Malibu Beach Recovery Center

Or, A Response to Prescription Pill Abuse

One unfortunate repercussion of the prescription pill abuse epidemic is that it gives people who desperately need pain management a bad name. As one person commented on the Malibu Beach Recovery Center blog article, "Doctors who Fuel Addiction and Relapse," at best, they’re viewed with suspicion, and at worst, their needs can be brushed under the rug. Doctors may quit on them because they’re not getting better, as happened to that person.

You can’t blame him (I assume it’s a man) for complaining, and he’s right—Unless you’ve never faced unbearable pain and needed medication to get through the day, you can’t know what it’s like. And if those of us who write about prescription drug abuse want to be fair, it pays to include a comment that there are people who need pain medication and don’t abuse it. Or people who started out taking pain pills for a valid reason and unfortunately became addicted. There are those who hate the side effects, too -- hate the feeling of being high, but give in so they can function.

So thanks to the person who wrote in.  We’ve seen articles recently saying that the media is too heavily weighted toward ranting about the bad news, and we should have mentioned that. We should all be in the business of recovery together, trying to see that the doctors who are criminals are stopped, those who become addicted are helped, and those who need pain management are recognized and taken care of.

Sometimes an issue’s impact doesn’t hit people until it lands in their back yard. I’m not one of those people. Like many in the addiction and recovery field, I get the big issues, especially when it comes to abuse. But now that a drug store around the corner from me has been robbed by someone wanting drugs, pharmacy robberies ARE in my back yard.

It’s one thing to see the aftermath of a robbery on the news, when the camera focuses on the front of the pharmacy. It’s another to read “Middletown drugstore robbed of oxycodone by armed man” and realize you’ve been in that pharmacy.

The DEA reports that these armed robberies increased 81% from 2006 to 2010, and if current news reports are any indication, they seem to have increased even more in 2011 and so far in 2012. No pharmacy is safe. The industry publication Pharmacy Times advised hiring armed guards, or at least removing ads from front windows so police had a clear view of any danger inside.

Recently Joan posted about doctors who add to the prescription abuse problem by knowingly overprescribing pain pills to addicts: Doctors Who Fuel Addiction and Relapse. The robbery near my house came shortly after I saw the result of an accident on a New York state highway caused by a driver who was high on pain pills. A family died in the crash. A doctor had recently prescribed hundreds of pills for the driver. At the end of the news segment, another doctor was asked about this supposed professional, and his answer was telling. “He’s not a doctor, he’s a drug dealer,” he said.

And there’s an update on pill mills, which I posted about a year ago, that is not good news. You may remember that Florida authorities were shutting them down right and left. It seems many of the undesirables that start these storefront operations are simply moving to Georgia. “The people come completely out of left field without any pharmacy background and open a pharmacy in a sleazy strip mall right down the street from a pain clinic,” [the director of the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency] said. “You do a cursory background on them, and they’re living in a doublewide in Pembroke Pines, Fla.”

The USA Today article points out that drug dealers adapt. It seems safe to say that people who work in drug enforcement will never be out of a job.

2011 may well be remembered as the year the nation finally ­­realized that it is not just celebrities who are dying from legally prescribed drugs, but tens of millions of ordinary folk – from children to adults to aging baby boomers, in every city and town.  Many of us already suspected what a recent analysis by the Los Angeles Times confirmed:  drug deaths now outnumber those killed in traffic accidents, and prescription drugs are largely to blame.

Law enforcement has begun to take note:  most daily on the organization’s facebook page, Members of the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse (“NCPDA”) post news about crack downs on local “pill mills” – doctors who make a living writing prescriptions for anyone who pays.  

Unscrupulous doctors operating out of store fronts, with cash counting machines, or via internet, create just part of the grisly statistics.  National and state legislators now need to regulate the practice of pain management – not just for those who specialize in this new field, but for the doctors who staff the Emergency Rooms and Urgent Cares, and also dentists.  Too many of these medical professionals write prescriptions for narcotics and benzodiazepines without a thought to the long-term consequences, or the history of the patient.

Earlier this year we interviewed Dr. Marc Mandel, MD, a Beverly Hills doctor who often serves as a medical expert in Workers' Comp cases involving pain.  Most often the doctors whose treatment he reviews are anesthesiologists. To become pain management specialists they study the pain management curriculum – there is no residency program -- and pass a board test which certifies them in the sub specialty.  

Treatment of pain, says Dr. Mandel, is often related to blocking different nerves, something anesthesiologists are quite adept at doing. 

Dr. Mandel goes on to say:  “The classical textbook on pain management was authored by Doctor Aronoff.  In the introductory chapter of the classic book, he states, 'too many visits to this office may be deleterious to your health'.  And what Doctor Aronoff was stating is that the goal of pain management is to help the patients cope with their pain.  It’s not to simply ply them with medications.  Because if you have an addictive personality, and probably 15 to 20 percent of us do, you’re gonna get hooked on the medications.  And consequently, you’re gonna need ever increasing amounts of drugs to allay the symptoms of pain.

“Now if someone has terminal cancer, I think it’s important to give them medications to make their life as comfortable as possible since the end is near.  But if you’re dealing with a young, adult otherwise healthy person, I think it’s not the best practice to ply them with an enormous number of addicting narcotics.”

Just last week a client, we will call her Lynda, had a very impacted wisdom tooth which needed to be pulled while she was still in treatment. Lynda was born addicted to cocaine. She has battled most of her young life with substance abuse, specifically opiates.  The dentist was told not to use narcotics and he did not, but a subsequent infection sent her to another dentist.  His staff was warned that Lynda was in early recovery when the appointment was made, and the counselor who accompanied her wrote a note to the dentist.  Nonetheless, he handed her a prescription for percoset, a Schedule II (controlled) narcotic whose main active ingredients include oxycodone -- basically synthetic morphine and highly addictive.   As an addict, Lynda was really tempted -- after all it was a dentist who wrote the prescription.  It took virtually the whole clinical team to talk her down.   Next morning I called the dentist, more to enlighten him then to complain.  I said that a Class II narcotic could “awake the sleeping dragon” in any addict and cause a relapse.  My comments were met with pure attitude.

A week before that Lynda’s roommate Anais managed a trip to the Emergency Room for “excruciating” back pain.   A chiropractor confirmed that years of living on the street had taken its toll and that now, off pain-numbing opiates, Anais was finally feeling the consequences.   He also said she could manage the pain with over the counter ibuprofen.  The paramedics told the ER staff Anais wa a patient at an alcohol and drug treatment center.  The counselor accompanying her told the doctor she was in early recovery.   Yet when Anais shooed the counselor out of the room, the ER doctor gave her a shot of morphine. 

Krissie Bergo, who we wrote about last June, came to us through Workers' Comp.  She spent 73 days at Malibu Beach Recovery Center and then 6  weeks at Oceanside Transitional Living.  It cost her insurance more than $100,000 to get her off $50,000/month of toxic opiates and benzodiazepines, all prescribed by a single Workers' Comp pain management doctor.  Incredibly the next Workers' Comp doctor she was assigned ordered her back on hydrocodone, another addictive Schedule II (controlled) narcotic.  She knew enough about addiction to refuse.  Then she went to the dentist and though she told him she was in recovery, he used a benzodiazepine to numb her gums.  I believe it was inadvertent, but warned that Krissie was an addict,  he need to be more vigilant.  She spiraled out of control and had to check back in to MBRC to avoid relapse.

Any addict looking for a quick fix, or a prescription on which to relapse, has to go no further than our local Urgent care.  The doctor told me he would rather give the patient demanding narcotics what he/she wants and out the front door than risk a bad internet write-up.  

ER doctors who want to do the right thing may be putting their jobs at risk said Douglas, a former drug and alcohol counselor who called in to the September 27, 2011 broadcast of “Talk of the Nation.” Douglas told Neil Conan, host of the award-winning  PBS news show, that two of his current clients are emergency room physicians,  He said doing the right thing is hard when you are graded on performance, which includes patient feedback.

Douglas (caller):  “So they'll get clients, patients coming in who are drug-addicted, on Oxycontin, other drugs like you've mentioned, and will press for the drugs...If they spend the time discouraging that patient, it ends up scoring negatively against them.”

In the United Kingdom doctors are being sued for creating prescription drug addicts amid claims they have failed to follow safety guidelines published more than 20 years ago.

Are frustrated Americans going to "occupy" the lobby of the AMA this year?  Stay tuned.

Some years ago I met a woman in her 70’s who started taking Ambien, the sleeping pill, after her husband passed away. She couldn’t sleep without him, she said. Problem was, it’s usually prescribed for the short term, no more than a couple weeks at most, and she never stopped. “What’s the danger?” she asked. “I can think of worse things to be addicted to.”

She had a point with her second comment, but the fact remains: Ambien is addictive, according to WebMD: “Along with its benefits, this medication may rarely cause abnormal drug-seeking behavior (addiction). This risk may be increased if you have abused alcohol or drugs in the past. Take this medication exactly as prescribed to lessen the risk of addiction.”

HealthCentral offers these cautions:

Do not take a dose of this drug unless you have time for a full night's sleep of at least 7 to 8 hours. If you have to wake up before that, you may have some memory loss.

Dosage is based on your medical condition, other medications you may be taking, and response to treatment. Do not increase your dose, take it more often, or use it for longer than prescribed.

Do not take more than 10 milligrams a day. Older adults are usually prescribed a lower dose to decrease the risk of side effects.

There have been reports of people exhibiting odd or even bizarre behavior when taking Ambien.  Earlier this month a North Carolina man shot his estranged wife while on a dose of Ambien 12 times the recommended dosage (along with other medication). One of his lawyers said that, as a result of the pills, the man didn’t know what he was doing. Three years ago, www.cnnmoney.com listed people’s experiences on Ambien that included nocturnal eating, house painting and answering email, all unbeknownst to the pill-taker.

The WebMD site also notes that there are withdrawal reactions such as shakiness and nausea, vomiting and stomach cramps, and nervousness if someone stops the pills suddenly. These may be worse if they’ve been taking Ambien for a long time.

I keep hearing of more women who are taking Ambien to get to sleep. Like the woman I met years ago, they don’t see anything wrong with it. I have to admit I’ve had a few myself recently. But not often, and I’m wary. I don’t think they’re perfectly fine or safe.

On September 29, 2008 Krissie Bergo was admitted to treatment at the Malibu Beach Recovery Center.  She had not abused street drugs or alcohol; she was admitted because she was hopelessly addicted to narcotics and benzodiazepines.  Her pusher was “Dr. X,” her Workers Comp Pain Management doctor.

There is a doctor-caused addiction epidemic in California, but Krissie’s case, like tens of thousands of others, happened under the watch of Workers’ Comp.

When Krissie came to Malibu Beach she was taking daily large quantities of methadone, morphine, oxycodone, flurazapam and clonazepam.  She was also using fentanyl patches.  By far the most powerful and expensive of her medications was Actiq, which comes in the form of a lollipop, and has been approved by the FDA for terminal cancer patients. Krissie did not have cancer; she had carpel tunnel syndrome, which she developed while she working as a legal librarian for the Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”).  As a result of a botched (and probably unnecessary) operation on her elbow by a workers’ comp surgeon, she had also developed Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, a chronic, painful, and progressive neurological condition that affects the skin, muscles, joints and bones.  

An independent pharmacy estimated the cost to the MPAA and its insurers was a staggering $51,250 per month.  Krissie reports that she was taking most of the medications for at least 3 years. 

A workers’ comp defense attorney representing the MPAA, called the Center after attending an expedited hearing about Krissie’s condition.  Krissie’s MPAA health insurance had expired.  The MPAA workers’ comp carriers were refusing to pay for the expensive medical regimen prescribed by Dr. “X.”  She was going into withdrawal.

Here are some excerpts from the hearing transcript, called by Krissie's attorney George Savin and two Defense Attorneys.

DEFENSE LAWYER:  The primary issue we have here is that Dr. “X” who has seen [Kristen] for the last four years has basically come up with additional recommendations, which I believe are contrary to your previous recommendations.  In other words, he is suggesting she remain on some medication, including the Actiq, methadone, flurazapam, provogil, and clonopin.  He’s also suggesting a trial – adding a [narcotic] pump on her.  Would that be contrary to the way you thought she should be treated?

MEDICAL EXPERT:  My objection here is that the patient is taking more and more medications, each of which I might add, has their own set of complications, especially the gastrointestinal tract.  She’s building up a resistance to them and she has to be detoxified.   Now if this lady had terminal cancer, I would have no qualms about giving her all the narcotics she wanted. [But what] we have is a 33-year-old woman that was otherwise healthy and now, over the last five years of her life, basically she has been incapacitated and literally addicted to drugs.  She needs to be gradually weaned off her medications to the point what she is able to have her brain control her level of pain.  The goal of pain management is to help people manage their pain.  It’s literally not to turn them into drug addicts.

There was a huge article from the New York Times about the pain management people just ordering drugs helter skelter.  That’s also been a lot to do with the pain management people receiving kickbacks from the some of these drug companies.  These are very expensive drugs.  This is not like taking aspirin.

I would get her into detox as quickly as possible.  I think we’re all concerned that we have a young adult woman here with longevity of at least another 50 years and she won’t live another 50 years if she’s on all these medications.

At Malibu Beach it took a record 62 days to detox Krissie off the drugs prescribed by Dr. “X”.  (Heroin and alcohol detox generally take only 5-7 days.) She stayed in residential treatment an additional 11 days to stabilize, and then spent six weeks at Oceanside Transitional Living.

When she left treatment a new pain management doctor put her on “maintenance” Suboxone for her pain.  Suboxone is a Schedule III narcotic originally developed to quickly and efficiently wean addicts of opioids like heroin. It is now being used to control pain.  This new application is somewhat controversial among treatment providers, but for the MPAA workers comp carriers, it must have felt like a windfall.  Krissie’s post treatment pharmaceutical bill dropped to less than $1,500 per month.

Recently Krissie came back to Malibu Beach, not because she relapsed but because she wanted to get off the suboxone.  It was a very long and painful seven week detox. Suboxone has a long half life.  It gets in your bones.

Today Krissie is free from all narcotics, hoping to settle her Workers’ Comp claim within the month.  She proudly donated blood for the first time in many years.  

After Krissie we admitted another workers comp client.  We’ll call him Sam.  Sam was also represented by George Savin.  Mr. Savin insisted Sam come to Malibu Beach for treatment after he tried to kill himself.  Also suffering from carpel tunnel syndrome, several botched operations by workers’ comp surgeons left Sam depressed, unemployable, and about to be divorced.  Dr. “Y” placed him on 45 mg/day of suboxone to treat his pain, which cost his insurance carrier $1,130 every month.  Sam spent 30 days at Malibu Beach and left treatment able to lift his hands above his head for the first time in 5 years.  He now takes only motrin for pain and has returned to the workforce.

There are reportedly tens of thousands of Sams and Krissies in California living a diminished quality of life after suffering a job related injury because workmans’ comp doctors have turned them into prescription drug addicts.  (A recent study found that 3% of the workers’ comp physicians write 55% of the Schedule II narcotics prescriptions).  Defense and plaintiff lawyers alike have told us that some of these claimants cost the workers’ comp system $5,000-$30,000/month in pharmaceutical bills.  Attorneys repeatedly tell us that they represent claimants they would want to immediately send to treatment, if only the carriers would approve the one-time cost. 

Investing in treatment could significantly reduce the financial burden of the insurance carriers. 

Probably everyone has seen the TV series "House" at least once. He’s the arrogant, insufferable, brilliant doctor who always solves the case at the end. He’s also addicted to Vicodin. Not long ago I caught the episode where he goes to rehab solely to try and escape jail. A cop had caught him getting a prescription for pills for a man who was dead and bingo, got him for prescription fraud.

I saw the episode in a different light this time since I’ve learned so much about prescription pill abuse. Some viewers had probably been excusing House’s abuse a bit. Yes, their jaw dropped when they’d watch him pop a handful of pills into his mouth, but…well, that was just House. He had lost the muscle in his leg, it was causing him pain, and poor man, he was addicted. And that was pretty much the end of it.

His addiction really got to me this time around. House always said his addiction didn’t interfere with his job. Yes, he was brilliant, but…he was spouting the standard denial. How many times did Wilson, one of his few friends, yell at him that he was miserable?  House always had a pithy comeback for friends’ accusations.

“I live in pain,” he told the cop when he was apologizing to him for needlessly using a rectal thermometer on him. (Of course, House didn’t really mean it, even if he did sound sincere. He was hoping it the cop would drop the charges. It didn’t work. The cop said, “I don’t look at what you say, I look at what you do.” Spoken like someone who is knowledgeable about addiction.

House goes to rehab in the program and is his usual obnoxious self throughout, although there’s a glimmer of hope for him. He agrees with the counselor leading a group session that he can’t recover alone.

I liked his exchange with Cuddy, who visits rehab to question him about a patient. Mad at his attitude, she asks him, “See this wing? They built it because the program works.” House responds that Cuddy is engaging in faulty logic, that “they” built it because they’re rich.

“You find fault with everybody because you refuse to see yourself,” she says. Cuddy is always one for wanting him to be honest and engage in some self-reflection. “Thanks,” he shoots back. “I was running short on platitudes.” Cuddy responds that rehab is working for him. However, at the end of the segment, House is popping pills again, while still in rehab.

I’m waiting for another cast member to bring up a recovery organization for physicians. I don’t believe anyone has. For all the things the Gregory House character is, one thing is for certain. To those interested in recovery and addiction, he represents another addict on a dangerous path.

I know from an article I wrote on alcohol dementia for the Alzheimer’s Foundation Care ADvantage magazine (winter/spring 2010 issue, pg. 17), that when seniors drink excessively, it’s a whole different animal compared to young people drinking. For one thing, older people metabolize alcohol differently from their younger counterparts. In addition, the loved ones who may be in the best position to do something about it may be in denial about the extent of the problem. For example, an adult child might say, “Oh, let Dad have his drinks at night. He’s been grieving about Mom since she passed away.”

A “special report on older addicts” in a recent edition of AARP magazine quotes a report from SAMHSA as predicting that the “number of boomers with substance-abuse problem will double from 2.5 million in 199 to 5 million in 2020.” The article notes that the need for treatment will also double and blames it the proliferation of prescription medication use.

The article opened with the story of a 52-year-old man who was abusing alcohol and other drugs which devastated his family, including an 8-year-old son. The son becomes so enraged at his father’s drinking that he rips up a photo of the two of them, which propels his father to agree to rehab.

I don’t know about you, but I like having as many facts as possible about addiction, and this author comes through. She notes that doctors have become more aggressive in attempting to treat pain in the last few years, and many pain sufferers have benefitted. However, the pills cause euphoria, which contributes to the problem of addiction. One doctor even prescribed Oxycodone to a 50-year-old who had become addicted to it in the past and told the doctor so.

As Candy Finnegan also pointed out when I interviewed her, the article reminds readers that the intervention industry is not regulated so families have to do their research when selecting an interventionist. Families can contact rehab centers, who can usually recommend professionals, and should also ask anyone they’re thinking of hiring about his or her clinical experience. And even though one family in the article chose to include a young child in an intervention, the author includes a word of caution about doing this.

It’s an interesting—and cautionary—article. Wish I’d written it!

One non-profit that’s high on my list is the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse. It was started, as so many organizations are, because of one family’s tragic loss. Last year, Arizona State University student Joey Rovero took a lethal dose of alcohol and prescription pills prescribed to him by Rowland Heights (California) osteopath Dr. Lisa Tseng.  He died one day before winter break. Here’s Joey's story.  Doesn’t it just make your heart break?

His parents (see photo of Joey with mom April on left) started NCAPDA to raise awareness of the dangers of prescription drug abuse, and another family with a similar story has lent their voice as well. They have also enlisted several groups to help them, as well as reporters Lisa Girion and Scott Glover, who have documented for Los Angeles Times readers the ongoing legal investigation of Dr. Tseng by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine.  Not only Joey but at least seven others recently died from narcotics prescribed by Dr. Tseng. .

Take a look at some of these findings from the Office of National Drug Control Policy:

• After marijuana, prescription drugs are the most abused illegal drug among young people. 

• Teens are turning away from street drugs and using prescription drugs to get high. New users of prescription drugs have caught up with new users of marijuana.

• Next to marijuana, the most common illegal drugs teens are using to get high are prescription medications.
• Teens are abusing prescription drugs because they believe the myth that these drugs provide a medically safe high.
• The majority of teens get prescription drugs easily and for free, often from friends or relatives.
• Girls are more likely than boys to intentionally abuse prescription drugs to get high.
• Pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin are the most commonly abused prescription drugs by teens.
• Adolescents are more likely than young adults to become dependent on prescription medication.

A video contest on the NCAPDA site is a way to further increase awareness. It’s for people ages 12-23 in the San Francisco area. You might also be interested to know that this group gives talks at schools and arranges panel discussions. There is also a page that allows you to enter your zip code and find a local pharmacy where you can safely dispose of old prescription drugs.

We need all the help we can get in trying to create awareness and avoid the senseless deaths from prescription drugs abuse. There are too many Joeys, and too many parents losing their children. My hat is off to his parents and those working with them.

NOTE:  Here is a link to April Rovero's testimony in Sacramento in favor of having the pharmaceutical companies provide funding for CURES, California's real time online database that helps doctors quickly discover if clients seeking prescriptions for narcotics are doctor shopping or pharmacy hopping.

A mom called the other night from Simi Valley, one of L.A.’s bedroom communities.  She was crying, begging for help.  She had been up the previous night with her 22 year old son – we’ll call him Bill.  He was so addicted to OxyContin and Xanax that she would check on him several times each night to make sure he was still breathing.    The night before he was so sick, she was sure he was going to die.

Her son, she said, has been getting prescriptions from half a dozen local doctors for the past 3 years.  He would show them two folders of medical records he compiled from accidents that occurred several years ago.  They would give him 150- thirty milligram pills per month.

He was crushing and snorting at least five OxyContin each day – more if he could get them.  He once smoked pulverized pills for a short period of time; he had never actually swallowed one.  He did swallow his Xanax – at least 60 each month, all prescribed by the same doctors.  OxyContin and Xanax, by the way, were key ingredients in the lethal cocktail that killed actor Heath Ledger in 2008.

Bill doesn’t drink or use street drugs.  He insists he did not know OxyContin was highly addictive, that the doctors never told him.  Once he understood he started trying to get off prescription drugs by going “cold turkey” because the family did not have enough money to pay for a medically-supervised detox.  He ended up having seizures and putting his parents into panic mode.

Hard to believe that just three years ago U.S. Attorney John Brownlee won a major legal battle in Virginia against Purdue, the privately owned pharmaceutical which manufactures OxyContin. 

“Despite knowing that OxyContin contained high concentrations of oxycodone, had an abuse potential similar to that of morphine, and was at least as addictive as other pain medications on the market, Purdue, beginning in January of 1996, with the intent to defraud and mislead, marketed and promoted OxyContin as less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal than other pain medications,” Brownlee told PBS Newshour in May 2007.  “Of the $600 million Purdue will pay, $130 million will be used to resolve civil suits brought by patients who say they became addicted to the drug…Over the years, OxyContin has legitimately helped many patients cope with pain, but its criminal abuse has been widespread. The drug has been connected with hundreds of deaths and arrests.”

Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Public Citizen Health Research Group spoke during the same PBS Newshour.  He said:  “…Someone in the company, it wasn't robots, designed this program to mislead doctors into thinking that this drug was much safer than it was and get them to prescribe it preferentially over other drugs.”

What has changed since then?  Not much.

Bill’s mom earns $10/hour.  Her husband, a chef, is on disability.  He was injured serving relief workers during Katrina.  She told me she could raise enough money to pay something for a doctor, but that was all.  Someone had given her the name of Malibu Beach Recovery Center.   I don’t know why because we are small, boutique and expensive.  Not a good fit.   

Together with our marketer, I called frantically around to find a free or almost free facility where Bill could get detoxed.  He wanted help, but as everyone in this industry knows, an addict’s “window of willingness” is very short.  I told his mom – “We have to move fast.” There was nowhere cheap enough to go except American Hospital in Pomona, which has a 4-7 day waiting list.  

It was getting late.  The mom was calling every few minutes.  She was very frightened.  She was also on Day 22 of a forty day march.  Every evening she walks from one side of Simi Valley to the other -- 10 miles -- to raise awareness for Bill’s plight and that of virtually all of his friends, friends he has had since kindergarten.  They are all, she says, severely addicted to OxyContin -- if they aren’t already dead.  With 28 more days of marching still to go, she had organized a 100 mom “Not One More” Promise Walk for October 9, 2010.  The goal?  Make the mayor and city council members aware of what is happening right under their noses.

It was a just cause.  We’ve already had several young clients from Simi Valley and adjacent Moorpark.  The parents all say the same thing:  They moved to these “Leave It to Beaver” communities from the San Fernando Valley to give their kids better lives.  Instead they became OxyContin addicts. 

We found a way to take Bill in for 7 days and get him detoxed.  Our plan was to then transfer him to one of the long term free treatment programs that do exceptional work but do not provide medically supervised detox services.  Once detoxed he chose instead to move in with a sober friend and work in construction.  He just called to report he is hiking and rock climbing alot; he assured me that when he feels cravings for OxyContin he does some of the yoga breath work he learned from our lead exercise instructor Oleg Yevseyev.  I told him to call if he ever needs help again.

The OxyContin epidemic is not unique to Simi Valley and Moorpark.  Last May I travelled to Sacramento with some of our alumni to support passage of a funding bill for CURES (California’s real time online narcotic prescription data base). The parents who spoke at the press conference were all from one Northern California Senate District, that of Senator Mark DeSaulnier who authored the bill.  All of their children had died from OxyContin overdoses (one of them, April Rovero, went on to found the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse).

Nine months earlier I had several conversations with Lynette Ropp, a mom who lives in El Dorado County, yet another area of California where young people are dying from their addiction to this powerful drug which many parents describe as nothing more than synthetic heroin.  Matt’s presence at Malibu Beach Recovery Center made me think of her, and her efforts to get Purdue Pharma to pay the costs of getting her son detoxed and treated.

“I continue to watch my son battle with OxyContin addiction. I am totally exhausted,” she wrote to the head of Purdue Pharma. “This past year has been very sad and stressful, checking constantly to make sure he is still breathing...Seeing him with dark circles under his eyes, watching him mumble his words unable to articulate himself clearly at times. So worried he will die.  I called 911 at one point and he was taken by ambulance to the hospital for overdose.  The rehab the doctor referred him to was closed for misappropriation of funds.  He had been attending a outpatient program but slowly that tapered off...A couple weeks ago at a softball game (he plays in a league with long time childhood friends) he was unable to throw a softball 15 feet.  My sister attended the game with her children and reports that he struggled to spit out a piece of gum.  Stumbling and cussing, humiliating himself in front of friends and family.  It is painful to watch my child who was such a talented, vibrant young man be totally depressed and sick...He needs professional medical help.  I believe I have found the appropriate facility.  Unfortunately everything comes down to money. So I find myself again contacting your office asking for help…”

Purdue never did provide the funds Lynette’s son needed to get professional treatment.  Instead he went to jail for 9 months because of multiple legal charges related to his OxyContin habit.  He is now clean and sober thanks to the largesse of California tax payers.

So here’s my question.  We did our part.  But what about the doctors who by now know that OxyContin is highly addictive?   Shouldn’t they have to detox these kids for free?  And what is the responsibility of Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin and still allows it to be prescribed in such lethal quantities?    Why haven't they set aside a very large fund to help Bill, and Lynette Roup's son, and OxyContin addicts across the country get their lives back?