I happen to live in Kyle and also have the experience of attending rehab twice (2016 and 2019). I was never into pills, although I would gladly take them if they were being offered by a friend at a party, or there was a prescription lying around the house. Thankfully I got my shit together and don't engage in that type of destructive behavior anymore. Some of the comments and replies posted in this thread seem quite out of touch with reality though...
I spoke to a few folks I attended rehab / lived in a halfway house with, and those who had been using fentanyl said that nothing compared - subs, heroin, morphine, you name it. The first time I went to rehab, the majority of people there were there for pain pills and heroin. The second time around, almost all the opiate users were using or had at least tried fentanyl.
The problem with subs and methadone, is that it gets into your bones and both substances are addictive in themselves. Trading one addiction for another, even if less harmful, never works out well. Drugs being illegal isn't the problem here - I used to think that if the US followed in the steps of Portugal, the country would be much better off - we're talking school age kids here though. They're not thinking about legal consequences nor are they going to seek out help. They're going to try something out of boredom, some sort of mental state or because their friends are doing it, and with fentanyl many are going to end up dead.
It's easy to understand why kids are becoming increasingly despondent and increasingly turning to drugs for an escape. They don't have a chance to grow up before the weighty issues of the world are thrust upon their shoulders. Between social media, the news cycle, and the education system in our country - they're being done no favors. When they can't handle the load anymore, they often have no one to turn to as their parents are busy working to sustain a family. It's going to require a reckoning (for all of humanity) of what is truly valuable in life - chasing a dollar or being present.
Reading the headlines, seeing the billboards, hearing the stories on the radio while driving is all pretty surreal. I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is, other than making sure one's children know that they are loved and being the best parent one can. I know for me, fear is what caused me to use and that fear manifested itself in many forms - mostly a dissatisfaction with reality. I pretty much had to reshape my entire perspective regarding my existence and reason for being, before I found a way to move past my substance abuse issues. I'm not sure how you help a child realize there's more to life than what can be perceived with our five senses, and that every life is worth infinitely more than a pill or a fun time, but I suppose I get to figure this out with my own son.
I hope that we can all show one another a little more love in this world, and that we can also stop being sold on so much fear.
I had an oxycodone addiction in high school 20 years ago. Quite a few other students I knew did as well.
Many of them sought help for it. I did not - I quit cold turkey after my third mild overdose. I had access to a nearly unlimited amount (>400 pills) left over from an earlier surgery.
For me opiates were a very effective relief against terrible emotional pain. I think just being there for your son a lot, including him in your activities as much as you can, treating him like an adult that you accept, will go a long way to immunizing him against addiction.
It’s important that your son feel it’s safe to bring his shameful actions to you for hands-off advice and support.
That last sentence is definitely not how I felt growing up - not because I had bad parents - but because their parents were pros at shaming them and they didn't realize they were carrying on that legacy. I hope to break that cycle. Thanks for summing it up so succinctly.
I've been prescribed oxy a couple of times for minor injuries. I cannot function on oxy so I've never taken more than one or two of them. If a doctor offers me oxy, I flat out refuse.
Oxycodone should never be a default medication. Suffering through the pain of recovery from an injury or surgery is better than what I understand the suffering from oxy is.
I think that culture of medicine in the US where if you are injured or sick docs have to give you something to relieve all pain, at the cost of feeling totally numb or be a zombie, is totally wrong.
Obviously pain medication needs to exist but they don't have to be that powerful. It is normal feel pain through recovery and puts good markers on your own improvement process. How are people supposed to listen to their body signals if we numb everything?
For me I was not a fan of opiates when I was in intense physical pain while recovering from surgery. I stopped early and that’s why I had so much left over.
However, it was an ideal drug for emotional pain in later years and I was extremely functional on it. Much more functional than I was sober.
> I had access to a nearly unlimited amount (>400 pills) left over from an earlier surgery
What the actual fuck? Was this some kind of surgery with long term pain that needed to managed (over a year?) and you slowly built up excess pills, or was this really the quantity that some doctors were prescribing (hence the lawsuits)?
Drugs being illegal is a huge part of the problem here. Because it's manufactured with essentially no QC, fentanyl dosage varies hugely from pill to pill, it's being sold as other drugs or adulterated into other drugs, etc etc.
If adults could get their drugs legally, it would almost entirely eliminate demand for illegal fentanyl and thus prevent it from making it into the hands of kids. Sure, some pills would still be diverted/stolen etc by kids, but at least it would eliminate the class of problems where pill #1 gets you high and pill #2 in the same batch kills you
> If adults could get their drugs legally, it would almost entirely eliminate demand for illegal fentanyl and thus prevent it from making it into the hands of kids
There's already a wide variety of substances kids can legally get their hands on to get high with. Some are available for purchase at your local gas station, and are much cheaper than a Percocet. The drugs are being sold TO kids in this county, it's not a case of kids getting it from their parents. There are dealers in the schools selling the fentanyl and advertising it as other opiates. These dealers aren't getting it from their parents either, they're getting it from suppliers who are bringing it in from Mexico.
> Because it's manufactured with essentially no QC, fentanyl dosage varies hugely from pill to pill, it's being sold as other drugs or adulterated into other drugs
The fentanyl isn't being manufactured in the US and thus is not subject to any US drug regulation or quality control. It wouldn't eliminate the class of problems you're suggesting either as it's being purposefully pumped into the US. Drug users are always looking for the next best high - they don't stop because something is legal. It's eventually going to stop working for them anyway because, tolerance.
You're muddling up things. Yes, gas stations sell sketchy 'legal highs', but those are an entirely separate category of drugs from synthetic opiates like fentanyl. Dealers in schools selling hard drugs exist because the cartels have the economies of scale to produce and smuggle opiates in huge quantities, which their adult customers consume in huge quantities and pay (in aggregate) huge amounts for. If that adult demand goes away because they can get their hard drugs legally and safely elsewhere (the Swiss model), it is no longer profitable to peddle fentanyl in junior high bathrooms in exchange for a teen's lunch money.
> Yes, gas stations sell sketchy 'legal highs', but those are an entirely separate category of drugs from synthetic opiates like fentanyl
I never claimed they weren't. My point was that if it was just about kids wanting to get high, they could easily find one elsewhere, for cheaper and most likely it would be easier to obtain.
> Dealers in schools selling hard drugs exist because the cartels have the economies of scale to produce and smuggle opiates in huge quantities, which their adult customers consume in huge quantities and pay (in aggregate) huge amounts for
I don't disagree with this point.
> If that adult demand goes away because they can get their hard drugs legally and safely elsewhere (the Swiss model), it is no longer profitable to peddle fentanyl in junior high bathrooms in exchange for a teen's lunch money
I'm pretty sure people living in Portugal / Switzerland aren't legally buying synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and even if they are - the investment into social programs like substance abuse treatment, education and mental health, dwarfs whatever the US invests in these areas. Decriminalizing / legalizing all drugs or the manufacture and distribution of said drugs, is not going to solve the opioid epidemic in the US.
Drug addiction and death are profitable and there is much incentive for policy makers to preserve the status quo. The lack of social programs and infrastructure is arguably a larger hurdle we'd need to overcome before legalization would bear any fruits. Not every country is a Switzerland or Portugal and you can't just lift and shift and guarantee success. Even the countries that have implemented these types of policies have experienced increases in opioid use: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...
I spoke to a few folks I attended rehab / lived in a halfway house with, and those who had been using fentanyl said that nothing compared - subs, heroin, morphine, you name it. The first time I went to rehab, the majority of people there were there for pain pills and heroin. The second time around, almost all the opiate users were using or had at least tried fentanyl.
The problem with subs and methadone, is that it gets into your bones and both substances are addictive in themselves. Trading one addiction for another, even if less harmful, never works out well. Drugs being illegal isn't the problem here - I used to think that if the US followed in the steps of Portugal, the country would be much better off - we're talking school age kids here though. They're not thinking about legal consequences nor are they going to seek out help. They're going to try something out of boredom, some sort of mental state or because their friends are doing it, and with fentanyl many are going to end up dead.
It's easy to understand why kids are becoming increasingly despondent and increasingly turning to drugs for an escape. They don't have a chance to grow up before the weighty issues of the world are thrust upon their shoulders. Between social media, the news cycle, and the education system in our country - they're being done no favors. When they can't handle the load anymore, they often have no one to turn to as their parents are busy working to sustain a family. It's going to require a reckoning (for all of humanity) of what is truly valuable in life - chasing a dollar or being present.
Reading the headlines, seeing the billboards, hearing the stories on the radio while driving is all pretty surreal. I'm not sure what the solution to the problem is, other than making sure one's children know that they are loved and being the best parent one can. I know for me, fear is what caused me to use and that fear manifested itself in many forms - mostly a dissatisfaction with reality. I pretty much had to reshape my entire perspective regarding my existence and reason for being, before I found a way to move past my substance abuse issues. I'm not sure how you help a child realize there's more to life than what can be perceived with our five senses, and that every life is worth infinitely more than a pill or a fun time, but I suppose I get to figure this out with my own son.
I hope that we can all show one another a little more love in this world, and that we can also stop being sold on so much fear.