just say no - Jezebel

posts about #justsayno more →
In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
MTV Documentary Reveals Misery Of Pill Addiction
Dr. Drew's Celebrity Addiction Special Looks At The Link Between Narcissism And Substance Abuse
Parental Guidance Suggested
Fergie Schools Us In The Nuances Of Product Placement

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HereComesMyBaby
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
In my drug policy seminar, we learned that counseling programs actually SAVE the government money (when compared to the drug war).

So, YEAH.
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EKane
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
Addicts need to be treated like they have an illness plain and simple. The general public accepts life threatening diseases with pity and sympathy but those feelings end when the disease of addiction is brought up. We seriously need to quit treating people like social lepers when they have conditions that give rise to criminal behavior.

The crack heads in Chicago will steal anything isn't bolted down but do they need to be separated from their families and imprisoned for their addiction? In the famous words of Whitney Houston... hell to the no.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
My grandfather is a retired social worker, my grandmother a retired secretary for foster care and adoption, my dad a recently retired judge, my mom is a retired teacher, and my brother is a corrections officer in a federal maximum security prison. Our family business is dealing with the addicted and dysfunctional (I work with the media, which I content still fall into the "dysfunctional" category). I spent my entire childhood sitting around the dinner table listening to talk about who was addicted, who was an abuser, who was going to threaten my life at school the next day because my dad had taken their siblings away and put them into foster care, and other things no child should have to know - but I know I didn't have it nearly as rough as the kids who actually were LIVING with addicts as parents. I also once got to spend the night in a labor and delivery room with a 21 year old painkiller addict (who I did not know - this was for a newspaper photo essay) giving birth to her fourth child, while her husband, who had previously been arrested for abuse, ignored her and her mother screamed at the nurses. The woman went through multiple treatment programs, lost and got back her kids several times, got pregnant by her stepfather, and ultimately relapsed into drug abuse after selling her car for $25 and spending the money to get her alcoholic mother beer. I say this not to denigrate this particular woman, but to say that these things are fuckin' complicated, and I don't think any one study can find the answer.
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Flackette Goes Retro
04/14/09

@Flackette is a bored flack: content=contend
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@Flackette is a bored flack: From the bottom of my cold dead heart, thank you for saying this. There isn't a one size fits all answer for addicts, especially addicts who are supposed to be raising and nurturing another human being.
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Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
Everythin about the American criminal justice system, particularly when it comes to controlled substances, makes me want to curl up and cry. I come from a family of public servants- nurses and teachers and welfare-office workers who can't just use their own fucking judgement on the job because some asshat in congress with zero experience dealing with at-risk people thinks he knows what's best. My dad sees people every day who seriously need public assistance and who literally have no ability to survive on their own but can't approve them for payments because of tangled bureaucracy and dumb regulations.
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bonita applebum
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
As someone who has struggled with addiction issues, my heart goes out to these women.

It kills me that these women used "street drugs" which got them to where they are. There are so many middle and upper class women (for lack of a better descriptor) that are just as addicted, but operating in a different stratosphere because it is easy to hide prescription pill addiction. No one smells it, your teeth don't rot. You aren't dealing with shady dealers, you are working the dr. and pharmacists.

When these women get caught, the system is not nearly so ruthless. They hire good lawyers and work a system that gives them preferential treatment. Oh, these soccermoms are addicted and need treatment. But these women who are products of multiple generations of drug use, let's sit in judgement on them and lock them up. They are meth heads after all.
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EKane
04/14/09

@bonita applebum: Exactly. A Soccer mom who is addicted to Xanax or drinks a box of wine in one sitting is dealing with the same demons someone from the inner city is with a crack or heroin addiction. The disparities in the system make me sick. We're quick to overlook the addictions of one over another and it's not right... the war on drugs failed 20 minutes after it was inacted and yet we're STILL cleaning up the mess it made.
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mharker
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
Not to discredit this, but technically, can't any self-destructive behavior be classified as an illness?
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@mharker: *cough cough cough exactly cough cough cough*

I'm not going to deny that drugs/alcohol/etc. can fry your brain (which is the weirdest, creepiest, most interesting organ ever) and alter the way it functions. Your body DOES become dependent on drugs. But there was a point it wasn't: at one point it was a choice.
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Cimorene
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: Unless you were a kid whose parents gave you drugs. If a kid can't *choose* to consent to marriage or sex, then how can we say that they *choose* to get addicted to drugs?
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@Cimorene: While not an extraordinary occurance, unfortunately (this was, in fact, the case with one of my adopted cousins), I think it accounts for a pretty low percentage of drug addicts in general. So yes, there are mitigating factors but, in general (and I'm not saying the steps that led you to a needle or a bottle were easy ones) this isn't the case.
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J.D.Regent
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I don't know enough about the science of addiction to disagree with you, but I think the question is less whether addiction has its origin in illness or bad judgment and more about what the best way is to get people to stop using. And jail just isn't that effective.
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EKane
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: People that become addicted to drugs and alcohol do not know when their choices become a habits which lead to their all out addiction. It's still an illness no matter if someone knew they were getting hooked or not.

The only difference between casual users and full blown addicts is where their choice got them.
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NefariousNewt
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
Locking up people is never the solution, when it comes to mental health issues. Locking the "crazy" people up in institutions never did any good. Locking up the drug addicts has never done any good. Take a look at cigarettes: never criminalized, widely available, and yet lethal in the long term. And easily treatable. We spend more on the relatively benign addiction (by that I mean, easily treatable) posed by cigarettes, and yet we are not willing to put even that much effort into ridding people of an addiction which is far more detrimental. If we're really going to treat addicts alike, then why aren't smokers denied medical care? After all, "they did it to themselves."
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Beat Girl
04/14/09

@NefariousNewt: Smokers are denied a certain amount of medical care, though I see your point entirely.

I don't know if smoking cessation treatment is available in the US, as it is in the UK?
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Hooplehead is hamthrax's bitch
04/14/09

@NefariousNewt: Not sure how prevalent this is, but my company just instituted smokers and nonsmokers insurance rates. Smokers' rates being 2x as expensive, of course.
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prettycool
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
My step-sister was in a program similar to this. She was admitted to rehab while pregnant with her youngest, and they allowed her to keep the wee one with her. She is now out and doing wonderfully.
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morninggloria
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
What's the difference between being addicted to crack and just being a crack aficianado?
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Plum-Pie
04/14/09

@morninggloria: Money.
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rednrowdy
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
parents who introduce drug use to their own children and they grow up to be addicts...

i'm gonna stop there. it gets me far too angry.
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EKane
04/14/09

@lolobentley: I have a mother that is an alcoholic and I feel your pain. I think you may find solace in an Al-Anon group or ACOA group. I don't want to tell you to get rid of your mother but there comes a point where you can learn to detach with love. I don't want to push any 12-step recovery programs on you or anything... but I completely feel where you are coming from. If you want to PM me we can chat more but I wish you luck in finding a resolution to your feelings, I know how hard having an addict in your life can be.
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rednrowdy
04/15/09

@EKane: oh...no. i'm not referring to myself. i just feel so much despair in discovering about addicts whose parents introduced them to drug use in the first place. it makes me very sad, and confused...how someone could teach their own child to do something to themselves that is harmful...it's bewildering.
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lolobentley
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
As the daughter of someone with serious addiction problems I have a hard time with the whole illness thing. Growing up with my mom didn't feel like she was sick. It felt like she was making terrible choice after terrible choice that affected her children more than it seemed to affect her. I'm not saying this doesn't work or it shouldn't be classified as an illness but I have a terrible bias that makes me feel extremely unsympathetic.
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@lolobentley: My heart's with you, sweetie.
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@lolobentley: Ahh, I am with you. My mom was a drug addict and alcoholic. She went to jail when I was in highschool for stealing drugs from the hospital she worked in as a nurse. She is still on and off sober. It's tough to have sympathy for drug using mothers when you had to live with the scars from being raised by one. I was beat, and my sister molested because of her addictions. I think babies who test positive for drugs SHOULD be placed in foster care also.
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@GirlSailor: I should clarify, she didn't beat and molest my sister and I, her husbands did.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
04/14/09

@lolobentley: i don't know anything about addictions and maybe should keep my mouth shut but maybe it starts as a bad choice and once it is an addition, it's an illness. i'd bet it's not as simple as and either/or situation.
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@linnyt is a walking cliché: This is a tough argument. I see your point, an addiction is an illness, but when is a person with an addiction supposed to be held accountable for their actions? It's unfair for those who have to suffer from an addict's decisions to simply say, oh, it's an illness. It begins to sound like an excuse to us who suffer the repercussions of an addict's choices. Sometimes I feel like my mother had many chances to get help when I was a child, but never did. So she had an illness, but a really selfish one, I think.
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bangers
04/14/09

@lolobentley: i'm a daughter of two recovering addicts. my mother became active again for three years while i was in middle school, so i've seen her active, in treatment and in recovery. i'm not very close with her and i can understand the bias in your perspective, but coming from my perspective of having seen her in all stages of addiction, i can say with no doubt in my mind that iti s an illness that one must contend with on a daily and hourly basis. my father has been clean of heroin for over 20 years and he still contends with his illness regularly.
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Cimorene
04/14/09

@GirlSailor: I think that blaming someone for the hell they put you through for their addiction is valid, but what I'm interested in is recovery, and blame won't help someone recover from addiction. Neither will punishment. And while I think that punishment is important for some crimes (rape, murder, theft), addiction is punishment enough, and treatment is "time served" enough. So I have no say in whether an addict's actions are good or bad, I just want to get the number of people addicted to drugs down as low as possible. The best way to do this is to treat it as an illness, not a series of bad choices.
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Hooplehead is hamthrax's bitch
04/14/09

@NefariousNewt: I don't know how prevalent this is, but my company just instituted smoking/nonsmoking rates for health insurance. Smokers' rates are about twice as much, and in effect unless you've been off the cigarettes for 6 months.
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@Cimorene: I agree. I have never told my mother how much anger I hold against her, and I do know it isn't conducive to an addict's recovery. My mom is a very selfish person regardless, and hasn't bothered to make ammends to my sister and I yet, so I have a LOT of anger about our childhoods. (or lack thereof) It is coming across in this thread, sorry. I agree that addiction does need to be treated as an illness, but when children (baies in this case) are involved I don't think of it as a "punishment" to remove the kids from the situation, until mother is sober.
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lolobentley
04/14/09

@GirlSailor: This is my problem. It's like on one hand I can understand my need to be careful because addictive tendencies can be hereditary and I've been to meetings with addicts who all describe a feeling of not being able to get out but at the same time it's the personal stuff that makes it hard. It feels like...I don't know. I know it isn't fair to say but it feels like why wasn't I good enough to make her stop? Why wasn't spending time with me or being a part of my life or even just not fucking hurting me every day a good enough reason to stop? It feels like there were choices being made. Like escaping was more important than any of the things she could have been doing with me. And by the same token that she even needed to escape. What were we doing or creating in her life that was so awful she needed to escape it. I constantly hear that I am super stable and together given how I grew up but even I can see the ways it's affected me. It's not fair for me to make it personal but in my opinion I am a thousand times better off without my mom in my life because of her addictions. I got to a point where I realized if this were a boyfriend or a friend or anyone else in my life and they were causing me what she did everyone in my life would be telling me to get rid of them.
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bangers
04/14/09

@lolobentley: i told my mom when i was a senior in high school that if she was a friend or a boyfriend i would have dumped her years ago, and told her that i wanted to "take a break". since i've been away at college we've grown a lot closer....but i really do understand that feeling of needing to cut her out. addicts are selfish by nature. they're selfish and self-absorbed, but they also hate themselves and can't imagine that others can love them. it's hard to get the unconditional love of a mother who doesn't love herself and can't imagine that others can love her too.
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GirlFailer
04/14/09

@lolobentley: I want to give you a huge hug. What's worse is the ALANON meetings make me feel even more terrible. Like I'm the bad guy for harboring ill feelings. I also have had to cut my mom out of my life mostly. Personally, I think that *some* addicts ARE SELFISH. My mother has had so many opportunities to get the help she needs. I actually had my baby brother die from SIDS after she drank, and took pain pills during her whole pregnancy. I can't take someone telling me that wasn't selfish, but an illness. She COULD HAVE GOT HELP. Now she has 2 daughters that were abused, and one child dead. I just don't have that much forgiveness in me.
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EKane
04/14/09

@GirlSailor: You definitely aren't the bad guy for harboring ill feelings towards your addict. Addicts ARE selfish... the addiction and illness makes them only think about their next high.
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EKane
04/14/09

@lolobentley: I have a mother that is an alcoholic and I feel your pain. I think you may find solace in an Al-Anon group or ACOA group. I don't want to tell you to get rid of your mother but there comes a point where you can learn to detach with love. I don't want to push any 12-step recovery programs on you or anything... but I completely feel where you are coming from. If you want to PM me we can chat more but I wish you luck in finding a resolution to your feelings, I know how hard having an addict in your life can be.
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margareita metermaid
04/14/09

@bangers: Addicts are not necessarily "selfish By nature". There are different kinds of addicts, and not all of them "hate themselves" either. Their behavior may manifest itself in a seemingly selfish pattern, but in the same way a depressive or someone with a major illness MAY seem selfish. It's these kinds of stigmas about addicts that make the situation so much worse, and prevents people from getting treatment. (I am not directing this at you, Bangers, but at society as a whole. I can certainly understand why you feel that way, as I have been surrounded by addicts my whole life, and it often seemed like they were the most selfish people in the world. But it is much more complicated than that.)
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
"Once born, newborns who test positive for drugs are immediately put into foster care under the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act."

I have ZERO problem with this. In addition to having two (adopted) children born addicted to everything under the sun in my family to being a mandated reporter as a pre-school teacher who dealt with issues like this more times than I wish to think about, children should be nowhere near an addict. Is the fostercare system perfect: no, but the kid's chances are better than with a heroin addict. Besides, once a mom gets clean, she can get her kids back (I'm happy to say I've seen this happen as well.)
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wooden_shoes
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I worked with formally incarcerated women (most/all in for drugs) and women who were currently sentenced for drugs, and all of them had children in foster care because of their drug use and subsequent arrests, and it was/is NOT easy for them to get their kids back. It's actually a long, hard, and stressful experience. We had more than one woman suddenly go back to drugs after being clean for so long because of the stress of this whole situation.
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@wooden_shoes: My cousin's mother tried to get her back just before my uncles formally adopted her... it didn't happen because, shock me shock me, she was still using and therefore kept missing court dates.

Nevertheless, she was given multiple opportunities to petition the court. Another foster child they had taken in WAS "given" back to his mother. I've also worked with kids in pre-schools aken from then given back to their moms. Maybe it depends on the state?
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Hooplehead is hamthrax's bitch
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I have mixed feelings about this. Do kids need their parents? Sure. However, I am conflicted about allowing addicts unfettered access to their children until they get and stay clean. Prove they can take care of *themselves* before they are entrusted with a child's well-bring. Littlebro had a horrific drug addiction in his 20s, and I shudder to think what would have befallen any child unfortunate enough to be left in his care.

Then again, it's not like life is all sunshine and roses in foster care, either. No good answers here.
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@Hooplehead: Kids need PARENT(S)--not necessarily THEIR parents. Most foster parents are great people--not all, of course, but I think a kid's chances are better with a foster parent than with a parent, even a birth parent, dealing with addiction.
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Hooplehead is hamthrax's bitch
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I am not as confortable as you are that foster care is the answer for these kids. I'm sure that there are great foster parents out there, but there are also some really terrible ones. And it is such a crapshoot as to which kind of home they end up in. The oversight for foster arrangements seems completely inadequate to deal with the task of weeding out the bad apples. So like I said, no good answers here.

But that brings up the interesting question of how long is long enough to conclude that X addict will never get his/her act together and adopt the kid out to a family who can care for them (permanently, not a foster care situation.)
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BeckySharper
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I agree with you about kids often being better off with parents who are not THEIR parents. The foster system is not perfect, and not all addicted parents are unfit parents, but in many cases, addiction fucks people up so badly that they are simply not capable of being good parents. That's when the children need to be removed from the home--safely, humanely, with great caring--but removed nonetheless.
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@Hooplehead: "how long is long enough"

It's an excellent question and I'm not sure how it goes, exactly. I know my one cousin went from "foster child" to "adopted child" relatively quickly (well, as quickly as it could, considering my uncles fought the state to adopt as a couple) because his mother signed him away flat out. My other cousin (the one whose mom 'fought' for her) went from foster child to adopted child... I'm guessing in under two years. She was about 3 months when they got her and around 2 when she was adopted. My other cousin was foster from the time they got her (14 y/o) until just before her 18th bday, so I don't know what's up with that...
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@BeckySharper: Precisely.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: [www.nytimes.com]
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@Alys Brangwin feels g-l-a-m-o-u-r-o-u-s: I would love for you to meet my cousin Adam, whose many health problems including mental retardation stem from the trauma of his mom's drug use while pregnant and the shock and pain his tiny body went through as it detoxed as an infant. There's nothing harmless about a 2 month old having detox tremors.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
04/14/09

@LaComtesse: I never said that. I thought you would find the article compelling.
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LaComtesse
04/14/09

@Alys Brangwin feels g-l-a-m-o-u-r-o-u-s: Sorry!!! I wasn't quite sure how to interpret it: it is a fascinating article, though.
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Beat Girl
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
This is a long fucking time coming. Prison has never been a satisfactory treatment for drug addiction. I still can't get my head around the fact that one can be sent to prison simply for possession.
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spunkay
04/14/09

@Beat Girl [formerly Miss Carrie Nation]: Seriously. It's like locking somebody up for having cancer.
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Beat Girl
04/14/09

@spunkay: Perhaps that's stretching it somewhat, but what I do know is that's it's ineffective.

You can get opiates in prison, so what sort of deterrent does that serve? But I'm from the UK, so my view on US drug laws is generally not favourable.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
04/14/09

@Beat Girl [formerly Miss Carrie Nation]: You can get anything in prison.
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alouette
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
We've been discussing this in one of my classes, and I've sort of come to the conclusion that legalizing these things will make treatment options so much better for those who do have addictions. People worry about the 2-3% of people who might pick it up cos it would be legal, but what of the hundreds whose lives would be vastly improved because of these institutions? (Not to mention that those 2-3% would have these options available to them anyway).

Goddamn you, social stigmas!!
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Scout
04/14/09

In reply to In Treatment: Drug-Addicted Mothers Try Coming Clean
of course it works...if we did this with EVERYONE in lieu of criminalizing addiction, well, nevermind, what would law enforcement have to do without criminalizing mental illness and addiction?

lets just keep being stupid
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oh.geez.
04/14/09

@Scout: This is it in a nutshell. So many people offer obvious solutions while not understanding that the government has no interest in actual solutions. The PURPOSE of prison (& the entire system) in actuality is to make more prisoners. Law enforcement is a business, and business is good. If prisoners were rehabilitated, where do the guards & other staff, & all the myriad other workers connected to the system end up? If everything wasn't criminalized, where do all the extra cops on the force go (city & state police)? This is why you have mothers shackled to beds to give birth. Only some very strong people wouldn't become harder & more animalistic from this type of experience. This is also why lesser offenders are mixed in with violent lifers who have nothing to lose. You take people who could've quietly done their time, expose them to rapists & murderers- and presto, you've just provide another string of paychecks for the criminal industry. Yeah, I mean cops & prisons. The lifers will never get out. But, they provide a revolving door of monsters that do get out, and the rest of us get to deal with it. This is not going to change. Armed people working the lower levels feel as if they can protect themselves, as well as each other, and the higher ups- legislators, senators, etc. can afford to ensconce themselves in security laden lairs that virtually insulate them from these kinds of vicious threats. I work inside this. Can you tell that I'm PISSED?
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
04/14/09

@oh.geez.: Let us not think of the for-profit private prisons that save money by letting people die of curable illnesses. They got into prison so they must deserve it, right?
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