Relieving New York’s Intense Struggle with Drug and Alcohol Addiction

New York is huge in every way. It’s a densely populated city, a major financial center of the world. It has a mixed population of every nationality. Because it’s such a vital business center, it has massive and busy channels of transportation and communication to every corner of the globe. All these qualities have long made it an irresistible target for drug trafficking organizations.

Several decades ago, it was traffickers bringing in heroin from Laos, Thailand or Burma who ruined New York lives. Later, Turkish heroin made its way into New York by way of France, inspiring the 1970s movie the French Connection.

While Mexican drug cartels maintain cells in hundreds of American cities, the channels in and out of New York have long been under the control of Dominicans and Colombians. Jamaicans, Nigerians, Salvadorans and other ethnic groups also contributed to the trafficking of drugs in the city and surrounding areas. But in recent years, these Mexican drug trafficking organizations have begun to establish stronger operations in the area.

The upshot of all those different groups working hard to get a piece of the pie is that there is no shortage of drug supplies in the region. The biggest threat has been heroin for many years, followed by prescription drugs, cocaine, and marijuana.

A Vast Wealth of Pharmaceutical Products

The distribution of pharmaceutical products is a whole other layer of drug distribution in New York. Painkillers are popular drugs of abuse, leading to hundreds of pharmacy robberies and burglaries. The map below shows the rate at which popular painkillers are prescribed for New Yorkers. The dark red areas, for example, show that per 100,000 residents, 60,000 or more prescriptions were filled for oxycodone and hydrocodone.

With pills, doctors manage the drug trafficking, overprescribing pills like Adderall and Xanax as well as painkillers. In one case, a doctor was reported to have prescribed so many unneeded medications that 920,000 pills of Xanax made their way to the illicit market.

With prescription drugs, too, the idea of making fortunes with illicit prescribing is just too alluring for some people. And so they agree to prescribe to those who are addicted and others who will supply drug dealers. There must be a solution for those who get caught in this trap.

Narconon and a Fifty-Year History

Narconon is a non-profit organization with a fifty-year history of offering drug-free rehabilitation services. Starting in the 1960s with one center in Los Angeles, this organization has grown into a network that reaches around the world. Centers are located in Russia, Taiwan, Mexico, Nepal, Italy, Colombia and several other countries as well as several locations in the U.S.

How can the Narconon program offer drug-free recovery, even for the withdrawal phase? First, medical detox may be necessary, if so, this is done in a separate facility to provide the individual with a medically supervised wean down to safely stop taking the substance. After this, with the experienced use of nutritional supplements to ease withdrawal symptoms and the use of unique techniques called assists to calm the mind and body’s reaction to this adjustment. Some people have described this process and the most tolerable withdrawal they have ever experienced.

Once withdrawal is complete, a thorough sauna-based detoxification takes the idea of breaking free from the effects of drugs a step further. Combining time in the sauna with a very exact regimen of nutritional supplements and moderate daily exercise, each person’s body is supported through a deep detoxification of old, lodged drug residues. Years of drug or alcohol abuse leave behind residues trapped in the cells that can affect one’s outlook and make one’s thinking cloudy and slow.

The New Life Detoxification reverses this cloudy, slow thinking as these residues are washed away as the person sweats in the sauna. Many people completing this step talk about how their outlooks become so much brighter. Some people even say their physical cravings for drugs are finally under control.

Proofing a Person from Relapse

What needs to happen now is that a person must be strengthened against relapse. This means that they must recover from the trauma of the past and must regain specific life skills that were destroyed by addiction.

On the objectives, each person learns how to return their attention to the present. Every person who spends time addicted will find his memory of the past to be a hindrance to the enjoyment of the present. There’s pain, injuries, losses, lies, terrors, and sickness in the past. Day by day as each person completes the steps of the objectives, these exercises help him leave the past in the past and start living in the present.

From there, life skills training teaches each person:

• How to choose the right friends and associates who will protect their sobriety
• How to recover one’s own personal integrity and self-esteem (to their great relief)
• How to overcome obstacles and cope with setbacks that might send one back to drug use to escape.

Greatly strengthened in life, a person is far less likely to resort to drug abuse once he goes home.

New York Overdose Deaths Keep Climbing

Much has been reported about the increase in drug overdose deaths in New York. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researched the incidence of death resulting from heroin or painkillers in 2005 and compared that rate to 2014, finding an increase of 2000%.

When the incredibly powerful drug fentanyl arrived in New York City, the number of overdose deaths topped 1,000 for the first time. Fentanyl has been found added to heroin supplies and pressed into counterfeit pills. It’s also being found mixed into cocaine supplies and some people go looking for a supplier who will sell them straight fentanyl.

Despite these severe problems with drugs, alcohol is the biggest factor in sending people to drug rehabs in New York State. But the proportion headed to rehab for alcohol keeps dwindling as heroin admissions climb as you can see in the following graph.

One thing is certain: Any New Yorker troubled with drug or alcohol abuse needs access to effective drug rehabilitation to enable him (or her) to create a new, sustainable, productive and enjoyable life.

For New Yorkers, the Narconon drug rehab centers in Michigan or Florida might be suitable choices. There are also centers in Florida, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, California, and Colorado. Whichever center is chosen, the program is the same. Each person works their way through a series of manuals that make the program consistent wherever it is delivered. Videos also ease the process of learning the skills needed to retain sobriety once the person returns home.

If you care about someone who is addicted or if you need help yourself, contact Narconon International today to learn how soon recovery can start at a drug-free Narconon rehabilitation center.