Huffpost - Drug Relapse Denial and How it Kills

Denial can be deadly. When teenagers aren’t educated about sex because adults insist that it’s not happening in schools, the outcomes are unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. When we don’t teach kids about designated drivers because we deny they would drink underage, the next casualty of drunk driving may be our own. This denial is especially apparent when it comes to drugs and addiction. We know that drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. We know that people are at the greatest risk for overdose if they relapse after a period of abstinence - such as right after leaving a drug detox, treatment center, or methadone clinic. We also know that most people do relapse, usually many times, during their recovery period. Common sense would dictate that if we value human lives, we should provide people with the education and tools to prevent an overdose, which kills many before they get a chance to recover. And yet, not only do few detox facilities, treatment centers, and methadone clinics in the U.S. provide overdose education, most are outright hostile to the idea. How has this relapse denial persisted within the treatment system? And more importantly, how can we change it before more lives are lost?

“Because drug tolerance drops during periods of detox and recovery, relapse is especially dangerous. If the person returns to using the same amount of drugs he was using before, the chances of a potentially fatal overdose increase dramatically, particularly if opioids such as prescription pain relievers, heroin or methadone are involved.”

This worries me as I see it in my son. Now that he uses less, smaller amounts trigger his symptoms more.

As I was reading this article about how America has been ineffective at handling addiction… a voice in my head was shouting… well, first we have to stop romanticizing drug use.

**I think my son has been self-detoxing off and on for years. He has had seizures-but cant get him to the neurologist-he just wont go. **

I’m sorry he won’t go to the neurologist. hugs