctors don't have the means to look up a persons history like an emergency room. My son would hit an ER for pills of some kind for anxiety, depression, pain whatever and the various era could tell that he was red flagged so to speak. Why don't doctors have the same capabilities?

 

[JLC]

I love that story, Sister's Keeper. What a brave and stubborn thing to do. I sometimes think that addicts have this low pain threshold, but that dude blows the stereotype.

 

[susiestar]

Most doctors can check controlled sub history with the state bureau of narcotics. This is available in every state to my knowledge. The problem is that they don't do this. It is a computer database that they can check, but it isn't a habit. I had to have a hissy fit before my pain doctor would check to see that a mailed prescription was not used because it did not arrive. I called the state BUN to have them check my records and they told me that my records was the perfect pain mgmt patient record and if my doctor had a problem then the doctor was an idiot. THey even called my doctor for me, without me asking. But I don't think even pain mgmt docs do this in spite of the number of patients who see multiple docs for scripts.

My question is what the new parents think of the alcoholic visiting their child. I would not be in favor and in fact at several times have said my bro could not see my kids because he was not sober. Same with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, at various times when they were drunk and behaving badly. I won't let anyone be drunk around my kids while they are minors, period. Of course my brother did real medical and emotional damage to my kids when they were 4 and 7. It is a long story, but the damage was very real and long lasting, so i am biased about drunk people around kids.

How DO the new parents feel about letting her visit their child in the NICU? It isn't all about her, and this is more about them and about their child, rather than being about the alcoholic aunt.

 

[JLC]

It was a short, supervised visit with both parents present. She called and asked if she would be allowed in and they welcomed her. You make a good point, Susiestar. It will be an issue eventually. Another heartbreaking consequence.

 

[JLC]

Here is my next question. Do I attempt another visit or should I stay away? I told her that if she wanted me to come back on Wednesday, she needed to invite me. But if she left, I won't know unless I show up. Today is Monday and the ill fated visit previously was Saturday. The rehab facility is approximately a 2 hour drive. She has a little window of time to call in the evenings. So far no call. I really need to study the detachment article!

 

[RN0441]

Personally, I would stay away for a while.

I have been working with a therapist to see that my love for my son is UNCONDITIONAL but for him to have a relationship with me, there are conditions.

Mom's want to fix it. Moms cannot fix this.

It's that simple.