Adolescent Prescription Medication Abuse

A new study reports that 20% of teens report having shared their prescription medication like Oxycontin with their friends. The study showed that teens traded everything from opiate painkillers to allergy medication, to antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. Many teens reported that they received medications in the same way.
Trading meds seemed to be the polite thing to do when I was using. I could easily trade my antidepressants for Xanax or Vicodin. Pills are easily hidden and they are easier to take undetected than drugs you have to smoke or snort. They don’t seem as dangerous to teens, either. I never considered that taking someone else’s Adderall or Darvocet could be as dangerous as snorting a line of speed or shooting heroin.
Getting clean at Visions helped me to realize that addiction can wreck lives regardless of the substance or the age. My pill abuse qualified me for help in the same way someone with a heroin problem needed help. No one at Visions ever made me feel like I was too young or “not enough” of an addict. I felt like I was too young, and that it hadn’t gotten bad enough to need help, but once I got out of my using fog, I could clearly see just how bad my life had become. I may not have crashed cars or ended up in jail, but I had completely lost sight of myself. In teen drug treatment, I got a chance to get to know myself again. I remembered that I wanted to do well in life, that I wanted to finish high school in Houston, Texas and get a degree. I wanted to be a good child and a good sibling. I wanted to be me again. Contact us for Prescription medication treatment.

Cocaine Contributed To The Death Of Billy Mays!

It has been found that cocaine use was a factor in the death of Billy Mays, spokesman for products such as OxiClean and Orange Glo. The medical examiner concluded that cocaine use was a factor in the development of his heart disease, which made it a factor in his death. The pitchman also had therapeutic levels of Xanax, Valium, hydrocodone and oxycodone. I never realized that cocaine can contribute to heart disease, but CNN reports that cocaine, a stimulant, raises blood pressure which can thicken the wall of the left ventricle in the heart.
It is truly unfortunate when anyone meets their end at the hands of drugs and alcohol, but celebrity drug-related deaths can help draw attention to the fact that addiction doesn’t discriminate. Drugs are a harmful force that can ruin lives, young and old. Drugs like cocaine and prescription pills can be very difficult to stop on one’s own. Visions Adolescent Treatment Center recognizes the seriousness of teenage drug abuse, and offers an all-encompassing program to treat all aspects of addiction, from the roots of the problem to the aftermath, such as damaged family relationships and academic performance. It makes me sad any time anyone dies unnecessarily from drug abuse, because we don’t have to be alone anymore. Help exists. Getting clean young provides a whole lifetime of continued freedom.

Finding Balance in recovery

Sometimes I feel lonely being the only person at my work or from my school friends who doesn’t drink or do drugs. Last night a bunch of kids from my school had a party and I wasn’t invited because I don’t drink. I guess some of my “normal” friends are afraid to drink around me because they think I’m going to go crazy and just grab the alcohol away from them and start chugging away. I know my limits these days, about what kind of situations I can put myself into, for how long, and how often. Being around alcohol now doesn’t really bother me because I have made a decision in my life to not drink or use. Over time in my recovery, it has become second nature. It’s just not something I do. This isn’t to say I spend all of my free time at raging keggers or raves- I have a deep involvement with a 12-step program and spend most of my time with my recovery friends mostly because we just get each other. I guess I just had a little flash of that loneliness I used to feel in early recovery when I really did have to cut myself off from people who drank or did drugs. It was a necessary precaution. As time has gone on, I feel more and more solid in my recovery identity and the occasional party where alcohol is being served doesn’t trigger me to use.
Finding a balance between my recovery life and my school or work life has been a challenge. If I spend too much time immersed in my recovery world, I miss out on other relationships and experiences. I don’t want to become a recovery zombie. On the other hand, I can’t devote all of my time to school and work. If I do that, I can easily lose focus on what is important, like my sobriety. I learned early on in adolescent treatment that if I don’t put my recovery first, I will lose it. Sometimes it has been hard to put it first when I see my peer group at school in Los Angeles going out drinking together. Sometimes I feel left out, but when I really think about it, nothing is as important as my recovery. When I feel left out or like someone my age should be out drinking and having fun, I have to remember where drinking took me, and all of the painful work I had to do to get where I am today. I may not have been invited to the party, but I have grown more in my early adult years than any of my work and school friends. I wouldn’t trade who I am or what I’ve been through for the world. I have very good friends in recovery and from my treatment center that love me and support me in my growth, and who will be there for me though all of life’s ups and downs. When I made the decision to go ahead and give rehab and recovery a shot, I lost my old life, but gained a new one that is better than I could have ever hoped for. So even though I felt kind of bummed out this weekend about not being invited to the stupid party, I ultimately feel grateful for the life that treatment helped me find.

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VISIONS ADOLESCENT TREATMENT CENTER – THE HARDWARE STORE

VISIONS ADOLESCENT TREATMENT CENTER – THE HARDWARE STORE

I am an addict. So for me, something that comes along with that is the comfort of isolation and an emotionally walled off presence. When I arrived at Visions, I was thrown out of the box that is my comfort zone. Leaving me “raw” I went into survival mode because it was my automatic response to shelter myself from getting hurt. But contrary to most of the rest of my life I was treated with respect, surrounded by and incredible staff of people whose primary purpose was to be a positive example in my life and let me know that I wasn’t alone and didn’t have to face whatever I was feeling alone. During my time at Visions I made some profound changes in regards to the way I show up in this world. Visions didn’t make me show up differently, Visions is where I was given a tremendous opportunity to take suggestions and learn some tools. Perhaps the most important of those tools was getting connected with other addicts in recovery. To be honest without knowing I needed to do this I wouldn’t have stayed clean. But don’t go thinking that just knowing you need a support group is enough to keep you clean. But an addict with tools is just an addict with tools. Anyone can tell you “these are the tools.” But Visions gives you the opportunity to use these tools, and practice positive action in your everyday living and get some experience under your belt. So when you go back out into the world you have some experience in being a productive member of society.

Winzer
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Visions Teen - Our View

To Teach At an Adolescent Treatment Center

To teach at an adolescent treatment center has been such a gift to me. I have recognized my own weaknesses and strengths. The residents’ struggles remind me of my own when I was their age. Their strengths remind me to strive higher than I ever thought possible for myself and others. The adolescent years are very crucial in forming their perception towards who they are and who they choose to be. It is the time that they can recognize that they have a choice. It is their crossroad.

The lists of drugs that are available today are much more extensive than when I was in high school. During my time, it was marijuana and alcohol. Now, the kids have been introduced to a variety of pain killers, more harmful drugs such as heroin, meth, cocaine and more. I feel for these kids. They have a difficult battle to fight. I have to say, they surprise me more often than I thought with their progression towards recovery than their regression towards using.

Solange Petrosspour

What is addiction?

What is addiction? What is its purpose? How am I, as a non-addict qualified to talk about it? These were some of the questions I struggled with when I first started my employment here at Visions Adolescent Treatment Center. I was first hired as a Program Aide almost two years ago. As days and months passed by, I started realizing that addiction not only applies to drug and alcohol addiction but to all areas of life. Addiction in my view, applies to any unhealthy behavior that consumes ones life and leaves the soul ill-equipped to confront its true desire and goals. Is it not that any mental obsession, a psychological compulsion or any physiological or historical disarray that has not been confronted can qualify as an addiction?

It is difficult to comprehend this disease, for there are no true physical evidences that can pinpoint its terrible effects. And yet, everyday I witness the struggle amongst the adolescents that walk through Visions Adolescent Treatment Center. These young adults have, at times spent most of their lives being addicts and not knowing that it is affecting their dreams. For most of them, they have no idea what their dreams are even made of. Upon entering this treatment center, they are faced with answering questions that puts into perspective their unhealthy belief system. This is one of the most heart-breaking and rewarding parts of this job. It is a challenge to watch these kids break down and cry and slowly try to put themselves back together. The only thing one can do is be there for them and guide them through their true self-discovery.

I have now the title of an educator at Visions. This position entails the responsibility of inspiring the residents to include their education as part of that foundation that they are rebuilding. It is difficult at times. Amongst the insurmountable assortments of character defects and psychological behaviors that they are facing, the last thing on their mind seems to be education. And yet, somehow I have to install in them the understanding that obtaining an education is in a way gaining freedom from our own formless and bored mind. Which at times is what steers so many of these young adults into drugs and alcohol. It is not an easy task, although the attempt has been the one thing that has kept me going.

With time passing, within the required stay of 45 days minimum, some residents realize the depths of their addiction; some understand the sadness of letting go of their drug of choice, which to them is their love at the time. There are also the ones that discover the gift of learning who they truly are and how to learn to be ok with who they are.

Working here has allowed me the opportunity to reiterate how I confront challenges in life through love, honesty, patience and forgiveness. It is reminding the kids that we do not know how to live life at times, but what makes it ok not to know is the wisdom we gain from our mistakes, our defeats and our own accomplishments. At last in my understanding, addiction needs not to be only with drugs and alcohol but the distorted mind process that inhabits the crevices of our thought process.