The Addiction Podcast - Point of No Return

Joanie was at the 6th Annual Southeastern US Regional Drug Prevention Summit and interviewed several of the attendees.  This podcast is an interview with Steve Collins Director of Central Florida HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program).  He presented at the Summit about a report about marijuana and legalizing it has affected Colorado. There will be an upcoming report on the effects of the legalization of medical marijuana in Florida.

Obviously we struck a nerve with our outright condemnation of Kratom in our last episode.  We don't think Kratom is right or wrong.  The point is that it isn't fully researched and until that time, those people taking it are basically guinea pigs for the makers of Kratom.  People swear by it and some people have died from taking it.  The jury is out on Kratom.  However, if someone HAS to have Kratom to function, that's addiction. Live drug free. That's what we want for everyone.

People are touting the new drug Kratom as the solution to Suboxone addiction but did you know that Suboxone was touted as the solution to Methadone; Methadone to Heroin and Heroin to Morphine?  Kratom is a drug.  In fact the FDA has just announced that it's an opioid.  Duh.  Substituting one drug for another doesn't work.  Not if you want to live a happy and sober life.

There's really nothing new in the field of substance abuse and nothing that Narconon hasn't seen.  Having said that some addicts are now cooking up meth in their own homes as an alternative to heroin but the highs and lows of meth are different.  Bottom line, even though Jason has seen everything in terms of addiction, he knows how to handle whatever comes up.

Rony grew up among the gangs in Miami.  Introduced to drugs by his cousin, he rapidly moved from marijuana to heavier drugs.  After a stint in the US Navy, he started abusing Xanax which ended his Navy career.  Now Rony has completed the Narconon program and is clean.  He is training at Narconon to help others overcome addiction.  In fact, if you to www.narcononsuncoast.org, you might encounter Rony in the chat window that opens up.  He's there to help.

When people think of drug or alcohol addiction, often the addict is thought of as the victim.  However, the real victim, we feel, are those close to the addict because they live with the fear that the addict will overdose, or get arrested, or wind up in the hospital.  The addict started with a choice, the friends and family didn't choose to have an addict amongst their loved ones.

This podcast is an interview with Pinellas County Sheriff Robert Gualtieri.  Sheriff Gualtieri has been dealing with drugs for decades in this area and so has a law enforcement perspective on the problem.  However, expecting law enforcement to be the solution to substance abuse is like putting the proverbial finger in the dike.  It's way too late on the chain. What is needed is prevention, education and treatment.

This podcast is Zach's story.  Zach started with marijuana at age 15 and eventually moved onto heavier street drugs.  He also ended up on various psychiatric medications which caused him more troubles than the street drugs.  Zach has done the Narconon program and is going to dedicate his life to helping others.  Happy New Year to our listeners.  Let's make this the year of a better life for us all.

The holidays can be a very stressful time for addicts and their loved ones.  We hope, if you are a loved one, that you get your addicted loved one into treatment sooner rather than later so that this can be the last holiday season of addiction and that you can look forward to sober holidays from here on out.

In September of this year, the 19 year old son of Admiral James Winnefeld died from an overdose of heroin mixed with fentanyl.  He had just come through 15 months of in patient rehab and was embarking upon a new career as EMT.  Rather than giving in to the tragedy, Admiral and Mrs. Winnefeld have started an organization - Safe Project (safeproject.us) - to help fight the war on the opioid epidemic in this country.  Here is their story.

When Pam Bondi was elected as Florida's attorney general in 2010, Florida was #1 in the country for pill mills - places where you could literally walk in with cash and walk out with pain pills.  Dealers came from all over the country to buy the pain meds and take them back to their state.  After Pam was elected, she shut down some 98 pill mills in the state.  Fighting addiction from her position is a priority for her.

We have lost some amazing artists due to drug and alcohol addiction.  We hope that any of our listeners who either are artists and addicted or who know artists that are addicted will take note and get help for their friend and loved one or themselves.  Let's not lose any more of our great artists to addiction.

Once again we send the message that to wait until after the hoidays to get help for your addicted friend or family member is a really bad idea.  Families will forgive the addict but should they forget?  Should the addict forget?

Often friends and families of addicts say that they want to wait until after the holidays to get treatment for their addicted friend or family member.  This is not a good idea because the person will be getting high while the family is gathered for the holiday and every day you let the addict continue to get high is one day closer to possible life threatening condition or death.  If you know someone who is an addict, get them help TODAY.

One of the things we do on this podcast is offer solutions and resources to the problem of drug and alcohol abuse.  Today's podcast is an interview with Kent Runyon from Novus Detox in Florida.  Novus has a personalized approach to substance abuse treatment and like Narconon is not a medically assisted treatment program - in other words, it does not substitute one drug for another.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  May your Thanksgiving be loving and full of hope.