I am unbelievably happy, confident, and healthy.

It was just four short years ago that I was smoking crystal meth and snorting OxyContin every day. I was completely hopeless and out of control. I had scars on my arms and legs from the cuts that I inflicted on myself just to be able to feel something. My life was spent dancing on a pole, letting men put their hands on me, just to be able to afford the next hit that I was going to take in the club’s bathroom. My body had just become a thing to me. Self-respect did not exist.

Instead, it was replaced by a false sense of confidence that I exhibited to all those who came in contact with me. I hated my parents, my life, and myself. I thought I was crazy – bipolar, schizophrenic, manic-depressive, and every other thing I could self-diagnose by looking on the internet. I thought that drugs helped me feel "normal." I didn’t realize that my problems and emotional distress went far beyond the drug use itself. The drugs were my comfort because they kept the other, more basic problems out of sight. On October 9, 2005, I hit that "bottom" that you hear addicts talk about. That moment is as fresh for me as yesterday.

That moment came when I was all alone, sitting in a hospital emergency room. I was covered in blood and looking through my cell phone for someone to come help me. I saw the other people in the ER all had family or friends with them. I had no one. None of the "friends" I had been getting high with for years would come help me. I’d started bleeding heavily a few hours before. Just before I drove myself to the ER, I had crystal meth and OxyContin. In the ER, I found out that I was pregnant and miscarrying. I was so out of touch with reality that I didn’t even know I was pregnant.

Because I was getting all my energy from the drugs, my weight was down to a skeletal 82 pounds. For hours, the nurses monitored my hormone levels as I waited for my unborn child to die inside me. Finally, the doctor came in and let me know that the drugs I had taken had killed my baby. I hit the floor in utter panic. Trembling and hysterical, I called my mother. She didn’t believe anything I told her because, like a typical addict, I had been lying to her and manipulating her for years.

That was the moment I hit bottom. Instead of calling anyone else to help, I turned my cell phone around and took a video of myself, makeup smeared down my face from crying. I told myself in that video, "Remember this moment." I kept that video on my cell phone for the next couple of years. I left that hospital completely numb. I was slowly realizing that I had no clue what I was doing, who I was or what I wanted to be. The Emily I thought I knew was gone and had been replaced by this addict. I got home and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to search for answers. Once again, I called my mom. I uttered the words "I am ready...I need help." Within the hour she had plane tickets for me to fly to her house. I left everything – my clothes, my car, my jewelry, everything, and made it to the airport, falling and trembling the whole way. When I got to my parent’s home, they talked to me about going to Narconon® Arrowhead for a drug rehabilitation program. I really wanted help but I honestly didn’t think it was possible for anyone to help me. I thought I was meant to be this completely miserable person that I must have a chemical imbalance or some other thing that taking medication would cure. I couldn’t even hear the words of the people who were trying to convince me to get help; it was all gibberish.

My step-father finally got me to an airport to fly me to Oklahoma for the Narconon program. We got into a screaming match at the ticket counter but it wasn’t really me that was fighting him. It was just my hopelessness. He finally said, "Fine. I will buy you a plane ticket back to Louisiana but don’t you dare ever talk to us again because you are already dead and we are done." I realized that from the outside, someone could see just exactly how I was feeling on the inside. I had felt dead for many years but no one could ever tell. From that point, I begged him please to get me to Oklahoma.

From the time I entered the doors to Narconon Arrowhead, the real Emily started to come out of hiding. Now, three years later, I’ve made a complete recovery. I’ve been clean since that day in the hospital. I don’t have to carry the guilt around from those years any more because I’m now unbelievably happy, confident and healthy. I have formed relationships with my family that were not even possible before I started using drugs. I am a dedicated, responsible mother of a beautiful 20-month-old son. I have learned how to communicate and form meaningful relationships that don’t just dwindle down to nothing within a few months.

I owe my life and happiness to Narconon and the methods it uses. I just wish that other people who are caught in the trap of addiction could find the kind of help that Narconon Arrowhead gave me. There’s a portion of their program that uses a sauna and nutritional supplements to flush drug residues from the body and that helps eliminate the cravings. There’s counseling and life skills courses that help restore the self-respect that drugs destroy. It saved my life and the lives of the other people I met there. They can find that help by calling 1-800-468-6933 or at their website http://www.stopaddiction.com/.

Emily Fudge, Narconon Arrowhead Graduate, January 2006

If you know someone who needs help with drug or alcohol addiction or would like more information about the Narconon Arrowhead Field Representative program please call 1-800-468-6933 and ask for DannaSue Pruett.

©2009 Narconon of Oklahoma, Inc. All rights reserved. NARCONON and the Narconon logo are registered trademarks and service marks owned by Association for Better Living and Education International and are used with its permission.

No Place to Hide: Part XI overcoming the barriers to successful recovery

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
Overcoming the Barriers to Successful Recovery

Part XI

There are different methods utilized in substance abuse counseling to bring about positive moral change in an addict. Probably one of the most commonly used is the Twelve Step approach practiced by the Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous groups.

In this method, steps 4 and 5 and steps 8 and 9 deal with life inventory of the wrong deeds done and who was affected by them. In addition to this, the addict then makes up the damage done as a result of these negative actions.

This method is effective in recovery so long as the person's addiction has not progressed to the point where the individual has lost his or her ability to confront and communicate or to identify and solve problems. If an addiction persists long enough, an addict will lose even the basic social skills needed to perform in group therapy and to admit their wrongdoing.

In cases where drug addiction began in the adolescent years, individuals have not had the opportunity to develop these life skills. As a result, they do not perform as well in a Twelve Step program or other traditional treatment settings. In these cases, the addict needs to be educated or re-educated in these basic life skills before there can be any real hope of success in raising moral standards and permanent sobriety.

When conventional approaches are not working with a drug-addicted person, there are effective alternatives to pursue in recovery before one gives up. What has not proven effective is substitute drug treatment, e.g. methadone, anti-depressants or other prescribed medications designed to mask the symptoms of addiction mentioned in this series of articles. This, in effect, just trades one addiction for another. It does not aid the addicted person in developing the life skills necessary to raise their moral values or their quality of life. Nor does it provide them with the necessary tools to remain sober. Thus relapse becomes inevitable.

One effective alternative method to recovery is the life skills training and moral inventory used by the Narconon program. This program provides a specific course of treatment which includes training in communication, a full body detoxification process, counseling in problem identification and solving, as well as a structured course of action to restore personal values and integrity. These programs help individuals to accomplish heightened moral standards and sobriety with an improved quality of life.

Forty years ago, author and researcher L. Ron Hubbard identified the basic barriers to successful recovery which have been discussed throughout this series of articles on addiction. Through his research, he developed a means of treating them successfully. When Narconon was founded in 1966 by William Benitez, it was based on Mr. Hubbard's research and developments in the field of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Benitez developed a working relationship with Mr. Hubbard and together they established the first Narconon program in Arizona.

Narconon has been using this treatment method successfully for more than thirty years. It has only been within the last few years that scientific and medical research has caught up with these methods of treating addiction. It is now acknowledged by the medical community that drugs do store in the body in the form of metabolites and that the chemical imbalances created by drug addiction are nutritionally driven. Further, nutritional program components have been added to just about every type of treatment method and are recognized as a valid form of therapy in chemical dependency treatment.

If you know someone in need of help, I recommend that you research all of your treatment options. Take the time to thoroughly inspect the treatment programs available. Determine how these programs address the mechanics of addiction. Find out what their long-term recovery rates are. Drug rehabilitation does not have to be a revolving door if you take the time and effort to pick the right recovery program.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

No Place to Hide; Part X Guilt: The third barrier to successful recovery

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
“Guilt”: The Third Barrier to Successful Recovery

Part X

The third and final barrier to recovery from addiction is guilt. Guilt acts as another strap in the harness that keeps the addict trapped in his addiction.

An addict is filled with guilt. He feels guilty because he has lost his integrity; he has become a dishonest person and consequently loses his self-esteem. For any rehabilitation method to be successful an addict must face his transgressions and be able to clean up the wreckage in his life that is there because of his addiction and the dishonest deeds that are part of this lifestyle.

A person who becomes addicted to drugs or alcohol doesn’t just wake up one day and say, “Gee, I think I’ll start using drugs until I destroy my family, my relationships and my life in general.” As discussed in this series of articles, addiction starts with a problem, drugs or alcohol are chosen as a solution to relieve the discomfort one is experiencing by not being able to solve the problem, then the physical and mental complications occur, all resulting in the person’s quality of life going into a decline.

Before the life cycle of addiction starts, addicts start out as basically good people with some sense of right and wrong and with no intention or desire to hurt others. As the cycle of addiction progresses and the cravings and other mechanics of addiction begin to dissolve the individual’s self-control, they begin to get into situations where they are doing and saying things they know deep down aren't true or right, all to cover up or hide their drug use.

If the pattern of abuse continues, they eventually become trapped in a vicious cycle of using drugs, hiding the fact, lying about using and even stealing to support more drug use. At each turn, the addict is committing more dishonest acts and with each act is creating more damage in their life and relationships, all of which has been committed to memory.

When the addict commits a harmful act or dishonest deed, they develop a memory of that deed and all the surrounding circumstances at the moment the deed was done. Contained in each memory is who was involved, the time and place the deed occurred and what the end result of the dishonest deed was. The addict knows these negative actions are wrong and because the person himself, not the addicted personality, is good they will feel bad or guilty after the dishonest act was committed. These memories of guilt accumulate and can then get triggered in the present or future when they see the people and places that were involved when the transgressions occurred and they feel bad about it.

In time, these transgressions are committed more and more often. The people in the addict's life around whom these transgressions have occurred become "triggers" that remind the person of the dishonest act or deed. The appearance of people, family members, loved ones and friends triggers the guilt. Family or friends don't necessarily have to say a word to the addict – just the sight of them can trigger the guilt! Guilt is an unpleasant feeling and so can prompt the addict to use more drugs to temporarily relieve this unwanted condition.

The addict will also begin to withdraw more and more from friends and family as the transgressions committed by the addict increase in number. They will eventually pull away from the family, seclude themselves, and/or become antagonistic towards those they love. Remember, the basic personality of an addict is good and the reason they end up withdrawing from those they love is because they know they are doing the wrong thing and the act of withdrawing from those places and people that the addict has harmed is the addict’s attempt to restrain themselves from committing any further transgressions to those places and people they care about.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

Coming next: The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction Part V: Overcoming the Barriers to Successful Recovery

No Place to Hide: Part IX Depression: The second barrier to successful recovery

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
“Depression”: The Second Barrier to Successful Recovery

Part IX

Depression is another factor that keeps an addict harnessed in his addiction. Depression is the source of a constant and significant amount of discomfort that prompts continued use. It is also the second major barrier to successful recovery for those seeking help through treatment.

Some of the traditional medical- and psychiatric-based programs rotely diagnose and treat the depression an addict is experiencing as the root cause of the person’s drug or alcohol problem. In actual fact, more times than not, it is a symptom of the problem that manifested itself after the person had become addicted, not before. Oftentimes, in the course of treatment, psychotropic medications are used which temporarily mask the symptom but does nothing to cure it. As these medications wear off, the depression returns, oftentimes magnified. This makes the recovery process much more difficult, if not nearly impossible, for the addict in treatment.

There are physical and mental mechanics at play that create the state of depression and lethargy an addicted person experiences. At a physical level, most addicts are in a declining or poor state of health. When they are high they are in a euphoric, painless state of mind and are numb to the damage drugs and/or alcohol are causing to their body. When they are sober they have no energy and minor aches and pains are intensified. They are physically spent as a result of the severe nutritional deficiencies that follow long-term drug or alcohol abuse. It is these deficiencies that accelerate poor health and put the person in a physically lethargic condition.

At a mental level, they have a difficult time finding joy or happiness in anything while they are not under the influence. An addict at some point surrenders to the idea that they must be high in order to experience anything at an emotional level. They must be high to celebrate an accomplishment, to escape sadness. They must be high to solve problems, to enjoy sex, to have meaningful relationships, to work or to play. The addict really believes and operates on this principle, numb to the actual fact that the quality of their life and relationships with others are on a downtrending spiral.

To give a layman’s explanation of how and why this barrier of depression exists, let’s look at what is happening to a person’s mind and body as the addiction develops. There is another biophysical aspect to this scenario which is created by the drug's interaction with the body's natural chemistry. Some of the body's natural chemicals act as a built-in reward system that encourages us to eat, exercise and procreate. Other natural chemicals act as painkillers that activate when we physically injure ourselves or are experiencing pain. These natural chemicals are directly related to our drive to maintain our physical well-being in one way or another.

In addition to the presence of drug metabolites in the system and the memories associated with drug and alcohol use as described in Part II of this editorial series, the physical brain of the addicted person also identifies the drug or alcohol as an aid that either enhances or restricts the release of these natural chemicals. In some cases the brain identifies some drugs as superior to the body’s natural chemicals. The brain then substitutes the drugs or alcohol for the body’s natural chemicals. As the person starts to use drugs or alcohol on a regular basis, the body becomes depleted of key nutrients and amino acids. (Amino acids are the building blocks for the body’s natural chemicals.) These nutritional deficiencies prevent the body from receiving the nutritional energy necessary to produce and release the natural chemicals.

In short, the drugs take over the functions of the body’s natural chemicals and the person’s brain and body get fooled into thinking that the drugs or alcohol are the natural chemicals. When drugs or alcohol are present in the addict’s system, the physical perception is that the body chemistry is working and all is well. When the drugs or alcohol leave the addict’s system, the brain and body perceive a deficit of the natural body chemicals which adds to the lethargy and lack of enjoyment an addict experiences when not under the influence of drugs or drink. This condition is what adds to the addict’s compulsion and drive to do more drugs or drink more alcohol, despite the often life-threatening consequences an addict is faced with on a day-to-day basis. The drug or alcohol gets misidentified as an aid to the production and release of the natural chemicals when, in fact, it is suppressing the body's ability to manufacture them.

One final piece of the depression puzzle is what is actually happening in the addicts’ lives. There are broken relationships, sometimes problems with the law or financial problems. Addicts start to distance themselves from the people they love and becomes more and more withdrawn. They may lose their jobs or start experiencing serious health problems. Basically their lives are going down the toilet and the addicts deep down are not happy about it. They are depressed about these circumstances that for the most part are present because of their addictive lifestyles. Depression is an appropriate emotion considering the misery that they are faced with in their lives.

For some medical practitioners in the treatment field to address this depression as a “mental illness or disease” and expect that prescribed medications will somehow fix the person so they can fix these situations in their life seems somewhat irrational if you think about it. It is a fact that these prescribed medications will mask the depression temporarily, but so will their drug of choice. Neither one helps the person restore their physical health or helps them develop the life skills to repair these real life problems, which is the only real cure for this affliction.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

Coming Next: The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction Part IV: “Guilt” The Third Barrier to Successful Recovery

No Place to Hide: Part VIII Cravings: The first barrier to successful recovery

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.


The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
“Cravings”: The First Barrier to Successful Recovery

Part VIII

The first challenge for any addict wishing to kick his addiction is overcoming the mental and physical cravings for drugs or alcohol. Cravings are strong, uncontrollable urges to use drugs or alcohol that drive the addict to once again use addictive substances.
To get an idea of what drug cravings are like, think of a time when you went for a long time without eating a meal and you were really hungry. Hunger is a mental and physical sensation that is triggered when the body needs food for nutrients and energy.

The craving for food, driven at a physical level, stimulates memories of eating food, which is followed by a strong desire or compulsion to consume food. Usually when a person is very hungry, they will think about their favorite foods; if they get hungry enough, they can sometimes even smell and taste certain foods.

If a person goes long enough without food, compelling thoughts of eating plus a growling stomach and shakiness due to not having eaten will become so great, making the person so uncomfortable, that they will drop whatever it is they are doing and arrange to get food and eat it. As soon as the food is consumed, the hunger pangs stop and the person feels good about satisfying their hunger.

A drug craving is similar, but the desire to use drugs is much stronger and more intense. An addict who is craving drugs will feel like life itself is dependent on getting and taking their preferred drug. They will do and say almost anything to get the drug to handle their intense craving. Once they satisfy the craving, they feel relief until the drug wears off and the craving returns.

Some withdrawal symptoms and cravings are caused by poor nutrition and the vitamin depletion that follows substance abuse. When a body lacks certain nutrients, it cannot make some substances it needs for health and energy, causing a person to feel tired and moody. Depletion of certain vitamins and minerals can also cause shakiness and pain.

Withdrawal symptoms and cravings may also result from the toxins (substances the body sees as poisons) that accumulate after repeated drug use. These toxins stress many of the body’s systems, resulting in fatigue, aches, pains and unclear thinking. The addicted person has learned to medicate their mental or physical problems with drugs; they will continue to use drugs as a solution whenever they feel poorly. Therefore attempting to handle addiction with more drugs only makes the problem worse.

Today it is fairly common for many companies and federal agencies to drug test their employees. Through a common urinalysis test, it can be determined if the employee has taken any one of several drugs. This test of a person’s urine not only detects if they have taken drugs, it also detects what type of drugs were taken. Drug tests detect the presence of any drugs or their metabolites.

Metabolites are the products left behind in the body when it has broken down a substance so it can be eliminated. Drug metabolites are like fingerprints of the drug that was taken. Cocaine produces a cocaine metabolite, opiates produce an opiate metabolite, alcohol produces an alcohol metabolite and so on.

Most drugs and alcohol are metabolized, or broken down, in the liver but all tissues in the body will break down drugs or other foreign substances for elimination. Drugs and metabolites leave the body through urine, feces and sweat but they are not fully eliminated. Since drugs dissolve better in oil than water, they have a natural affinity for fats. Therefore any drug residues or metabolites that are not eliminated have a natural attraction to fat cells and so tend to be stored in one’s fat.

As an example, the active chemical in marijuana, THC, is so fat-soluble that, when consumed, most of it rapidly leaves the bloodstream and lodges in the fatty tissues of the body. From there, it slowly moves back into the bloodstream over a period of weeks or even longer.

Only recently have scientists discovered that fat is actually a vital organ that produces hormones that affect our moods, energy levels and immunity. Chronic use of drugs or alcohol has been shown to disrupt this function. This disruption is one of the factors that cause cravings, as the body attempts to correct the disturbance by craving what it lacks or a similar substance, such as the drugs that originally caused the disruption.

In the late 1970s, American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard made the revolutionary discovery that drug metabolites and other toxins that were stored in the fat cells had the continuing effect of locking addicts in their addictions, and that eliminating these stored deposits was a key to full recovery. He went on to develop a method of extracting those deposits, resulting in improved mental and physical health. This discovery was a critical step forward in the effort to resolve drug cravings.

Each time a person consumes drugs or alcohol, they retain a complete recorded memory of that life experience. Whether they were happy or sad or had a good time or a bad time, all emotions, feelings and sensations that were present at the time the drug or alcohol was consumed are filed away in the person’s memory. Even if the person blacks out, the experience is still recorded in the mind.

In the case of those addicted to opiates, alcohol, tranquilizers or any other addictive drugs, they will accumulate a series of memories that contain the pain and discomfort associated with drug withdrawal.

The body will metabolize (change energy sources into energy) and burn fat cells any time a person undergoes a situation in life that causes their heart rate to speed up. Stress can do this, as can strenuous exercise or intense emotion. Most of us experience these kinds of stressful situations on a fairly regular basis.
When an addict’s body metabolizes fat, if the fat cells contain metabolites from past alcohol and drug use, those metabolites will activate back into the person’s bloodstream as the fat cells burn.

Keep in mind that each type of drug produces its own metabolite. Therefore, if alcohol metabolites were stored in the fat, once those fat cells are metabolized, the body will be reminded of alcohol at a physical level. If the person has taken cocaine, then cocaine metabolites will be released into the bloodstream and remind the body of earlier cocaine use.

The effect of these metabolites being present in the bloodstream will trigger recorded memories of drug-related experiences and discomforts from the past. The person will remember feeling and thinking like they did in the past when they were under the influence of the drug or alcohol. Or they will remember experiencing the pain and discomfort that occurred when they were coming down from the drug. They are prone to use drugs or alcohol again at these times.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

Coming next: The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction Part III: “Depression” The Second Barrier to Successful Recovery

No Place to Hide: Part VIII Cravings: The first barrier to successful recovery

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.


The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
“Cravings”: The First Barrier to Successful Recovery

Part VIII

The first challenge for any addict wishing to kick his addiction is overcoming the mental and physical cravings for drugs or alcohol. Cravings are strong, uncontrollable urges to use drugs or alcohol that drive the addict to once again use addictive substances.
To get an idea of what drug cravings are like, think of a time when you went for a long time without eating a meal and you were really hungry. Hunger is a mental and physical sensation that is triggered when the body needs food for nutrients and energy.

The craving for food, driven at a physical level, stimulates memories of eating food, which is followed by a strong desire or compulsion to consume food. Usually when a person is very hungry, they will think about their favorite foods; if they get hungry enough, they can sometimes even smell and taste certain foods.

If a person goes long enough without food, compelling thoughts of eating plus a growling stomach and shakiness due to not having eaten will become so great, making the person so uncomfortable, that they will drop whatever it is they are doing and arrange to get food and eat it. As soon as the food is consumed, the hunger pangs stop and the person feels good about satisfying their hunger.

A drug craving is similar, but the desire to use drugs is much stronger and more intense. An addict who is craving drugs will feel like life itself is dependent on getting and taking their preferred drug. They will do and say almost anything to get the drug to handle their intense craving. Once they satisfy the craving, they feel relief until the drug wears off and the craving returns.

Some withdrawal symptoms and cravings are caused by poor nutrition and the vitamin depletion that follows substance abuse. When a body lacks certain nutrients, it cannot make some substances it needs for health and energy, causing a person to feel tired and moody. Depletion of certain vitamins and minerals can also cause shakiness and pain.

Withdrawal symptoms and cravings may also result from the toxins (substances the body sees as poisons) that accumulate after repeated drug use. These toxins stress many of the body’s systems, resulting in fatigue, aches, pains and unclear thinking. The addicted person has learned to medicate their mental or physical problems with drugs; they will continue to use drugs as a solution whenever they feel poorly. Therefore attempting to handle addiction with more drugs only makes the problem worse.

Today it is fairly common for many companies and federal agencies to drug test their employees. Through a common urinalysis test, it can be determined if the employee has taken any one of several drugs. This test of a person’s urine not only detects if they have taken drugs, it also detects what type of drugs were taken. Drug tests detect the presence of any drugs or their metabolites.

Metabolites are the products left behind in the body when it has broken down a substance so it can be eliminated. Drug metabolites are like fingerprints of the drug that was taken. Cocaine produces a cocaine metabolite, opiates produce an opiate metabolite, alcohol produces an alcohol metabolite and so on.

Most drugs and alcohol are metabolized, or broken down, in the liver but all tissues in the body will break down drugs or other foreign substances for elimination. Drugs and metabolites leave the body through urine, feces and sweat but they are not fully eliminated. Since drugs dissolve better in oil than water, they have a natural affinity for fats. Therefore any drug residues or metabolites that are not eliminated have a natural attraction to fat cells and so tend to be stored in one’s fat.

As an example, the active chemical in marijuana, THC, is so fat-soluble that, when consumed, most of it rapidly leaves the bloodstream and lodges in the fatty tissues of the body. From there, it slowly moves back into the bloodstream over a period of weeks or even longer.

Only recently have scientists discovered that fat is actually a vital organ that produces hormones that affect our moods, energy levels and immunity. Chronic use of drugs or alcohol has been shown to disrupt this function. This disruption is one of the factors that cause cravings, as the body attempts to correct the disturbance by craving what it lacks or a similar substance, such as the drugs that originally caused the disruption.

In the late 1970s, American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard made the revolutionary discovery that drug metabolites and other toxins that were stored in the fat cells had the continuing effect of locking addicts in their addictions, and that eliminating these stored deposits was a key to full recovery. He went on to develop a method of extracting those deposits, resulting in improved mental and physical health. This discovery was a critical step forward in the effort to resolve drug cravings.

Each time a person consumes drugs or alcohol, they retain a complete recorded memory of that life experience. Whether they were happy or sad or had a good time or a bad time, all emotions, feelings and sensations that were present at the time the drug or alcohol was consumed are filed away in the person’s memory. Even if the person blacks out, the experience is still recorded in the mind.

In the case of those addicted to opiates, alcohol, tranquilizers or any other addictive drugs, they will accumulate a series of memories that contain the pain and discomfort associated with drug withdrawal.

The body will metabolize (change energy sources into energy) and burn fat cells any time a person undergoes a situation in life that causes their heart rate to speed up. Stress can do this, as can strenuous exercise or intense emotion. Most of us experience these kinds of stressful situations on a fairly regular basis.
When an addict’s body metabolizes fat, if the fat cells contain metabolites from past alcohol and drug use, those metabolites will activate back into the person’s bloodstream as the fat cells burn.

Keep in mind that each type of drug produces its own metabolite. Therefore, if alcohol metabolites were stored in the fat, once those fat cells are metabolized, the body will be reminded of alcohol at a physical level. If the person has taken cocaine, then cocaine metabolites will be released into the bloodstream and remind the body of earlier cocaine use.

The effect of these metabolites being present in the bloodstream will trigger recorded memories of drug-related experiences and discomforts from the past. The person will remember feeling and thinking like they did in the past when they were under the influence of the drug or alcohol. Or they will remember experiencing the pain and discomfort that occurred when they were coming down from the drug. They are prone to use drugs or alcohol again at these times.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

Coming next: The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction Part III: “Depression” The Second Barrier to Successful Recovery

No Place to Hide: Part VII What is Addiction Really?

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE & EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction
What is Addiction, Really?

Part VII

Whether a person is genetically or bio-chemically predisposed to addiction or alcoholism is a controversy that has been debated for years within the scientific, medical and chemical dependency communities. One school of thought advocates the “disease concept” which embraces the notion that addiction is an inherited disease, and that the individual is permanently ill at a genetic level, even for those experiencing long periods of sobriety.

Another philosophy argues that addiction is a dual problem consisting of a physical and mental dependency on chemicals, compounded by a pre-existing mental disorder (i.e., clinical depression, bipolar disorder or some other mental illness), and that the mental disorder needs to be treated first as the primary cause of the addiction.

A third philosophy subscribes to the idea that chemical dependency leads to permanent “chemical imbalances” in the neurological system that must be treated with psychotropic medications after the person has withdrawn from their drug of choice.

The fact remains that there is some scientific research that favors each of these addiction concepts, but none of them are absolute. Based on national averages, addiction treatment has a 16% to 20% recovery rate. The message is pretty clear that these theories are just that, theories, and we have a lot more to learn if we are to bring the national recovery rate to a more desirable level.

There is a fourth school of thought which has proven to be more accurate. It has to do with the life cycle of addiction. This data is universally applicable to addiction, no matter which hypothesis is used to explain the phenomenon of chemical dependency.

The life cycle of addiction begins with a problem, discomfort or some form of emotional or physical pain a person is experiencing. The person finds this very difficult to deal with.

Here is an individual who, like most people in our society, is basically good. He has encountered a problem that is causing him physical or emotional pain and discomfort that he does not have an immediate answer for. Examples would include difficulty “fitting in” as a child or teenager, puberty, physical injuries such a broken bone, a bad back or some other chronic physical condition. Whatever the origin of the difficulty is, the discomfort associated with it presents the individual with a real problem. He feels this problem is a major situation that is persisting. He can see no immediate resolution or relief from it. Most of us have experienced this in our lives to a greater or lesser degree.

Once the person takes a drug, he feels relief from the discomfort, even though the relief is only temporary. That drink or drug is adopted as a solution to the problem and the individual places value on the substance. This assigned value is the only reason the person ever uses drugs or drinks a second, third or more times.

There is a key factor involved in this life cycle scenario that determines which of us become addicts and which do not. The answer depends on whether or not, at the time of this traumatic experience, we are subjected to pro-drug or pro-alcohol influences via some sort of significant peer pressure that influences our decision-making process with regard to finding relief from the discomfort. Peer pressure can manifest itself in many different ways. It can come from friends or family members or through some avenue of advertising or promotion which, when combined with the degree of relief we receive from the drug or drink, determines the severity of the use. Simply put, the bigger the problem, the greater the discomfort the person experiences. The greater the discomfort, the more importance the person places on relieving it and the greater the value he assigns to that which brought about the relief.

For those that start down the path of addiction, they will encounter other physical, mental and lifestyle changes along the way that will begin to cause the individual’s quality of life to deteriorate. If the drug or alcohol abuse continues unchecked, eventually the person is faced with so many unpleasant circumstances in their life that each sober moment is filled with so much despair and misery that all he wants to do is escape these feelings by medicating them away. This is the downward spiral of addiction. At this point for most there are only three inevitable outcomes: death, prison or sobriety.

For more information about addiction or if you would like a free copy of the Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction five-part series, call 1-800-468-6933 or email Megan Bedford at megan@stopaddiction.com.

Coming next: Part II of The Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction: The Barriers to Successful Recovery

No Place to Hide: Part VI Where Do We Go From Here

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director at Narconon Arrowhead
Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma

Part VI

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

Unhappily, the second half of the Twentieth Century proved to be a pivotal point in America’s war on drugs. New drugs, new high levels of users and addicts, new trafficking channels – it’s been an all-out assault that shows no signs of relief.

In the late 1960s, an entirely new drug consciousness arose, particularly among young- Caucasian middle-class Americans. Recreational use of marijuana, LSD, mescaline and other drugs were linked with the desire for an alternative lifestyle and were glorified in magazines and movies. Films such as The Trip in 1967, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas in 1968 and Easy Rider in 1969 brought this new consciousness to the big screen.

In 1969, psychiatrist Dr. Robert Dupont began a testing program to determine how many prisoners entering the Washington D.C. jail system tested positive for heroin. When 44% of the prisoners tested positive, Dr. Dupont was able establish the first methadone program for these heroin addicts. While methadone took these addicts out of the illegal trade of heroin, it kept them addicted to an opioid drug.

In Vietnam, the heroin problem with GIs began to escalate. By mid-1971, U.S. Army medical officers estimated that that about 10 to 15 percent or 25,000 to 37,000 of lower-ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users. And when those GIs returned to America, many of them brought their heroin habits with them.

A few years later, cocaine channels between Columbia and the U.S. became more sophisticated, transporting a higher volume to both coasts. Newsweek even ran an article glamorizing the use of cocaine at fancy cocktail parties. Before the end of the decade, the highly profitable cocaine trade began to spawn violent shootouts and murders in Miami and along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the mid-1980s, crack cocaine exploded into the public consciousness in New York City, soon to spread across the country. More than 8,000,000 Americans have tried this drug at least once, and currently, more than 500,000 are regular users.
The problems with cocaine were underscored by the shocking death of Len Bias, the young basketball star, in 1986. New awareness of the risks to health came to light, particularly the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest when using cocaine.

Despite increasing drug enforcement budgets, the Drug Enforcement Agency and local and state forces were unable to stem the increasing tide of drug use. In the last few decades, a rash of new drugs aggravated the problems: methamphetamine easily produced in a lab in your kitchen, GHB and Ecstasy appeared. Purer heroin in smokeable form hit the street in the 1990s. The popular catch phrase among the drugs users was coined “chasing the dragon” referring to smoking heroin, broadened the drug’s use by eliminating the less socially acceptable practice of injecting the drug with a needle. At the same time, prescription drugs became drugs of abuse, starting with Milltown (tranquilizers) in the 1960s, followed by Valium, Xanex, Oxycotin, Ritalin and a long list of other drugs.

America fought back with new laws. The Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986 set mandatory sentences for convictions for dealing marijuana, LSD, crack and other drugs. Just after the new millennium, more laws were passed to make some of the necessary ingredients for methamphetamine hard to get. But since the demand for the drug didn’t decrease, the only thing that happened was that small “mom and pop” meth labs went out of business while trafficking of Mexican methamphetamine skyrocketed.

Despite some improvements here and there, drug use statistics have hit new highs in recent years. Government surveys in 1996 estimated that 13,000,000 Americans were current drug users (meaning they had used an illicit drug or abused a prescription drug in the prior 30 days). That was 6.4 percent of those aged 12 and older. Each year thereafter, this number crept up slightly until 2002 when it jumped to more than 19,000,000, constituting 8.3 of the population. In 2006, the number of current users was over 20,000,000.

Even the internet got involved in the growth in drug use. In the last few years, it’s become possible to order addictive pharmaceutical drugs such as Oxycotin, Valium, Adderall and Ritalin from internet pharmacies which remain unregulated and difficult to bring under control.
As the drug scene penetrated our society more and more, it showed no respect for the Drug-Free Zones surrounding our schools. The Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported in 2007 that 11,000,000 high school students and 5,000,000 middle school students had seen illegal drug use on their school campuses.

Most law enforcement personnel facing this grim scene will tell you that the problem will never be solved with enforcement alone. Drug use must be dealt with on many fronts, from effective drug rehabilitation for those who become addicted, to drug education for young people that communicates the real danger of drug use in a way they can understand and accept, to a revolution in the way drugs are treated on television, in movies, magazines, music and other media.

Another essential component in the fight against drug abuse and addiction is the strong role families can play. Studies by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse found that teenagers who ate dinner with the family five times a week were far less likely to drink or use marijuana than those who only ate with the family twice a week. In addition to spending more quality “family time together parents arm themselves with accurate and easy to understand information on the subject of drugs and sharing this information with their children will go along way to impacting the negative affects of drug abuse on our American way of life. Knowing the historical ramifications of drugs in our culture is the beginning of the learning process. The next step is to understand the Life Cycle and Mechanics of Addiction as covered in the next series of articles.

As drug users turned into drug addicts, drug rehabilitation tried to keep pace. A variety of new philosophies of treatment arose but for most addicts, rehab had a revolving door that kept addicts coming back to treatment when they relapsed. At the same time that drug use was escalating in the late 1960s, the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program was being developed inside the Arizona State Prison system. An inmate and heroin addict named William Benitez found the works of American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard, and with Mr. Hubbard’s support and assistance, founded the program he named as a shortened version of “NARCOtics-NONe.”

Since its inception, the Narconon program has expanded into a network of more than 120 centers around the world, proving that drug addiction does not have to become a revolving door for addicts, by virtue of the fact that 70% of Narconon graduates remain drug-free. In it’s more than forty years of operation, the Narconon program has shown that when the barriers to successful recovery – cravings, depression and guilt – are fully conquered without the use of addictive substitute medications or psychiatric diagnoses, addiction can be eliminated. In 2001, the largest facility in the Narconon network, Narconon Arrowhead, was established in Oklahoma.
To find out more about how drug abuse and addiction can be defeated, call Narconon Arrowhead. Call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website at www.stopaddiction.com.

No Place to Hide: Part V LSD Awakens a Sleeping Giant

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director at Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma

LSD AWAKENS A SLEEPING GIANT
Part V

America's first War on Drugs was launched in 1920 with the enactment of the Dangerous Drug Act by Congress. Laws to ban over-the-counter sales of narcotics and cocaine were slammed into effect across the country. A special federal commission was sent to Hollywood to clean up the drug use and promiscuity that had been favorably portrayed in movies and celebrity lifestyles since the movie industry began. At the same time, the moral American majority began a vicious campaign employing scare tactics and stiff legal penalties against the use of dangerous narcotics like heroin, cocaine and even marijuana. As a result of these efforts, drug use began to decline in the U.S. By the 1950s, the festering drug problem had begun to heal. Unfortunately, a new threat was growing just out of sight. Shortly after the Dangerous Drug Act was enacted, a Swiss scientist named Albert Hoffman was discovering one of the most dangerous drugs to date, LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide. This mind-damaging and powerful hallucinogenic drug would eventually catapult American culture into a drug crisis from which it has yet to recover.

Although Dr. Hoffman began his research and development of LSD in the late 1920s, the true mind-altering properties on humans were not realized until he inadvertently sampled the drug himself in 1943. Hoffman's famous account of his bicycle ride through the streets of Basel, Switzerland, while under the influence of LSD became a big hit and ended up being published in psychiatric publications around the world. In the 1990s, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a report titled "LSD in the U.S. - The Drug" in which they state: "Sandoz Laboratories, the drug's sole producer, began marketing LSD in 1947 under the trade name "Delysid" and it was introduced into the United States a year later. Sandoz marketed LSD as a psychiatric cure-all and hailed it as a cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behavior, 'sexual perversions,' and alcoholism. In fact, Sandoz, in its LSD-related literature, suggested that psychiatrists take the drug themselves in order to 'gain an understanding of the subjective experiences of the schizophrenic.' In psychiatry, the use of LSD by students became an accepted practice; it was viewed as a teaching tool in an attempt to understand schizophrenia."From the late 1940s through the mid-1970s, extensive research and testing were conducted on LSD.

During a 15 year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books and 6 international conferences, and LSD was prescribed as treatment to over 40,000 patients." (Ref. U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration LSD in the United States http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/lsd/lsd-4.htm) No other drug in history received the degree of attention and support from the psychiatric community as LSD did. No other drug in history was used so broadly by the very medical practitioners that were prescribing the drug for treating their patients. The Sandoz Chemical Company went as far as promoting LSD as a potential secret chemical warfare weapon to the U.S. government. Their main selling point was that a small amount added to a water supply or sprayed in the air could disorient and turn an entire company of soldiers psychotic, leaving them harmless and unable to fight.From 1947 to 1970, LSD and various more potent versions like its powerful counterpart BZ were used in top secret mind control and military experiments on selected mental patients, soldiers and very possibly unsuspecting sections of the American public. The military's interest was sparked by the fact that it took only the very tiniest amount of the drug to create complete psychosis in a human mind, as well as the fact that the drug could be assimilated into the body by touch or breathing its fumes. During the Bay of Pigs crisis, the Kennedy administration and the CIA seriously considered slipping LSD to Castro as a means of neutralizing the Cuban leader. Further research and experimentation with LSD sought also to determine its usefulness in programming an individual kill on cue. BZ, which is 1000 times stronger than LSD, was used during the Vietnam War by members of the U.S. First Cavalry Airmobile Division, with devastating effects on Viet Cong irregulars.LSD had risen to a drug of prominence within the psychiatric community long before the drug ever found its way to the streets. It was, in fact, this endorsement that set the stage for LSD's acceptance into a large sector of American culture. There is no doubt that the actions taken by the manufacturer of the drug and LSD advocates within the psychiatric community like Dr. Timothy Leary were what kicked off the marketing campaign to promote LSD to the public at large. By the end of the 60s, the sleeping giant of drug abuse would awaken to the LSD anthem and launch America into a new drug crisis which would leave hundreds of thousands of young people emotionally scarred and American society changed forever.In the last decades of the millennium, LSD was joined by a host of new addictive substances and a resurgence in the use of old drugs. Fortunately, at the same time drug use began to increase, a new workable solution to addiction that ended the need for repeated visits to rehab was also developing. This article is the fifth in a series presented in the public interest by Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country's leading drug education and rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. For more information on the rehabilitation and educational services of Narconon Arrowhead, call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website www.stopaddiction.com. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State Prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 120 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.

No Place to Hide: Part IV Cocaine adds a new page to the history of american addiction

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director at Narconon Arrowhead Drug
Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma

COCAINE ADDS A NEW PAGE TO THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN ADDICTION

Part IV

If you have been following this series of articles, you have learned how opium and its derivatives morphine and heroin made their way into America’s channels of commerce. In time, each substance acquired an expanding customer base, anchored by the addictiveness of the drug. In the Twentieth Century, the popularity of cocaine in its various forms would prove to reach much deeper and farther than any drug to date.

Cocaine is derived from the coca plant, a plant that grows wild in the high mountain ranges of South America. Natives of these areas chewed coca leaves for the stimulating effects that enabled them to perform heavy labor at high altitudes. The use of coca leaves as a stimulant stretches back more than 2000 years.

In 1860, an Austrian scientist developed a way to process the coca leaves and so extract the first sample of cocaine. By the 1880s, the medical world recognized many uses for cocaine. As cocaine has a numbing effect, it was used for surgeries of the eye, nose or throat. An early advocate for this drug was world-famous psychologist Sigmund Freud. Freud broadly promoted cocaine as a safe and useful tonic that could cure depression and sexual impotence and in 1884, announced that it could be used to treat morphine addiction.

Cocaine got a further boost in acceptability when, in 1886, John Pemberton included cocaine as one of the main ingredients in his new soft drink, Coca-Cola. It was cocaine’s euphoric and energizing effects on the consumer that was mostly responsible for skyrocketing Coca-Cola into its place as the most popular soft drink in history.

If you have read the earlier articles in this series, you read about Civil War veterans who became morphine addicts after being treated for their war injuries. In fact, John Pemberton was a Civil War veteran and a morphine addict, just like thousands of others. He drank his own beverage in an attempt to cure himself of his addiction, and advertised it as a cure for exhaustion, headaches and addiction to morphine.

From the 1870s to the early 1900s, cocaine- and opium-laced elixirs, tonics and wines were openly consumed by men and women of all social classes. American society was, in fact, pervaded by a drug culture. Even celebrities such as Thomas Edison and the famous actress Sarah Berhardt promoted the “miraculous” effects of cocaine elixirs.

Because there were no restrictions placed on acquiring these drugs in the early 1900s, narcotic use was an acceptable way of life for a large number of people, many of whom were people of stature. Pharmaceutical company Parke-Davis sold a kit for the administration of cocaine, promoting that the drug “can supply the place of food, make the coward brave, the silent eloquent and... render the sufferer insensitive to pain.”

Cocaine was a mainstay in the silent film industry. The death of a number of young starlets, a director and an actor, linked or rumored to be linked to drugs, broadcast the drug and alcohol habits of the industry. Then as now, celebrities are role models that can and do influence the masses.

With the world’s most famous psychologist, the man that invented the light bulb, a stable of Hollywood silent film stars, and the inventor of the most popular soft drink in history all on the “Cocaine Is Good” bandwagon, the message was unmistakable. Even Pope Leo XIII endorsed the excellence of cocaine-fortified wine in advertising posters.

As had happened with opium, morphine and heroin, cocaine began to be used as an active ingredient in a variety of patent medicines and remedies. Dr. Tucker’s Specific contained 1.5 percent cocaine and As-ma-syde contained 16 percent cocaine. But Ryno’s Hay Fever and Catarrh Remedy measured 99 percent cocaine! And Cocaine Toothache Drops promised “Instantaneous Cure!”

For many years, tonics and remedies containing cocaine, sometimes mixed with other narcotics, were administered freely to young and old alike. It wasn’t until some years later that the dangers of these drugs became apparent.

In fact, it was the negative side-effects of habitual cocaine use that was responsible for coining the phrase “dope fiend.” This term came about because of the behavior of a person abusing cocaine for prolonged periods of time. Cocaine is such a powerful stimulant that prolonged daily use of the drug creates severe sleep deprivation and loss of appetite. A user might go days or weeks without sleeping or eating properly, finally breaking into psychotic behavior. They may hallucinate and become delusional.

Withdrawing from cocaine causes severe depression, so much so that the person withdrawing will do just about anything to get more of it, including murder. Or if the drug is not readily available, cocaine-dependent users may attempt suicide. A study in New York City later in the century found that 29 percent of all suicides aged 21 to 30 tested positive for cocaine.
As the dangers of cocaine use and addiction became more and more apparent, a public outcry arose to ban the social use of cocaine. This public pressure forced Pemberton to remove cocaine from Coca-Cola in 1903. The country’s legislators took notice, and cocaine was added to the list of narcotics outlawed by the Dangerous Drug Act of 1920.

Unfortunately, as with the earlier narcotics, the dangers of cocaine abuse were recognized by law makers after the cocaine habit had become deeply entrenched in the American culture. This habit is still with us today.

In the late 1970s, a new twist on the old habit came to light. Drug dealers had a method of testing cocaine for purity that involved cooking the cocaine so as to concentrate the active ingredient. The resulting rocks of crack cocaine could then be smoked, resulting in an almost-instant high. Unfortunately, crack cocaine was even more addictive than powder cocaine. In 1985, for example, the number of Americans ages 12 and older who admitted using cocaine in a national survey increased from 4.2 million to 5.8 million. The next year, cocaine-related hospital emergency room visits more than doubled.

Crack cocaine is the most popular type of cocaine being sold and consumed today.
With its intense addictiveness, crack has destroyed millions of lives and devastated millions of families since it was first introduced to the streets of America.
But even the pervasive influence of cocaine in the early 20th Century and the subsequent arrival of crack cocaine would not define the drug problems that have assaulted Americans for the last few decades. From the 1970s to the end of the millennium, drug abuse found dozens of new forms and millions of new users. Pharmaceutical companies seemed to participate in the developing disaster by distributing painkillers, sleep aids and mood elevators that were addictive and prone to abuse – without emphasizing the addictiveness in their briefings to the doctors who would administer them to patients. Sophisticated drug trafficking channels meant that whatever type of drug was desired would probably be available anywhere in the country that one found himself located.

As there is no place to hide from the supply and abuse of drugs in this country, the only protection comes from understanding the problem and knowing how to solve the problems of drug abuse and addiction when they arise. We will address these points in upcoming articles in this series.
This article is the fourth in a series presented in the public interest by Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country’s leading drug education and rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. For more information on the rehabilitation and educational services of Narconon Arrowhead, call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website www.stopaddiction.com. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State Prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 120 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.

No Place to Hide: Part III The birth of the american heroin addict

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director at Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma

Part III
THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN HEROIN ADDICT

Far from being a recent development in this country, drug or alcohol addiction has been part of the American scene for more than one hundred fifty years. And for thousands of years before that, drugs and alcoholic products have been intertwined throughout various cultures from the ancient Egyptians and Persians to the Romans. They have been labeled as the work of the devil, promoted as miracle cures for disease, even the key to finding God. Some drugs have healed or made terrible trauma survivable. Others have destroyed lives and even entire cultures.

As we begin to search for effective solutions for today’s drug problem, we must first understand the origins of drugs in America. How did they come to have such a powerful influence in today’s society?

Wherever there have been channels of commerce established, drugs and alcohol have eventually showed up as commodities of trade. This has been true since at least 1300 B.C., with the export of opium from Egypt to Greece and Europe. As soon as international trade to opium-producing countries opened in America, those who wished to trade in human misery and addiction could profit from this entirely new frontier. And then once the opium channels were open, those same channels could be utilized to purvey morphine, heroin and other drugs.

Opium began to arrive in the mid 1800s as Chinese workers immigrated to work on the railroads or gold mines. By the late 1800s, opium was a fairly popular drug. Soon, opium dens were scattered throughout the country, including well-known sites in Tombstone and Williams in Arizona, Deadwood in South Dakota, New York City, Denver and San Francisco.

The stereotypical cowhand bellied up to the bar drinking straight whiskey – or so we are told. That was only part of the story of the West. Often, the cowhand was not bellied up to a bar at all. He was lying in a dim candle-lit room, smoking opium in the company of an oriental prostitute. It was not uncommon for some of these cowhands to spend several days and nights at a time in these dens in a constant dreamlike state, eventually becoming physically addicted to the drug.

At about the same time, morphine became available to physicians in the United States. Earlier in the century, a German pharmacist had succeeded in deriving morphine from opium for the purpose of using it as a surgical and post-surgical anesthetic. But not only did it alleviate pain, it also left the user in a completely numb and euphoric state. The benefits of the drug were considered nothing short of remarkable to doctors of the time. Unfortunately, the addictive properties of the drug went virtually unnoticed until after the Civil War. It was even utilized as a treatment for opium addiction.

During the Civil War, morphine was used during the treatment of terrible war-related injuries. When tens of thousands of Northern and Confederate soldiers became morphine addicts, the country was plagued with a major morphine epidemic. A review of New York Times articles from post-Civil War years shows case after case of ruined men or morphine suicides among veterans of the war. Even though no actual statistics were kept on addiction at this time, the problem had grown to proportions large enough to raise serious concerns from the medical profession. Doctors were completely in the dark as to how to treat this new epidemic.

By 1874, the answer to this increasing problem was thought to be found in another German invention: HEROIN. Soon after invention, heroin was imported into the United States. It was pitched to American doctors as a “safe, non-addictive” substitute for morphine, specifically for use in treating morphine addicts.
Thus, the American heroin addict was born.

NARCOTIC USE REACHES NEW LEVELS OF RESPECTABILITY

From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, reputable drug companies of the day manufactured drug kits that anyone could buy and use at home for the administration of morphine or heroin or later, cocaine. These kits contained glass-barreled hypodermic needles and vials of opiates packaged attractively in engraved tin cases.

Laudanum (opium in an alcohol base) was also a very popular elixir that was used to treat a variety of ills. Laudanum was administered to children and adults alike as freely as aspirin is used today. Charles Dickens was known to consume laudanum for pain he experienced after he was injured in a train crash. Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president, were also customers. Preparations were given such comforting names as Dover’s Powder, Dr. J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne and Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, recommended for teething children. Unfortunately, opium overdoses were not uncommon among small children, resulting in their death.

Newspapers and magazines of the time carried advertisements for these and other narcotic products, unchecked by any legal restriction. The drug companies producing these products promoted their use as the cure for all types of physical and mental aliments ranging from alcohol withdrawal to cancer, depression, sluggishness, coughs, colds, tuberculosis, aches, “female trouble,” headaches and even old age. Most of the elixirs pitched by traveling “snake oil salesmen” in their medicine shows contained one or more of these narcotics in their mix.

As heroin, morphine and other opiate derivatives were unregulated during these times, they were able to be sold legally and freely until 1920 when Congress passed the Harrison Act. This new law created law gave the federal government regulatory control of the over-the-counter distribution of narcotics and dangerous drugs.

By the time this law was passed, however, it was already too late. A thriving market for heroin in the U.S. had been created. By 1925, there were an estimated 200,000 heroin addicts in the country. The market has only grown since then. In 2005, more than a quarter million people were admitted to treatment for heroin addiction.

In the next century, America’s problems with opium, morphine and heroin would be joined by a whole new set of problems. Cocaine (and the later derivative crack cocaine) were on their way from South America and would cut a wide swath through the lives of the affluent and the entertainers for many decades.

This article is the third in a series presented in the public interest by Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country’s leading drug education and rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. For more information on the rehabilitation and educational services of Narconon Arrowhead, call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website www.stopaddiction.com. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State Prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 120 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.

No Place to Hide: Part II

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

By Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of Narconon Arrowhead’s
Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center Canadian, Oklahoma

Part II

America – a country founded on principles of individual freedom, by strong-principled men and women who fought to create a social structure in which citizens could choose their religions and their own ways of life.

Some people may consider that the American way of life is under attack by political or economic factors. This may or may not be true – but one thing is certain: America and Americans are under concerted attack by those who manufacture, smuggle, distribute and sell drugs of abuse. This is so true that there is no corner of this great country in which illicit drug use or abuse of prescription drugs cannot be found.

Families who move from cities to suburbs or from suburbs to rural areas simply trade one profile of drug abuse for another. Instead of the presence of heroin dealers in an inner city neighborhood, a suburban mom now faces the threat of addictive prescription painkillers that are readily available in her children’s high school. Instead of the threat of powder or crack cocaine found in a metropolitan area, a family may face an even greater danger from the crystal meth available in a seemingly-pristine rural area. Crystal meth is a smokable form of methamphetamine with an even higher addictiveness.

The truth is that the drug epidemic now posing a threat to us all is not a new problem. Back in the 1960s as drug use in America hit a new plateau of acceptability, an early anti-drug crusader American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard wrote, “The acceleration of widespread use of drugs such as LSD, heroin, cocaine, ‘angel dust,’ marijuana and a long list of others has contributed heavily to a debilitated society. The drug scene is worldwide. It is swimming in blood and human misery.” It was this observation and grave concern that motivated Mr. Hubbard to spend the better part of the next twenty years researching effective solutions to drug addiction.

As the drug epidemic began to find its way from the big cities to suburbs and rural communities, the problem met so little opposition as to grow unchecked. This occurred because smaller communities did not have an adequate tax base to hire and train sufficient numbers of law enforcement officers to detect and arrest the dealers. The limited resources of small towns also meant fewer and smaller drug treatment programs, fewer trained substance abuse professionals or school nurses.

In the past decade, more federal funds have become available to help suburban and small town America address the drug problem. But in fact, there’s no pot of money unlimited enough to provide adequate drug enforcement, judicial, treatment and rehabilitation in every urban, suburban and rural area of this country that needs it. The numbers of drug users and addicts are simply too huge. In 2006, more than twenty million Americans ages 12 and older were current users of illicit drugs. More than 22 million people were classified with substance dependence or abuse, which meant that they were either addicted to drugs or alcohol or used enough of the substance to damage their lives.

Waiting for a federal handout will never be the solution. What CAN we do to protect our homeland from the curse of substance abuse?

There is actually a great deal that can be done to improve this scene. In this editorial series, we will arm you with information that can give you tools to impact the drug problem in your home or community. This is a fight that concerns us all. If communities are educated on drug abuse and band together in a united effort, we can be triumphant in this battle and so preserve the way of life we hold so dear.

It must first be understood that the driving force behind any drug problem is supply and demand. America has seen one drug crisis followed by another in recent years: marijuana and LSD, PCP, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine and more recently, Ecstasy and rampant prescription drug abuse. Law enforcement alone will never solve the drug problem in America. We have spent the better part of forty years and countless billions of dollars to bolster law enforcement and military actions against the drug cartels, importers, and street pushers all in an attempt to keep illegal drugs out of the hands of Americans. And to what end? The more money and resources we expend on drug enforcement, the more firmly entrenched and successful drug traffickers seem to become. Every U.S. interstate becomes a conduit for the movement of drugs. Every major airport, border crossing or seaport faces the challenges of the constant flow of drugs.

While law enforcement must be part of the overall solution, much more emphasis and resources need to be applied to the elimination of demand. Drug abuse is desirable or acceptable to far too many Americans. As long as this is the case, drug abuse will continue to spread relentlessly.

If there is one thing that we as Americans have successfully communicated to the world at large, it is that if we desire a product and are willing to pay for it, that product will be made available to us at just about any cost. Look at, for example, the Hula Hoop, Pet Rocks, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Pokeman, Tickle Me Elmo and Xbox. The main difference between these products and drugs is that while Americans eventually get bored with the toys, we continue to be intrigued by drugs despite the negative societal effects.

Why? Because of a sustained and successful marketing and advertising campaign directed at every one of us. As a result, we have become a drug-oriented society. Amazingly, this campaign has remained utterly invisible to most people. But it is this insidious campaign on behalf of both legal and illegal drug use that has created the patina of acceptability in the minds of hundreds of millions of Americans. When acceptability exists, demand is easy to develop. Against these odds, law enforcement doesn’t have a chance.

What may be most astonishing is that this campaign was started more than 150 years ago, resulting in patterns of substance abuse and addiction that have been thoroughly woven into the fabric of our development as a nation.

In the upcoming articles in this series, this campaign will be revealed to you. And by being informed, you will be far more immune to its effects in the future and be able to protect those you love as well.

This article is the second in a series presented in the public interest by Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country’s leading drug education and rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. For more information on the rehabilitation and educational services of Narconon Arrowhead, call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website www.stopaddiction.com. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State Prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 120 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.

No Place To Hide: Part 1

NO PLACE TO HIDE:
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRUG ABUSE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

This article was written by Gary W. Smith, C.C.D.C., Executive Director of the Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation and Education Center located in Canadian, Oklahoma.

Part I

If you follow stories in the traditional media about drug use in the United States, you might have heard some encouraging news recently. Perhaps you heard that teen drug use, particularly of marijuana or methamphetamine, is down. Or maybe you read somewhere that by blocking the sales of pseudoephedrine-containing products – an essential ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine – the number of meth labs found and destroyed has fallen dramatically. Unfortunately, these isolated statistics fail to tell the whole tale.

The story of illicit drug use in America is a devastating tale of lost life, abuse, neglect, emotional and physical damage and lost potential. Since 1996, statistics on the number of current drug users ages 12 and over have risen from an estimated 13,000,000 to 20,400,000. Drug abuse and addiction aggravate every social ill we experience, from child or domestic abuse to crime, medical costs, production and employment problems and social welfare costs.

No American is completely safe from the effects of drug abuse and addiction. There is no corner of the United States where drug abuse and addiction cannot be found. Areas designated as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) can be found in nearly every state, ranging from most of the counties along the I-5 corridor through California, Oregon and Washington, along the entire Mexico-U.S. border, and urban centers of the Northeast. What might be less expected are the hundreds of largely-rural counties scattered across every region of the country that are also designated as HIDTAs. Counties such as Benton County, Arkansas, Shasta County, California and Letcher County, Kentucky.

Even if a family can manage to find a safe neighborhood, create a secure home and convince their children of the dangers of drugs, each person in that and every other family in the country is paying more than a thousand dollars a year to handle the destruction created in our society by substance abuse and addiction.

In the whole of America, there is literally no place to hide from the effects of drug abuse and addiction.

How did we ever get into this situation? To answer that, let’s backtrack fifty-five years. It is the mid 1950’s, the illegal drug problem is not yet on society’s radar screen. In the 1950’s all anyone knew about illicit drugs like marijuana was that jazz drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa and actor Robert Mitchum smoked it, got caught and the media condemned them for it. Cocaine? That was a word in the lyrics to the popular Cole Porter hit “I Get a Kick Out of You.”

As for heroin, that was a drug of horror used only by the most degenerate and despairing individuals. Frank Sinatra’s character in the movie Man With a Golden Arm teaches us that. Most Americans tended to view drug addiction as an affliction of the urban poor or an evil obsession of a handful of musicians and actors who were too eccentric to worry about. In short, Americans in the 1950’s were completely naive to the nature and threat of drug addiction. We were clueless about the magnitude of harm and societal trauma that drug abuse would soon wreak on our precious country’s future.

Move forward ten years to 1965. The country was in the post-mourning years of President Kennedy’s assassination. The first onslaught of the English rock and roll music invasion with the Beatles and Rolling Stones hits our shores and took American youth by storm while President Lyndon Baines Johnson grappled with the escalating Vietnam War. At the same time, LSD began to find its way from the experimentation laboratories of the Sandoz Drug Company to the streets of San Francisco.

It is also at this time the first indications of increased heroin abuse in urban ghettos caught the attention of President Johnson’s White House staff. This increase, small by today’s numbers, was of enough concern for Johnson for him to convince Congress to enact the Drug Rehabilitation Act and ask for an annual appropriation of $15,000,000 to treat addicts. At the time, no one in government at the federal, state, or local level had any idea that in little more than twenty years’ time, heroin abuse in the U.S. would escalate to a point where it would cost taxpayers nearly $100,000,000 annually.

Society’s radar screen began to blip on the subject of illicit drug use. Unfortunately, not enough people were paying attention.

In the middle of the 1960’s, Americans still tended to view drug addiction as a problem inherent to the underprivileged. By the end of the decade, America’s view on drugs began changing. Drug use became popularized by movies such as I Love You Alice B. Toklas, starring Peter Sellers. Skidoo, starring Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing and a long list of other stars, featured the use of LSD. LIFE magazine and TIME magazine reported on the drug culture in 1969, featuring marijuana, hashish, LSD, cocaine and other hallucinogens. The art, music, movies and television slowly but insidiously presented the new Flower Power era as not only acceptable but popular and exciting. And while this was alarming to many parents of this period, most of us thought that unless we lived in one of the inner cities, we and our families were insulated from these pro-drug influences.

We have unfortunately learned the hard way that drugs have never respected and never will respect geographic boundaries. They are as present in suburban, affluent Plano, Texas, as they are in the slums of the toughest inner city.

From this vantage point, it's easy to look back at and see how our complacency allowed us to overlook the growing problem. However, if we look closer we will see that this failure was driven in no small measure by the assumption of the masses that it was someone else’s problem, not our problem. And it is this assumption that allowed drugs the time they needed to seep into every neighborhood in every city and class across America without prejudice.

In the 21st century in America, the message is loud and clear: There is no place to hide from the problem of substance abuse and addiction.

This article is the first in a series presented in the public interest by Narconon Arrowhead, one of the country’s leading drug education and rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. For more information on the rehabilitation and educational services of Narconon Arrowhead, call 1-800-468-6933 today or visit the website www.stopaddiction.com. The Narconon program was founded in 1966 by William Benitez in Arizona State Prison, and is based on the humanitarian works of L. Ron Hubbard. In more than 120 centers around the world, Narconon programs restore drug and alcohol abusers and addicts to a clean and sober lifestyle.

Don't suffer, ask for help.

One of the biggest barriers I have come across in helping people accept treatment is getting them to realize that it is ok to ask for help.

A list of circumstances have caused you to become addicted. This can be prescription pill addiction, alcohol addiction, heroin addiction, any type of addiction. No addiction is greater then the other when you are the person that is addicted.

Realizing that there is a problem and figuring out how to handle it though, can be two different things.

If you are using any substance on a regular basis, it could be addiction. If you crave this substance, it could be addiction. If you get the shakes, have anxiety, or sleeplessness when you don't have this substance, it could be addiction.

It is ok to say "I need help, will you help me?" And once you can do that you are on your way to getting help.

Call DannaSue at 1-800-468-6933 for a free consultation. Even if you are just concerned about a friend or loved one. It is best to call and speak with a specialist and get help then to wait for things to get worse.

Who have you helped today?

It is so easy for people to go on about their daily lives without ever taking a second thought about that person, friend, loved one that you know is battling drug, alcohol, or prescription drug abuse who needs your help. We all have our own things going on. Work, home, kids. It can be over whelming to all of us. But imagine trying to juggle all of this and battle addiction? It is an awful place to be.

Are you to the point that you don't think there is help for that person?

There is help. You just need to have the right answers. I can help you with that. Email me at dannasue@stopaddiction.com or call me at 1-800-468-6933 and let me help.

Are you trading drug for drug?

Every day on the news, in the papers, on TV you hear about Methadone clinics and all the "good" that these people indicate these groups are doing.

But has anyone ever told you that Methadone is more addicting and harder to get a person off of then Heroin?

That often the person trying to stop Methadone after they realize they are addicted they then have to go to a MEDICAL detox just to get weaned off of methadone.

Why would anyone do that? Why would you take another ADDICTIVE drug to stop the addictive drug you are already taking?

It is crazy. DON'T take methadone. Get help and handle your addiction.

Free Information Pack and DVD

Would you like to receive a free information pack and DVD about the Narconon Program at Narconon Arrowhead?

Learn about our state of the art facility and how we are saving lives everyday.

To receive a free pack of information please send a email to me at dannasue@stopaddiction.com.

No questions asked. Just good useful information.