Effective Drug Rehab Solutions for Virginia
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Virginia Meth Addiction Problem
Consider Galax, Virginia. It’s a small, picturesque town in Southwestern Virginia. Fewer than 7000 people live in this town and in the surrounding area. A stroll down Main Street takes you by coffee shops, antique and gift stores, a smokehouse and a deli. In front of the deli, three people are playing music: a guitar, a banjo, and a big bass viol. The town nestles in the middle of a crooked patchwork of woods and farmlands. An All-American small town - one that is inexplicably in the middle of a methamphetamine epidemic. Civic leaders have joined the Police Chief in appealing to federal agencies for assistance in stamping out the meth epidemic.
Unfortunately, Galax is not alone with this meth addiction problem. The whole Shenandoah Valley shares the problem. This is the area many people flock to for the gorgeous Fall colors. The valley stretches nearly to the Maryland border to the north and almost to Roanoke in the south.
And also, unfortunately, meth is not the only severe drug problem being experienced in the state.
High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in Virginia
The federal government has designated two parts of Virginia as a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). Northern Virginia cities such as Alexandria, Fairfax, Manassas and the counties around Richmond are included in Virginia’s HIDTA.
These areas have additional task forces assigned to them for the purposes of determining trends and how these trends can be countered. (Galax is asking to be included in the HIDTA.)
In these areas, the major problems are crack cocaine, heroin, marijuana, powder cocaine and diverted prescription drugs. Drugs come into Virginia on a wide variety of channels: private vehicles, rentals, commercial vehicles, couriers on flights, package delivery services, air freight and sea cargo.
A recent development in the pattern of drug trafficking is the establishment of two major drug distribution centers, one in Raleigh and one in Atlanta. This shift means that drugs coming up from the Southwest are usually in better supply. These facilities have also strengthened the position of Mexican drug trafficking organizations, who compete with Dominicans, Jamaicans, Colombians, and Vietnamese for their business.
Once the supplies get to the area and are re-packaged for retail sale, they are often distributed by street gangs in open-air markets, along major streets and in bars. Retailers in Washington D.C. and other areas may offer samples of heroin or coke to those they think might become good customers.
It’s observed that the depressed nature of inner city areas in Virginia contributes to the drug problem by leading people to think that the only way they can make money is dealing drugs, or they offer people a way to escape their economic problems. But this escape contributes to higher crime levels and these addicts seek the funds to maintain their habits.
Prescription Drugs: Safer than Street Drugs?
Prescription drugs are the preferred drugs of abuse by young citizens in affluent suburbs. Many of these young people misguidedly think these drugs are safer because they are manufactured under controlled situations and after all, they are prescribed by doctors. But the great majority of abused prescription drugs are quite addictive.
In fact, some people start with prescription drug abuse and then move on to illicit drug abuse. OxyContin gives a high similar to that of heroin but is more expensive. Young people may use Oxys at a party just a few times and then find that they can’t leave them alone. If the habit gets too expensive, they may switch to heroin which may also be more available. In a new twist, those who have been abusing Ritalin or Adderall, both ADHD drugs, are switching to methamphetamine as this drug’s distribution channels widen and the product becomes more available.
Methadone is a prescription drug developed to treat heroin addiction. It soon became a drug of abuse itself. Increasing methadone abuse in Virginia has resulted in a growing number of methadone overdose deaths - deaths doubled between 2001 and 2006, hitting 152.
Statistics of Addicted Virginians and Drug Treatment
Unfortunately, the result of enterprising drug traffickers is addicted Virginians. As there are always far more people who are addicted than there are drug treatment facilities, many people will fail to get the drug addiction treatment or the alcohol treatment that they need.
Out of a population of 7.5 million, 1.4 million state that they binge drink at least once a month, which means drinking five drinks or more drinks within a few hours. More than half a million people each year feel they suffer from alcohol addiction or substance abuse problems. And how many fail to get treatment? Annually, 150,000 people don’t find drug rehabilitation programs. More than 400,000 fail to find an alcohol treatment center to help them.
Real recovery from addiction is possible, no matter what kind of narcotic or liquor causes the problem. For many people, the solution is a residential treatment center with a drug recovery program that can provide evidence of its success.
Substance abuse treatment for alcohol consumption or drug abuse must work holistically for it to have a lasting effect. In other words, it must treat the damaging effects of substance abuse on the body but then it must also help the addict learn how to build a new drug-free life, sometimes from the ground up, when addiction has destroyed everything.
A thorough detoxification followed by counseling and life skills training enables a person in a drug program to see things in a whole new light so they can live an enjoyable, productive life again. This is the way the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program works.
In November 2016, Virginia’s Health Commissioner Marissa Levine announced a public health emergency due to the growing crisis of opioid addiction. In her announcement, she noted that emergency room visits for heroin overdoses for the period January-September 2016 were 89% higher than the same time period in 2015. She also noted that fatal drug overdoses had become the number one kind of unnatural death in the state. Not only had fentanyl been found in to be a major factor in these overdose deaths, but the far more powerful drug carfentanil had also turned up in drug supplies.
As a result of this declaration, the opioid antidote naloxone could be purchased by any Virginian rather than their needing a prescription. Doctors in the state were also urged to utilize the state’s online Prescription Drug Monitoring Program to ensure their patients were not seeing more than one doctor to obtain medications they could abuse.
Taking Drugs Off the Street
Northern Virginia, the areas around Richmond, Norfolk and Roanoke have all been included in the Washington/Baltimore High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (W/B HIDTA). Seven counties in Southwestern Virginia are incorporated into the Appalachian High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. These designations allow for additional manpower and funding to be allocated to fight the problems in these areas with the most intense drug trafficking and use situations. The most frequently seized drug in the W/B HIDTA is heroin, with 850 seizures of this drug in 2015. There were 6,000 pounds of marijuana seized.
The biggest threats in both HIDTA areas were heroin, cocaine, and prescription drugs diverted from legitimate use. What prescription drug misusers may not realize is that the pills they are consuming could be fentanyl or other drugs colored and pressed to look like authentic pills. Unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies in China and other Asian countries are happy to take orders over the internet and ship these counterfeit supplies into the United States.
Bringing the Addicted Back to Life
For five decades, the Narconon drug rehab program has offered a drug-free choice to families around the world. For some who arrive at our doors, it’s the first time they have ever gone to rehab. For others, it could be the second, fifth or tenth time. Many people tell us they did not find the answer they needed in an earlier rehab. Now looking for something totally different, they finally find what they are looking for at Narconon.
Other than a medically assisted step down that may be done as a prerequisite at a medical detox center, there are no substitute medications given as part of the Narconon program. Anyone needing medication for a physical condition would, of course, continue that medication on the advice of his physician. When a person begins the first step of the Narconon program, which is the drug-free withdrawal, he or she is well-supported through with generous nutritional supplementation that eases the discomfort of that process. Gentle physical exercises calm the body’s response to detoxing drugs and other activities help a person re-orient to their current safe surroundings. All these actions help make withdrawal a relatively tolerable, positive process.
Real Recovery
Truly recovering from addiction means that the harm drugs have done should be repaired. The New Life Detoxification goes a long way to helping lift the dark mood and unclear thinking of a person in recovery. By combining time in a low-heat sauna, a specific regimen of nutritional supplementation and moderate daily exercise, each person’s body is given the help it needs to wash away old, stored drug toxins.
For years or even decades, an addicted person’s body has been unable to clear all the residues of drug use. Lodged in fatty tissues, those residues can still darken one’s outlook. But as these residues are washed away during this special detox, life begins to look brighter and many say their cravings leave them as well.
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Recovering Life Skills as Well
Each person needs to learn how to make the right choices to protect sobriety after they go home. After all, life will not stop presenting challenges and there may be setbacks to be coped with.
The first phase of this training is understanding the difference between a trustworthy, social personality and one who hides his dishonorable motives. On his path to addiction, there were antisocial personalities so the recovering person must learn to identify and deal with this type of individual.
Each person will find that as he (or she) descended into addiction, he gave up his integrity along with his happiness. He must recover his self-respect if he is to ever give himself a chance at happiness in the future. He learns how to forgive himself and recover that integrity, to his great relief.
Finally, he needs to know how he can rebuild relationships and resolve other situations in his work or his community. He will learn how to determine the right approach to these problems and the formulas for improving any situation.
With these tools, both he and his sobriety are greatly protected.
Who’s Suffering?
Across the state, it was mostly adults between 25 and 44 who succumbed to opioid overdoses. As these are prime parenting years, the 1,420 drug-related deaths in Virginia in 2016 undoubtedly left many children with only one parent—or none.
While opioids take lives all over the state, in Southwestern Virginia, methamphetamine adds another layer of suffering. This is a rural, poor area and meth—a drug you can cook up yourself if you’re industrious—is making a comeback. In 2009, law enforcement personnel dismantled 28 small, domestic meth labs. Now they are dismantling more than 400 annually.
One analysis of the state’s overdose deaths revealed that of the 1,420 losses in 2016, more than a thousand were caused by opioids. Heroin and illicitly-manufactured fentanyl were the biggest contributors. Only 469 deaths were connected to prescription opioid overdoses.
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