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While the toxicology reports are not yet complete, there is speculation that Whitney Houston's untimely death last month was the result of mixing prescription drugs with alcohol. It is well known that the six-time Grammy winner battled drug and alcohol addiction having entered treatment three times. Her death raises two huge issues for me that I wish to address this month.
The first issue is that many people around her knew she had an addiction disorder but chose not to do anything about the fact she had started using prescription drugs and alcohol again. The other issue is the unbelievable increase in recent years of prescription drug abuse. In fact in January of this year the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the US classified prescription drug abuse as an epidemic.
All kinds of people on talk shows in the last several weeks have been debating whether the people around Whitney Houston had a responsibility to try and stop her from using Xanax and other prescription drugs and alcohol. The answer is YES! People who have an addiction or have been treated for an addiction can't safely take narcotics, analgesics, sleep meds, or tranquilizers, and certainly not alcohol. Friends and family do have a responsibility to speak out or intervene.
If you have a history of addiction and you require medication for pain it is important to make sure your doctor is aware of your addiction. Unfortunately we have had patients in treatment whose drug of choice may have been cocaine, but despite our best efforts and education provided those individuals still believed they could consume the occasional drink.
I witnessed with dismay as Amy Winehouse's father described how well his daughter had been doing prior to her passing. He believed she had "beaten" her drug addiction. Amy Winehouse had been removed from the stage shortly before her death as she was too drunk to perform. Our friends in NA are incredibly clear and correct when they state that alcohol is simply "just another drug". If you have ever had a problem, whether alcoholism or drug addiction, you cannot safely use any other drug... ever. If you are in recovery and need to take prescription meds for a short term you have to ask someone close to you to monitor what you are doing.
If anything good has come from Houston's unfortunate death it is the media spotlight that has been focused on prescription drug abuse. The CDC reported that prescription drug abuse is now the fastest growing drug problem in the US. Their report states that "since 2003, more overdose deaths have involved opioid analgesics than heroin and cocaine combined. In addition, for every unintentional overdose death related to other opioid analgesic nine persons are admitted for substance abuse treatment, 35 visit emergency departments, 161 report drug abuse or dependence, and 461 report nonmedical uses of opioid analgesics."
Drugs like Oxy and Vicoden not only block pain really well, they also produce euphoria. However, tolerance builds fast and people have to keep upping the dosage to keep feeling that euphoria. It is interesting in recent months that the manufacturers of Oxycontin came out with a new version that supposedly makes it more difficult to abuse. The hard gelatin capsule is more difficult to be broken, crushed, chewed or dissolved by someone wanting to snort or inject it to get a bigger high from it. The jury is out on whether that will do any good - there are still other generics out there.
Narcotic painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin, along with benzodiazepines and sedatives such as Xanax and Ambien, kill about 70 people a day in the US. That's almost as many as die in auto accidents. Used properly these are all useful drugs, helping people deal with extreme pain or acute anxiety problems. It's also easy to abuse them. At Cedars we are now seeing almost half our clients with an addiction to prescription drugs, often in combination with alcohol or cocaine. This is a huge increase in the last few years.
According to the CDC, 76% of nonmedical users report getting drugs that had been prescribed to someone else, and only 20% report that they acquired the drug from their own doctor.
Even if someone is not physically addicted, we obviously need to do a better job of getting the word out there that you can't mix these drugs with alcohol.
This is a vexing problem that society has to start addressing. It's always sad to lose people with the talent of a Whitney Houston or a Michael Jackson, but their deaths do provide an opportunity to educate people about the problems associated with prescription drug abuse.
- Neal Berger, Executive Director
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