The Canyon

Former Oklahoma State basketball coach Sean Sutton, 41, was arrested for trying to get prescription drugs illegally from out of state. He spent the night in jail and was reportedly dealing with withdrawal symptoms like nausea and vomiting and profuse sweating when he was released.

Sutton arranged to pick up about 40 pills under a false name. The pills in the package included clonazepam, an anti-anxiety medication and two types of the stimulant Adderall and another drug.

Sean’s arraignment is set for next week where it is expected that he will be charged with “obtaining a controlled or dangerous substance (CDS) by fraud, possession of a CDS, attempted possession of a CDS and use of a communication device to facilitate a felony,” according to New York Breaking News. 

Drug Addiction and Genetic Predisposition

Sutton is not the only one in his family who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. His father, Eddie Sutton, was also a former Cowboys coach until May of 2006 when he was in an alcohol-induced car accident and was forced to relinquish the position.

After the car accident, Sean replaced his father as the Oklahoma State basketball coach but had to resign in April 2008.

Now, he is dealing with legal issues due to drug addiction as well. Considering how difficult prescription drug addiction is on the system and the severity of the withdrawal symptoms, hopefully his first stop will be at a prescription drug detox and addiction treatment center.

Drug Addiction Treatment

Whether your issue is alcoholism or prescription drug addiction to drugs like OxyContin, Valium, Xanax, hydrocodone, Percocet and other pills, drug addiction treatment is the only way to safely change your life. Even if you are committed to breaking your addiction to your drug of choice, it is not recommended that you stop using an addictive drug by yourself if you experience withdrawal symptoms. It is recommended that you instead enroll yourself in a drug detox and addiction treatment program that provides you with an holistic treatment program.

The Benefits of Holistic Treatment

Holistic drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs allow you to get multiple layers of treatment for your addiction. This multi-faceted approach makes your experience at drug rehab as well rounded as possible, allowing you to explore many different types of therapy and treatment.

The more time you spend learning how drugs of addiction affect your brain and body and honestly exploring your own personal experience and drug history, the better equipped you will be to learn new tools to fight off relapse when you return home. The more time you spend in treatment and the more varied the therapies you undertake during your rehab experience, the more likely you will be to stave off relapse for long periods. Statistics show that the more immersive your treatment, the better you will do in recovery.

For more information, contact The Canyon today.

It’s well known that regular and continued use of prescription painkillers like Vicodin, oxycodone, codeine, Percocet and others ultimately lead to prescription drug addiction if it continues unchecked. But a new focus for the medical and substance abuse treatment community is  how the presence of prescription painkiller use, abuse and addiction can actually lead to the increase in the experience of pain.

Painkillers and the Increased Experience of Pain

The Behavioral Health Central website says: “Some pain medications can actually cause or increase the pain that they are using the medication to manage.”

Some doctors have even named the phenomenon: opiate-induced hyperalgesia. Basically, this condition means that you are more sensitive to pain after a long period of taking pain management medications. In some cases, this can even mean that things that didn’t cause pain before you started taking painkillers are now painful for you. In studies, this response occurs in some animals after just one high dose of an opiate painkiller.

How Do You Identify Opiate Induced Hyperalgesia?

This condition is generally identified when you are on painkiller medications  and yet continue to experience pain despite consistently increasing the amount of your dose.

It has also been identified in people who actively used opiates like heroin and prescription painkillers for years before getting treatment. After treatment, it is sometimes difficult to get effective relief from pain, especially for chronic pain.

Treating Opiate Induced Hyperalgesia

For those who are currently on high doses of prescription painkillers and are having difficulty getting any relief from pain, prescription drug rehab and immediate detox are usually recommended. The idea is that through reducing your tolerance, opiate painkillers in more moderate doses may again work for you. In some cases, non-opioid based painkillers are preferred so as to avoid the risk of opiate painkiller addiction.

Prescription Painkiller Addiction Treatment

Treating prescription painkiller addiction can be scary to those who are worried about the withdrawal symptoms associated with painkiller detox. When you stop taking a drug upon which your body has come to depend, you will experience different symptoms of illness that will vary in type and intensity based on a number of factors. For example, those addicted to high doses of opiate painkillers like Vicodin, oxycodone, hydrocodone and others may begin to feel nauseous, get a headache, start to sweat, get stomach cramps or feel nauseous, and experience bone and muscle pain within the first few hours after their missed dose. The best way to combat this is with a medical detox at a certified substance abuse treatment center that understands opiate addiction.

When you have completed painkiller detox, you can begin addiction counseling and alternative treatments to help you further cement yourself in sobriety before returning home. A big focus of prescription painkiller addiction treatment is relapse prevention, which provides you with the tools you need to fend off the urge to pop a pain pill when you feel stressed. For those with chronic pain, it can also include learning more holistic ways to address pain management without addictive drugs.

If you would like more information about our painkiller rehab here at The Canyon, contact us today.

A petition has been going around in Scioto County in Ohio to fight drug addiction. The drug of focus is prescription painkillers and Scioto County residents and residents of surrounding counties are hoping to fight off the rising problem of prescription drug addiction in their state by asking Governor Ted Strickland to help them better control the distribution of prescription drugs.

They are called the Citizens Against Prescription Abuse and they are working hard to stop prescription drug abuse and addiction in their state.

Bob Walton is a Porter Township trustee and a community organizer for Citizens Against Prescription Abuse. He says:  “It’s sad. It’s frustrating. It’s an uphill battle. But it’s a battle we’ve got to fight or we will lose a generation.”

Their plan of attack on local prescription drug abuse is mainly focused on pain clinics that provide prescriptions for opiate painkillers and fill them. Their petition requests that Governor Strickland better regulate the pain clinics that they believe hand out prescriptions far too easily and often, leading to a high rate of prescription drug addiction and abuse as well as increased hospitalization due to overdose. They want an investigation into the local prescription drug addiction problem opened by everyone: the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, state medical and pharmacy boards, the DEA, the IRS and the FBI.

They also want changes in Ohio law that further restricts new clinics from opening and regulates the operation of current painkiller clinics.

About 700 signatures had been gathered by the time of this posting, but Walton is hoping for about 2000 signatures total by the end of the month.

Walton cites the numbers for support of his proposition: Scioto County has nine pain clinics.

Lisa Roberts is a registered nurse and an injury prevention specialist for the Portsmouth City Health Department. She backs up Walton’s plan, stating that the county has the second highest rate of prescription drug overdose in Ohio and that Southern Ohio distributes four times as many prescription drugs as Northern Ohio.

Says Roberts: “We have a very high addiction rates in addition to the death rates. A lot of young people are addicted. Our treatment facilities are overwhelmed. The court systems are overwhelmed.”

She also says that many of these prescription pain clinics are owned by people with past convictions for drug trafficking and staffed by doctors with medical licensing issues.

Dr. Robert Mullins is a local emergency room doctor who is also interested in fighting against the prescription pain clinics and resulting prescription drug addiction.

He says: “This is a problem that, once it’s created, it’s very hard to get out from under. Maybe [the petition] will actually help and maybe it won’t but if we stand by and do nothing, I assure you it will escalate.”

If you would like more information about Scioto County’s fight against prescription drug addiction or if you would like to sign the petition, you can do so online.

If you would like to learn more about prescription drug addiction treatment at The Canyon, contact us today.