January 12, 2008

Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction recovery hour. During this hour we will be discussing topics on addiction as it relates to alcoholism and other drugs. Our phone lines are now open, so call us at 770-226-0920 with your questions and comments.

Brian: Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction recovery hour. My name is Brian Fujii, and, our colleague here is Gail Mattingly, and we are going to be talking today, a little bit of a continuation on our…

Jill: Did you just forget my name, Brian? (laughs)

Brian: No.

Jill: It looks like you just forgot my name. Well, I’ll wear a nametag.

Brian: Jill Mattingly.

Jill: Ok, thank you, thank you.

Brian: We’re going to be continuing our discussion on the topic of opiates, and especially as it related to adolescents. And then we’re going to be looking at how we can deal with addictions and opiates and how we might be able to truly get through some problems about maybe even outpatient detoxing and hopefully be able to help people letting people know there are some ways that people can overcome the addiction to opiates.

Jill: Yes.

Brian: So what did we talk about last week? We had some situations with an adolescent who was stealing stuff out of their mom’s cabinet.

Jill: Yeah, there was a story in the AJC back in Dec. and I brought that in and I was kinda thinking about it for almost 2 to 3 weeks and thinking I really need to address this, because at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery we see the fallout from a person that has started abusing opiates such as pain meds in high school, you know, or college—adolescence. So I decided to bring that story in and we started talking about it and I actually brought my niece in last week You were here. And she did a great job.

Brian: She did a fantastic job.

Jill: But she actually opened my eyes quite a bit to what was going on in the high school and how easy it is for you to find oxycontins, hydrocodones, vicodins, xanax, those types of things. While you’re standing at your locker someone might offer something to you. And we also brought up the fact that if you’re a high-school student and you have a parent or grandparent that you know has a huge big gigantic bottle of 120 of these pills in your medicine cabinet at home, what a great way to make friends, to say, hey man, I can get some of those for you and bring them to school.

Brian: Exactly. And you know, that’s where we were talking about last week is, it’s so easy to for some of these young people, even down in probably the middle school, not only just the high school, but how people are approaching them. I was very amazed, uh, when you know your niece was saying, hey, they approached me at my locker.

Jill: Yeah. Mmm hmm.

Brian: And we’re sitting there, my goodness, using a pen as a way to pass off that drug.

Jill: Right. Yeah, they clear out the inside of an ink pen and crush up oxycontin, put the oxycontin in there. They actually snort it while they’re at school. Ah, my niece was saying, you know, she’s seen girls leaning over the sinks in the bathroom taking a pill, you know, even found one of her classmates passed out in the bathroom, which was probably not necessarily an overdose, but too much oxycontin can make you very sleepy and depress your respiration to where you don’t feel like you can get up off the floor. So obviously this is a very big problem. We talked about this last week, we started to look at the fact that maybe parents need to take a look at what’s going on in their own home. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s just teenagers. Not at all. And what we’re finding out is that, uh, most people, they go to the doctor, they’ve pulled a muscle, you know, maybe they’re cleaning out the garage, pulled a muscle and…

Brian: Right.

Jill: The doctor…

Brian: Weekend warriors…

Jill: Right. The doctor, the doctor offers them, lemme give you a 90 Lortab to help you thru that, and just take this many and taper off them over the next couple day. Take a long hot bath and get massage and things like that. And you go home and you take one, and you realize it makes you a little nauseous. So it doesn’t really help; you just decide I’m gonna take naproxen instead. But, um, you leave that bottle in your medicine cabinet, and you know, maybe you have a dinner party where there’s 8 to 10 couples there at your house, and it’d be interesting to know if someone was looking in your medicine cabinet when they were in your bathroom.

Brian: Indeed… not just your family but your guests…

Jill: That’s right. And you know what’s interesting is that a lot of our clients have told me that one of the ways that they got their Lortabs and hydrocodones and oxycontins is they’d have a friend that would say, yeah, my girlfriend just had surgery and they would say, hey, I’ll come over and watch the game with you, and you know, they go to the bathroom and they raid the girlfriend’s oxycontins or lortabs in their bathroom. I mean they’re always looking for someone… or grandparents, that’s a very, very commonplace… you know older people have a lot of aches and pains and doctors don’t have a problem giving oxycontins, Lortabs, hydrocodones to older people if they’re complaining of severe arthritic pains. So that is something that sends a red flag up for a lot of people who are addicted to these. Who can I go to their house and without them knowing, just take maybe a handful, you know.

Brian: Well, you know, especially you mentioned that Jill and that is so many times, one of the things we do forget maybe there are a lot of people out there trying to sell their homes, for example.

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Brian: And you know it really behooves those individuals to put those medications up in a very safe place because who knows based upon what you were saying they could be going through someone’s medicine cabinet as they’re trying to figure out whether they like this bathroom or not…

Jill: You know what, I need to use the bathroom.

Brian: That’s right, that’s right.

Jill: They probably… That’s a great place to go and try to figure out you know if you can get a few more oxycontin, lortabs in a person’s home. A lot of times you know a real estate agent will ask you to lock those types of things up, but what we want to do today, as in the start of this show, as a recap of last week’s show everyone out there within this listening range if you have a opiate medication, pain medication in your bathroom, you know in a place where it’s obvious you are keeping your medicines and things like that.

Brian: And has easy access.

Jill: And easy access.

Brian: Mmm hmm.

Jill: It is a very good idea to take up those medications… you can leave the Tylenol and the Advil and things like that in the medicine cabinet, but take the medications, take the xanaxs, the klonopins, the even some muscle relaxers people look for.

Brian: Right.

Jill: And all of your pain medications and put them in a separate, locked area, especially if you have teenagers. Now we’re not saying your teenagers are taking your oxycontin, no, not at all, but don’t teenagers have friends over quite a bit, and it takes one comment at school for your teenager to say, hey, my mom takes that, just like that article we looked at to have the other kids say, ah, yeah, you know, let’s go do homework at your house, you know, that kind of thing. So never know, so hopefully this will changes people’s habits, you know, of keeping medications in their bathrooms and things like that. And then we’ve done our job, if people go home and change that, Brian.

Brian: That’s right. That’s exactly correct. You know as we take a look at these situations…I know you say something very interesting on the TV show…

Jill: Oh yeah.

Brian: It was interesting about how this mother ended up selling her son’s car because she found some alcohol in it.

Jill: You know this is a parent who is really on top of it. She is saying, ok, I know what it is like to be a teenager and I know what my son is going to be offered and I know what we may do to get friends and keep So this kid it looks like got a car and she soon found some alcohol under the front seat and she put an ad in the paper to sell this car. But the best part of it, and the reason she was on Good Morning America is the ad and the way it reads. I’m going to read it over the air right now: This is an ad in the for sale section, and it says, Olds 1999 Intrigue, totally uncool parent who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under the front seat. $3,700 offer or best offer. Call the meanest mom on the planet and then gives her number. (laughs)

Brian: (laughs) That’s fantastic. They probably got $307 for the car.

Jill: I know…

Brian: Listen, if this particular topic is touching a nerve and really something that you’ve been thinking about and you have maybe teenagers or maybe young adults in your home and this is troubling you, give us a call here at 770-226-0920, and if you’re outside the Atlanta area, 1-888-920-2665. You know, as we continue we know many times this is not just for children. Obviously we’re seeing a tremendous epidemic of the use of pain medications as ways that people use to get high.

Jill: It’s huge.

Brian: Both those that are legally prescribed medication as well as the ones that are being obtained through illegal means. And so as you take a look at we look at some of these issues maybe it’s a little more technical, but sometimes parents when you’re out there you see some strange things going on with your child or perhaps even with one of your loved ones, you might wanna take a look and say maybe something’s going on. You know, uh, if you’ve see a person this could actually be going through withdrawal, couldn’t it? For example, if they’re having flu-like symptoms, all the time, and like you said last week, you shouldn’t be having the flu once every two weeks. (laughs)

Jill: Yes. Yeah, you should not have the flu more than one time a year.

Brian: That’s right. So just some things, to be observant, to look for, or maybe if you’re seeing watery eyes or runny noses, or constant yawning or sweating, things like that, that may be coming about because perhaps you might wanna be asking some questions…

Jill: Right.

Brian: …about what’s going on.

Jill: So let’s talk a little more about the withdrawal symptoms. I think that’s really good for someone to understand, what a withdrawal really is.

Brian: Mmm hmm.

Jill: Because if you don’t know, you really do think someone’s just got the flu.

Brian: Just being sick.

Jill: Let’s, when we come back from this break, let’s talk a little bit more about this… 770-226-0920. Stay with us, we’ll be right back.

<commercial break>

Jill: Hey, welcome back to breakthrough addiction recovery hour. My name is Jill Mattingly.

Brian: and I’m Brian Fagee.

Jill: Yes, he is. And we are talking about pain medications, and especially addiction and dependency to pain medications such as opiates. And we really have a lot to talk about and helping the general public how to spot what’s going on that might even be happening in your household where someone is using pain medication not just using it, I want to clarify that, but abusing it to the point of being dependent on it. And one of the things I noticed in my research was we talked about this before was the sale of narcotics, of drugs for pain, such as opiates, has just skyrocketed…

Brian: Yes.

Jill: …in the past ten years. And a lot of that has to do with our aging population, has to do with, you know, the philosophy of pain, taking care of pain, and doctors, you know, are encouraged to keep people out of pain, so much more liberal riding practices are out there with many doctors. But I actually spoke to a pharmacist that I use and we started discussing this and he’s like, oh, Jill, you just don’t understand, I actually have friends that have these small pharmacies and if it wasn’t for the sale of oxy, not oxycontin, but hydrocodone, they wouldn’t be able to stay in business. They literally order barrels of…

Brian: Barrels?

Jill: (laughs) Yes, of hydrocodone, and usually have it, you know, fill prescriptions with it and it’s gone in less than a week.

Brian: That’s a lot of pain out there…

Jill: And a lot of cash, because a lot of people are coming in paying cash, and we know that probably why they’re doing that is because they want the insurance companies to see how much, how many prescriptions they’re filling of the pain medication. Because that’s going to go in to that insurance company, raise a flag, and they’re going to see that you’ve gotten three hydrocodone prescriptions filled in the last twenty days… something’s up.

Brian: Right.

Jill: They’ll send letters to your doctors and to the doctors prescribing it, so interesting little aside from the pharmacists out there and what actually is happening. But anyways, we were going to just talk a little bit maybe about how to recognize if a loved one or coworker or someone is struggling with addiction.

Brian: That is true. And there are some basic things to look for, and this doesn’t mean you have to be a psychologist to know this. If you begin to see some really major changes in the behavior of your loved one, something such as they start isolating a lot more…

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Brian: Or they actually start they find that the relationship is starting to diminish in the home… whereas maybe at one point they were talkative and engaged in conversation, and now they’re less talkative, or maybe they’re becoming more irritable…

Jill: Right.

Brian: Or they’re becoming more argumentative. These are some very clear signs that something is going on, doesn’t mean that’s the case, but it certainly might be something. Certainly find out if they had enough sleep the night before.

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Brian: Or if this keeps going on for a period of time. Or you begin, especially with an adolescent, finding things missing in your home, it could be that they may be taking things and selling it in order that they might be able to obtain their drugs.

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Brian: So these are some of the behaviors that parents or also husbands and wives can begin looking for, because we know that when people are moving into the area, especially of addiction, or they’re moving into addiction or also dependence, obviously they are spending more and more time trying to find their drug of choice, using that drug of choice…

Jill: Yeah, so preoccupied.

Brian: …and overcoming the issue. Preoccupation is a big issue.

Jill: You know, I had one of our clients that came through and went through outpatient detox, got on Suboxone, was doing very, very well, and one of the things he came in and his follow-up, he was so excited because for the first time he didn’t have to concentrate on where his next bottle of pills was going to come from, and he was going to be able to see his son, have his, he must be divorced, and his wife was going to let him have his son for the weekend, and he was so excited, he goes, for the first time I’m not going to be afraid my son’ll find the stash, and I’m going to play with him, because I won’t be preoccupied. I won’t be on the phone. I won’t be checking emails, so that I thought was a very interesting thing to say too.

Brian: It is. Hey, we got a call from Judy in Acworth.

Jill: Oh great.

Brian: Welcome, Judy, to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery hour.

Judy: Thank you.

Brian: And you have a comment.

Judy: Well, I do. I, uh, you mentioned some of what I had said to your screener. I don’t live here, we are going to relocate eventually, but I had surgery over a year ago and I was sent home with some Vicodin for pain, but it made me sick. So my husband strained his back doing some yard work and I gave him my Vicodin. And there must’ve been fifty-million pills in that bottle…I have no idea how many were in there… but he began to like it very much, and the next thing I know the bottle is empty because it wasn’t just straining his back doing yard work, it was then the excuse of something else. Whether it was a wrist, or an ankle, or his back or his head. And I guess in all honesty I just went along with it, and he began I guess to go thru some type of withdrawal because he didn’t have any anymore. And then he got hold of some, and he, it was very obvious that he was an addict. And it was having a serious effect on our marriage, and the work that we do. We do church work. So everything was falling apart. And we sought some help in our town… you mentioned Suboxone?…

Jill: Suboxone, mmm hmm…

Judy: So that is what he did. We sought out addiction treatment. They sent us to an addiction addiction treatment facility and he received the Suboxone addiction treatment. But that alone wasn’t enough, because we needed counseling.

Brian: That’s so true.

Judy: So he found out it was behavioral and he was predisposed in so many ways in his life to be an addict. And, um, I never looked at it that way, you know. He didn’t buy just one pair of sneakers; he’d buy three. He didn’t have one beer; he had five. As I look back on it now, it’s just been a very freeing experience for us. We’re coming up on a year that he has been… well, he had a small relapse, but we didn’t panic. And it was like a bump in the road, we felt like because that was exactly what we needed to do.

Brian: Is he getting some support now?

Judy: Absolutely.

Brian: Seeing a counselor, and working through that?

Judy: And we don’t hide about it. He doesn’t hide. He’s not ashamed. Because we found out there are so many other people, even in our church, that have been dealing with this type of problem.

Brian: It is.

Jill: Wow.

Judy: So we’ve got the help we need, you know, we have the doctors that we need, but we also have the support of family and friends. But I would say to your listeners the behavioral counseling was key for us.

Jill: Wow.

Brian: You know, that’s so true, because so many times, Judy, that after a person actually comes off and gets outpatient detoxed, off that opiate, the psychological dependence is very complex and also lasts a long time… can be up to maybe a few months, up to maybe a year or two. They really do need that support.

Judy: And now when I look at labels, you know, it does mean take it if you need it for pain, don’t just take it. And, uh, we have found out there are things you can take for pain that are over the counter that work sometimes just as well. But we’ve also found that he doesn’t have as much pain as he used to think he did.

Jill: How has this been for you, Judy? I mean, the family member goes through it as well as the person who’s dependent.

Judy: Well, I saw myself as part of it. I mean, truly, I knew he was taking them, how could I not?

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Judy: But, if it was making him feel good, and that’s terrible, but I just went along with it. I had no idea what was happening to his body.

Brian: Well, you know, that is the big thing, Judy, is that many times people look at it that way. Well, it was prescribed by a doctor, it’s filled by a pharmacist…

Judy: Absolutely.

Brian: …and it’s paid by insurance, why not take it? It’s legal.

Judy: Well, I’ll be honest, and when you see…

Brian: It’s so easy.

Judy: …them starting to go through some type of withdrawal… now we didn’t call it withdrawal, I had no clue what was going on, but I did get a refill.

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Judy: I did get some more so, and he took them and then I knew exactly what we were doing.

Brian and Jill: Right.

Judy: And then I was, you know, I guess, enabling, if that’s the word, him to do this. And I needed help. Because I was afraid to not let him take it.

Brian: Well I’m really glad you said that too. We’re coming up on the break, close on this one, that’s why Breakthrough Addiction Recovery, Judy, we offer a program called family education, because it really helps the family to understand what the person who is addicted is going through, and how the family, as you said, sometimes enables, and also really causes the person, or allows the person, to continue to use their drugs of choice.

Judy: That’s right. Oh, so do you, ok, I don’t know about how you do it, but where we are, we can go, um, now, if we need a meeting, we go.

Jill: Yeah.

Brian: Oh, that’s great.

Judy: We call them and say we’re coming in. (laughs)

Jill: Yeah, that s good. And that’s very much how we work also. We use the Suboxone specifically for outpatient detox off of …

Judy: That is phenomenal.

Jill: Yeah. It is. And that is what everyone comes back and says, is that, thank God for Suboxone. Judy, you’ve opened up a whole new topic. We’re going to talk about Suboxone when we come back.

Judy: Well it saved our marriage.

Brian: Keep it up.

Jill: Well, thank you so much for calling in and telling your story.

Judy: Ok. Good luck.

Brian: Have a great day.

Jill: And it looks like we’re coming up on a break, so we’re going to be right back. We’ll talk a little bit more about the medication, Suboxone.

Brian: Indeed.

<Commercial break>

Brian: Welcome back from the break to the Addiction Recovery hour. I’m Brian Fujii.

Jill: And I’m Jill Mattingly.

Brian: And we’re talking today about opiates and the problem of addiction and how people are getting into people’s medicine cabinets and trying to get that drug of choice to be either used personally or shared with others. We got an interesting call just before the break…

Jill: Right…Mmm hmm…

Brian: And I thought Judy did a wonderful piece here in telling us about how she and her family literally moved into this addictive process and we do know it is a family issue. It certainly isn’t just only the person who is having the addiction.

Jill: Absolutely.

Brian: And at that break you mentioned about Suboxone… maybe the group is very interested in learning more about Suboxone. So if this topic is really hitting a nerve, give us a call at 770-226-0920, and outside the Atlanta area, 1-888-920-2665.

Jill: Right, and if you are someone listening to our previous segment and you decided to go to your bathroom and take your pain medications out of the medicine cabinet and put them somewhere else, I want to hear from you. Let us know that you did that. And encourage other people to do the same.

Brian: What a new year’s resolution.

Jill: Absolutely. So we were going to talk a little bit more about how the opiates work. And some of the other things that you know maybe people can be looking for.

Brian: Exactly. Well you know that’s why we here at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery don’t look at addiction just as a problem with will, a problem with character, but we do understand that it is indeed a brain disease.

Jill: Yes it is.

Brian: And we do know the reason is for that is because we understand how the medications work. So especially like with opiates we know that they basically impact one of those major receptor sites. They call it the mu receptor site. That’s because it deals with pain. And so with this medication when people are using it, if they’re having physical pain, then we know that’s going to be a perfect medication to use. However, many people because of longevity years, I’ve heard that people shouldn’t use pain, these types of pain medications for more than 14 days, such as after surgery or if they have a major accident or injury, but yet they continue to use it because it makes them feel so much better.

Jill: Mmm hmm.

Brian: And when you take a look at the fact that brain pathway, which is part of that limbic system, or that lower brain, it’s below that big part of the brain that makes us think logically, you know, when I ask you what time it is, you don’t tell me that the sky is blue.

Jill: Yeah.

Brian: So… if they do tell you the sky is blue when you ask them what time it is, you better send them to us.

Jill: Send them to us…

Brian: Indeed. But, we do understand that that is a major issue, that the brain has now been impacted in such a major way, that no longer is there a rational control of the use. So now the brain is automatically craving and desiring the use of that medication. And there is no choice. So if someone says, why can’t my loved one stop, it’s because they can’t stop, because their brain won’t allow them to.

Jill: Yeah, there’s a couple issues going on… like before you said, because it makes them feel good. And that, a lot of times that’s how you get yourself kind of in a fog in thinking well I’ll just keep using these because they make me feel good. Work is very stressful, my home life is stressful, when I take a couple Vicodin, you know, I start to feel a little bit better, I’m on, I’m performing. And then when you decide, ok, I don’t want to do that anymore, and you start to decrease the use, or stop, you find out that you become in intense pain, which is the withdrawal symptoms. Then the issue becomes, I’m taking these medicines because I don’t want to be in pain. I don’t want to go through the withdrawal pain.

Brian: That’s right.

Jill: And so, I mean, it can start off really rosy, and feeling good, but it is very crucial to know that this medication will imprint itself in your brain function so that you cannot easily come off of it.

Brian: I’m glad that we said that too, Jill. That is so true, because people begin using this, and then the brain literally changes. It’s just kind of a rewiring of that brain.

Jill: But, you know, Brian, everyone is different. You know, the way they respond to medication. I for one had knee surgery, tried one oxycontin and, you know, was physically ill and nauseated for the next two or three hours. So it didn’t appeal to me at all.

Brian: Oh, I’m glad you said that. And that’s kind of the reason why that only five to ten percent of the people who actually try or experiment with drugs actually get into dependence, for exactly the same reason you said…

Jill: Because it just doesn’t appeal…

Brian: It doesn’t work for them. Could you imagine if someone was drinking and every time they drank they had a hangover and they threw up all the time? They probably would not look at alcohol as being a fun thing to do.

Jill: It’s all in the positive reinforcement. Or negative reinforcement.

Brian: That’s right.

Jill: But I think that’s interesting in the fact that not everybody that is taking medications is going to slip into this, and not everyone is going to feel effects if they’ve taken it longer than two weeks. They’ll be able to stop. They might feel a little more pain in the area that they were taking it for, but probably using Naltrexone, not Naltrexone, sorry, naproxen or Advil or something like that, they will feel better.

Brian: A lot better.

Jill: If you want to know what type of medications fall into pain medications, like opiates that we’re talking about, our website is chock full of information about these medications. And our website is www.breakthroughaddictionrecovery.com, and there’s extensive information on not just our program, but all of these drugs of addiction that we talk about. And links to more information that you may be looking for. Please take a look at the website, and if you’re interested in a program with us, with a problem with pain medication, you can also come into our program for a free consultation.

Brian: A free consultation any time. If this program is really striking you, 770-226-0920.

Jill: Stay with us.

Brian: We’ll be right back.

<Commercial break>

Jill: That’s right, 770-226-0920. Call us if you want to comment, question, get in on the conversation that we’re talking about opiate dependency and addiction. Call me if you’ve locked up your bottle of pain pills in the last twenty minutes after what we’ve been talking about. Tell me where you put…no, no, wait a minute, um, but let us know if you’ve really responded to some of the things we’re talking about. Hey, and we also have a line that people listening to us on streaming internet can call, 1-888-920-2665. We’re on www.920wgka.com every Saturday at 3:00. And I promised to talk about Suboxone that Judy that called in earlier talked about. I want to talk about it in terms of some of the clients that I’ve treated at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery with Suboxone. Most people what happens is they’ll call and say, hey, I’m taking twenty to twenty-five Percocet a day…

Brian: That’s a handful

Jill: Yeah, that’s a handful… no, I’m sorry, um, yeah, twenty to twenty-five Percocet a day, and some people even call in saying I’m taking ten to fifteen pills every eight hours, or every six to eight hours. And, you know, you think, ok, how can you take that many pills? Well, it doesn’t take long for tolerance to develop once you’ve started on these medications. You know, so that’s a typical call I get. And we talk about the efficiency of Suboxone in letting you come off of all the other medications, getting on to Suboxone, without the withdrawal that is so painful

Brian: It is.

Jill: And so difficult.

Brian: And that’s one of the major reasons why people have a hard time coming off of those opiates…

Jill: Exactly.

Brian: …because the withdrawal is so miserable. It won’t kill them, but they feel like dying.

Jill: Yes. And sometimes it can last, you know, three to four days, the symptoms. So obviously they are taken out of life for three or four days; you really can’t function when you’re withdrawing from this. So Suboxone becomes a really good tool to help people go from the dependency on the opiates, pain medication, over to functioning. With the medication, Suboxone is a long-acting opiate, but it is much different in the way that it functions in the brain, so it doesn’t allow withdrawals and it allows you to taper it without having problems.

Brian: Mmm hmm.

Jill: And I want to talk a little bit, one of my clients came through in the last few months and I’ll just call him Paul, ok… lemme just call him Paul… well Paul came in and he had gotten to the point where not only was he taking the handfuls every four to six hours, but he was using all of his waking hours trying to find when his next bottle of pills and where it was going to come from. And so he was the type that got on medication because he had a dental procedure, and it was normal, I mean, you get on this pill because dental procedures are very painful. And once he was on the medication he found out how good it made him feel, and then it turns out that the loved one in the house had had surgery so they had bottle of pills so he just decided to take some of theirs. Before he knew it, he was trying to figure out how to go to the doctor and get his next bottle. Well, you know, if you go to one doctor, you’re not going to be able to go back 14 days later and say, I just used the month’s worth, so can you write me more…

Brian: But was he doctor shopping…

Jill: Yeah, so what he started to do, was finding doctors, telling the story to, and kind of not letting each doctor know he was seeing other doctors for his prescription. This is commonly known as doctor shopping and it is illegal to do so. And so you have to be very careful if you’re going to play that game because you can definitely get caught. He said when he had come to see me; he had gotten more than twenty doctors around the area to write him these prescriptions. And he had them all, neither; none of the doctors knew that the other ones existed. So it was very, very dangerous, but not only that, and this is one of the things I want everyone to hear today, is he fell prey to thinking, well, here’s an easy way to get the prescription filled, I’ll do it online. I see those little ads on the internet saying, any pill you want, all’s you need to do, click here, give us your information, we’ll get a doctor to ask you a few questions, and then it’ll get filled in another state and UPS will bring it to your door.

Brian: You know I had one person actually tell me the UPS truck was a real trigger, every time they saw it…

Jill: Oh, absolutely. Well, he started to order this. Now, if anyone has tried that, they’ll find out it is very expensive to do it that way. So a $150 bottle of pills is going to be almost $300. So he started doing that. Now, finally, I think, after a few years he realized this is no way to live. I have no life. And he decided to get help. He had tried methadone, and methadone being the other way to try to come off opiates, it had not worked for him. Suboxone has worked wonderfully. Now here’s the reason why everyone listening should never order pain medications online: once they have your information, there is no way to stop them from contacting you if you do not renew your prescription with them. So, um, I ordered ninety hydrocodone, and I decide I’m not going to do this anymore, I get help. I’m off of the hydrocodone, but then one day my email says, hey, do you want to order more? And then they start to call me on my phone and say, hey, you haven’t refilled, do you want to order more? My client Paul said they were calling him three to four times a day…

Brian: That doesn’t sound like a doctor’s office

Jill: No, no…

Brian: That sounds like someone trying to push something…

Jill: It didn’t sound like an American voice either…

Brian: No, it certainly wasn’t.

Jill: And what had happened was, he really had a lot of hard, hard times with these calls. These calls coming through every single day, emails, his Blackberry going off, telling him he needs to reorder. Talk about triggers and alcohol cravings. He was having a very tough time.

Brian: You know, it’s interesting you mention about that trigger, and talking about having a tough time, I’m sure he was under a lot of stress. And you know if anyone tries to stop using especially opiates, do you know what the number one trigger is to use? Stress. So can you imagine if someone is constantly badgering you about wanting to use, you’re sitting there, and you’re getting these email flashes and all these phone calls, you can imagine that is going to be a significant trigger to use.

Jill: Well, I want to talk a little bit more about Paul and these triggers that can come from unexpected places, even when you are off the medication. Call us if you want to join in on this conversation. 770-226-0920. We’ll be right back.

<Commercial break>

Brian: Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour. I’m Brian Fujii, and I have with me Jill Mattingly. And today we are talking about opiate, opiate addiction, and addiction treatment At the break we just got through talking about Suboxone, and how that impacts a person’s ability to overcome the issues of opiate addiction. What we’re trying to do now is really help us to understand something about the Suboxone is a wonderful drug that really helps people to overcome the addiction to opiates but at the same time, it’s not a silver bullet. And we do know that people do need some other kinds of addiction treatment. We heard this earlier from Judy when she said that she and her husband was involved with some form of addiction treatment. And we understand that if a person’s going to really be able to get through addiction, it is more than just medicine. And we understand that persons do need to be involved in some kind of addiction treatment of psychosocial support. I know one of the things that we do, Jill, at our office is when we work with individuals, we help them to understand that many times they are dealing with feelings of guilt, or they’re dealing with shame, and they’re also trying to deal with some self-esteem. And I know that many times when people are using drugs, they are trying to find some way to overcome that emotional pain.

Jill: Absolutely.

Brian: You know, well, look, we got a call here from Louise, from Tucker. She’s asking the question about what causes pain. Welcome to our show, Louise.

Louise: Uh, yes, thank you. I don’t catch your show often, but I did this afternoon. I was fifteen years old when I lost my dad, so I became a hypochondriac. I have visited every doctor, every hospital, whatever, but as time went by, I realized it was the attention I needed. The pain was, you know, severe at times, when I was just sick, but it was because of the loss. Yesterday I was visiting Krispy Kreme Donut on Ponce de Leon, and there was a young man, a man who obviously stayed in the woods, he’d lost his mind…

Jill: Yeah, I’ve seen a couple of those there too…

Louise: And so I had this great interest in what causes pain. I know that if you cut your hand, you’re going to have pain. But where does it start?

Jill: You have nerve endings that, you know, your a survival machine, your body is and when nerve endings tell the brain that there’s a threat to the survival of the organism, then you have many different releases of hormones and what we call neuropeptides or neurotransmitters. One of the neurotransmitters or one of the substances that transmits pain is called substance-p. Very interesting to look at that if you have access to a computer or a textbook to look at substance-p, and the presence of substance-p allows, if you will, like gates to open up and that causes the brain to become very much aware that there is a problem. And it’s mediated as what we feel as pain. Now opiates close those gates and don’t allow that substance-p to cause that type of situation. But you know it doesn’t work, you know, one dose is not going to work indefinitely. You will find that it takes more and more and more. A lot of the people you see down there on Ponce de Leon Avenue, because a lot of people that are addicted to these substances, you know, cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin, frequent those areas, and you can tell if they’re in a state of withdrawal, in a state of intoxication, I mean, it’s very difficult to see that, but it’s very interesting. You can tell where their body is at any certain time.

Brian: You know, it’s interesting too, Louise, you mentioned this idea about pain, and many people who are on opiates, especially like the oxycontin and so forth, they not only have a problem with just physical pain, they also have a low tolerance for emotional pain.

Jill: Yes.

Louise: Exactly. Emotional thing and that’s my, that’s what I’m so interested in is the emotional pain, because, see, I’m a practicing Christian, so what I do is I practice renewing my mind, if you will. Because my understanding of Christianity is my identification with Jesus has already taken the pain.

Jill: And a lot of people use that as a very important support system for them. And Louise, we have someone else wanting to ask a question. Thank you so much for calling in and I hope I answered your question.

Louise: You sure did and I appreciate it.

Jill: Yes, and have a wonderful day. It looks like we have Kelly in Marietta. Kelly, you have a question?

Kelly: Yes, I’ve been taking hydrocodone and I don’t take it while I’m working, but on days off I take it. It’s sort of my way of kind of controlling it. But I think I have more of a mental addiction to it, and…

Jill: Kelly, let me do this, I want to talk to you. Can you hold on, we have to stop the show, but I’m going to talk to you off the air. Would you hold on and let me talk to you off the air about this issue?

Kelly: Yes.

Jill: And Kelly, hold on, we so appreciate your call. This is a big issue. Everyone out there listening, thank you, thank you for listening, and join us next week. 3:00, Breakthrough Addiction Recovery. I’m going to go talk to Kelly, Brian, so…

Brian: Have a great afternoon.