Restoring Oregon Lives to Sobriety and Enjoyment of Life
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While in most news media, you hear about a heroin epidemic sweeping so many states, in Oregon, the old enemy methamphetamine is still holding strong. It’s said that a hunger for this intense stimulant started in Asia and then moved east, initially infecting the West Coast. Legislative, law enforcement and educational actions reduced the presence of this drug for several years, but now it is again the biggest threat to peace and safety along the West Coast. One of methamphetamine’s unpleasant characteristics is that its use is associated with increased property crime and violence.
At one time, alcohol was the drug cited by nearly 60% of addiction treatment admissions in Oregon but this proportion has been dropping. Since 2011, methamphetamine admissions have been trending up and since 2009, heroin admissions have crept into a higher range, but at a slower pace than in many other states. Methamphetamine-related deaths have increased sharply as well.
Drug use in Oregon is higher than the national average. Oregon has the sixth-highest rate of drug use and the fourth-highest rate of prescription drug misuse. The areas of heaviest trafficking follow the Interstate 5 corridor north from California, bringing drugs up from the U.S.-Mexico border.
These high levels of trafficking and abuse visit tragedy on families from Ashland to Portland. Allowing Oregon and Oregonians to fulfill their potential requires bringing drug abuse under control which means better prevention and effective drug rehabilitation.
Fifty Years of Offering Life-Changing Rehabilitation
The very first days of Narconon were fifty years ago, before the general public had ever heard much about addiction or recovery and before there were any well-known rehab facilities. It started small, with one center in Los Angeles but has grown since then to dozens of facilities on six continents. From the very first days, the Narconon program had success helping people break their addictive patterns so they can build new sober lives.
The core of the program is much the same – give people the skills to understand and manage life. This enhancement builds a new foundation under people that enables them to withstand temptation if it crops up.
This life-changing service starts with a drug-free withdrawal to assist the individual to come off all substances as safely and rapidly as possible. Once withdrawn from all substances, a person begins on the New Life Detoxification—a deep detoxification step, one that is considerably different from what most rehabs would call a detox. In other facilities, a detox is just getting someone off the drugs they were taking. But here, it’s an action that reaches deep into the cells to draw out old drug toxins. When a body breaks down a drug so it can be eliminated, residues become lodged in fatty tissues. These residues can remain behind for years and have an effect on one’s mood and thinking. The New Life Detoxification uses special nutrition, time in a low-heat sauna and moderate exercise to activate this cleansing.
What’s the result of cleansing out these toxins? Many people say their thinking is clearer, their moods are brighter, their energy is higher, their cravings are reduced. Some people say their physical cravings are gone. That’s a great start to a new, sober future.
Bolstering Sober Living Skills
What needs to happen next is Objectives, a series of unique exercises to help extrovert the individual from the past traumas associated with their drug use. Once the individual is able to be present in the here and new, they embark upon the Life Skills portion of the program. Every person who is trapped in addiction creates harm and that means that guilt grows in their heart. With this burden of guilt, it’s hard for an individual to give himself (or herself) a chance at a happy life. Gradually, the life skills portion of the Narconon program brings back the person’s self-control, helps him find relief from crushing guilt, recover from past trauma and learn how to make sober choices.
These changes come about a little at a time over a period of weeks. Each person studies basic principles of sober, productive living and then applies them to his life. He learns how to differentiate a safe associate or friend from one who will sap his self-confidence and send him back to drugs or alcohol. He learns how to bring back his own self-respect – a major relief to anyone who has compromised his morals in the past. And he also learns how he can rebuild and restore relationships he damaged. Learning these lessons enables a Narconon graduate to weather setbacks and storms without lapsing back into drug abuse.
A Difficult Lesson for Oregon
So far, Oregonians are learning what may turn out to be quite a difficult lesson about legalizing drugs. As marijuana was made legal for medical and then recreational use, emergency room visits for cannabis-related problems have skyrocketed. The visits recorded by the St. Charles Health System hospitals hovered between 20 and 30 per month for years until criminal penalties were reduced. Then they began to climb. When possession was legalized in July 2015, visits were averaging about 170. When retail sales started in October 2015, they shot toward the sky. In August of 2016, they were approaching 700 cannabis-related visits a month.
When a person falls into the pattern of dealing with life’s pain with drug use, he cuts himself off from his own feelings. He reduces his own intellectual ability to solve problems. For more than fifty years, we have been honored to watch bright, purposeful individuals emerge from the fog of drugs. We welcome men and women from Oregon who need help to our rehab facilities in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Florida.
Find out why we never have to administer drugs as part of our recovery program. Each of our graduates learns how to rely on his own abilities, not a drug like Suboxone or methadone. To determine which of our U.S. facilities is the best for you, call 1-877-445-7113 today. We look forwarding to helping you or someone you love return to a productive, enjoyable life.
Oregon Substance Abuse and Treatment
If you traveled Oregon and spent time admiring its wild coastline, snowy peaks, lush farmlands and rich forests, you might think you had reached an area at last where the invasions of drug trafficking and abuse had not yet arrived. But you would be wrong. Any area with Interstates, with highways, seaports or airports is going to be exploited by drug traffickers. It doesn’t matter how many people become addicted or even lose their lives as long as these traffickers can stay in business and rake in millions of dollars.
In 1999, several counties in Oregon were selected to comprise a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Currently, eight counties are included in the list: Multnomah, Washington, Marion, Clackamas, Douglas, Jackson, Deschutes, and Umatilla. Lane County, which includes Eugene, is a county of interest and may be the next one added to the list.
Oregon Sees High Levels of Abuse for Many Drugs
Oregonians don’t specialize in their drug consumption. Marijuana is available and is abused everywhere. Methamphetamine is stated by many law enforcement officers to be the biggest threat. Cocaine is readily available, as evidenced by steadily rising arrest figures in the last few years. Heroin is a problem primarily in the Portland area. Prescription drug abuse, particularly among teens and young adults, has been rising the last few years, and now accounts for more deaths than any illicit drug. Club drugs such as MDMA (ecstasy), ketamine, LSD, GHB are frequently found in party or college environments.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations are responsible for most of the volume of drugs in the state. They traffic in cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana to all corners of the state. Their heroin is frequently stockpiled in Salem for distribution to Portland. A few local methamphetamine cooks make up batches of that drug, despite the restrictive pseudoephedrine purchase laws. The end result is that there is plenty of supply for any appetite for any of these addictive illicit or prescription drugs.
The Asian Connection
Asian criminal groups from Canada are responsible for more supplies of drugs coming into or being manufactured in the state. Vietnamese criminals enter from Canada and either set up channels for sale of potent British Columbian marijuana or they establish indoor grows in houses or apartments they convert for this purpose. They are expert at bypassing power meters to conceal the electricity that must be drawn for this purpose, and then they cover the windows, erect hydroponic tanks and grow lights and control the humidity. In the process, they normally ruin the house due to mold growth and structural damage to facilitate the operation.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations are usually the ones who set up the outdoor grows that are often found on public lands especially near the southern coast, on the backside of Mount Hood and in the northeastern part of the state. These grow not only damage the environment, they are also usually guarded by traffickers with guns, meaning they pose a real threat to hikers.
Pharmaceutical Drug Abuse High Among the Young
They are the second-most abused drugs by the young, after marijuana. Abusers get their drugs through illegal prescribing by unscrupulous health care professionals, illicit sale by dishonest pharmacists, thefts from hospitals or nursing homes or Internet purchases. Robberies from pharmacies have been on the increase recently. Most common drugs being abused are oxycodone products (OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan), hydrocodone products (Vicodin and Lortab), anabolic steroids and methadone.
Methadone alone causes more deaths than any other drug, with 131 deaths in 2008. Other drugs being held responsible for deaths are heroin (119), methamphetamine (106), cocaine (51), cannabis (46) and oxycodone (39). In most drug-related deaths, the decedent consumed more than one drug, except in the case of opiates/opioids, cocaine and accidental deaths after alcohol consumption.
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Eliminating Addiction and Substance Abuse Must Come About by Reducing Demand
No matter what civic leaders do about drug traffickers, no matter how many Oregon citizens go to jail for possessing or selling drugs, the demand must drop to bring this trade to a halt. While tens of thousands of Oregonians enter drug treatment facilities each year, as yet this treatment has not resulted in a noticeable drop in demand and use.
In 2008, more than 50,000 citizens found substance abuse treatment at a publicly-funded facility. More than half were there for alcohol abuse(18,355) or alcoholism plus problems with a secondary drug (10,619). Marijuana sent more than 8,000 to drug rehabs despite the claims of many people that the substance is not addictive. The amphetamine class, including methamphetamine, drives 7,165 people into drug recovery.
Narconon Offers an Improved Solution
But when this many people enter drug treatment and the problem does not go away, a better solution is needed. The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program offers a better solution with its residential drug recovery program.
A thorough detoxification followed by counseling and life skills training enable 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.
As more Oregon citizens fully recover from the desire to use drugs, the more they can return to the enjoyment of life in their beautiful State.
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