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  Rx Addict Action
Defining moments in Rx addiction
 May 2012
In This Issue
OC: The New Face of Addiction
The Blogosphere
Face it Now
Brandon Update
Candlelight Vigil OC
Movie Premiere and Candlelight Vigil 

 

Behind the Orange Curtain, a full length documentary that features interviews with families who have been affected by the prescription drug epidemic that has swept that Southern California coast, including our family and many others, premiered this month at the Newport Beach Film Festival. 

 

Brandon and my wife and I gathered with a large group for a candlelight vigil before the premiere. We stood with many parents who wore pins and photos of their now deceased children.  Brandon stood next to a young man from the film who was once a skilled football player and is now only able to use two fingers and screams uncontrollably.  He understands that he can help others avoid his fate. His mother brings him to every high school assembly or classroom she can to illustrate how devastating RX drug experimentation can be.  

 

On Brandon's other side stood a beautiful young lady about his age, a former cheerleader who, because of an overdose of RX drugs and Ecstasy that put her into a coma, is re-learning to walk and speak.   

 

We were asked to write anything we wanted on the paper ring around our candles to be used in a collage.  I watched Brandon as he wrote on his, wondering what his thoughts might be in this solemn moment.  He scribbled on the paper, not without emotion.  I walked up as he finished and did what so many other parents could not do: I put my arms around my son. Brandon had written the names of many of his dead friends, and, told me the only reason he didn't write them all is because they wouldn't fit

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Greetings!

 

Every day, I am contacted by parents who saw my book or website or who were referred to me by a recovery center. Mostly, I think, parents call me because they know I'm not a doctor with a clinically-based understanding of the problem. I won't judge them, because I am them. 

 

I can admit I am affected and defined by addiction. I can admit I enabled my child to continue using. But I can see when the parents who call me are doing the same thing, and I call them on it. They might hate to be called on it. I am calling them out. I am calling you out on this too.  

 

If you are here, it is because you understand the gravity of this situation. Why does a Ritalin prescription need to be written in triplicate but not a Opana prescription? How do we most effectively spread the message about safe storage and disposal of opiates? Why are our prisons full of addicts? Why is heroin abuse increasing? 

 

There are so many interwoven issues and no simple way to untangle them. Please join me, and perhaps we can work through it together.  

 

Best regards,  

 

Bradley V. DeHaven

[email protected]

Bradley DeHaven promo
Bradley DeHaven 

Face it now, or live with it forever

 

When I sat in a room with 60 parents a few months ago and came to the sudden realization that I was one of fewer than 10 parents in the room who had not buried a child from prescription drug abuse, I felt that I stood apart. Then I discovered one thing we all had in common: We parents never saw it coming.  

 

Facing the reality that your child may be experimenting with drugs is a mental struggle to say the least.  We are all so accustomed to saying "my child would never..." that it is hard to admit to ourselves that they might, or, they are, or they did--and now they're junkies. 

 

My next book, due out this summer, will be a blunt look at what happens when we do choose to look away. 

 

A drug addicted child encounters no cliff steep enough that their addiction won't make them dive off. While we parents play a game with ourselves--Hear no addiction, see no addiction and speak no addiction--our kids might be selling their bodies for drugs, as the girl I call "Stacy" in my book did. 

 

"I was a cheerleader from Roseville one week and a drug addicted hooker the next," she told me. Her mother, by the way, thought she was out at night studying with a religious youth group.     "Not my child." 

 

I hope that my new book can help parents open dialogue with their children.  Be the first to know about its release, by signing up here for my RSS feed. 

 


Brandon Update 

portrait of Brandon
Brandon had a birthday this month. I am so proud of who he has become-- at 27 years old, he's held the same job for over a year, moved into his own place, and is paying attention to his health. I am so happy that we mark his birthday with celebration instead of sadness. So many parents can no longer hold their child, and their children's birthdays are grim reminders of what they have lost. We are very fortunate to still have such a great man in our lives. 

Be responsible about your pain management. 
Lock up your meds! 

 

RXDrugSafe Don't let the neighborhood get their illegal prescription drugs from you unwittingly.  If you have a house cleaner, a baby sitter, a teenager, dinner parties, anyone at all in your house and you take prescription meds, lock them up! 

RxDrugAddict.com friends get a special deal with RxDrugSafe. Check it out on my website!