Congressman Carnahan says methamphetamine abuse is the root of multiple problems in Missouri’s communities and the U.S. population at large. The bill, called “Universal Access to Methamphetamine Treatment Act,” proposes to improve public safety and reduce crime by making treatment for methamphetamine abuse more available across the country, encourage alternative resolutions to harsh punishments currently in place for nonviolent methamphetamine-related crimes in an effort to keep families in tact, and expand research on methamphetamine addiction, prevention, and treatment.

When introducing the new legislation, the Missouri congressman pointed out that his state was home to the highest crime rates directly related to methamphetamine use in the U.S. today, including discoveries of meth labs and meth production. Carnahan also referred to the surge of criminal activity in the greater St. Louis area that has indirectly been caused by methamphetamine, including auto theft, identity theft, domestic violence, and child abuse and neglect. Methamphetamine abuse and distribution is significantly different from other street drugs in that the substance’s ingredients can easily be obtained from over-the-counter medications and can be homemade in clandestine laboratories. Secondly, because methamphetamine is a highly potent psychostimulant, it also has a great potential for addiction and widespread use. Without enough prevention, intervention, and treatment resources currently in place, methamphetamine abuse has negatively impacted millions of families, job productivity, the economy, and has flooded the country’s state and federal prison systems.

If passed, the Universal Access to Methamphetamine Treatment Act could radically increase the proportion of treatment centers to those who need it most–including underserved populations like minorities, the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community, and Native American tribes–expand funding for methamphetamine research on treatment and prevention strategies, and employ more treatment professionals and counselors. In order to secure more structured supervision of court-ordered substance abuse counseling, the proposed treatment programs would also encompass medical, dental, and mental health services as well as child care, parenting classes, and job training. Perhaps most significantly, the bill would also fund research on possible pharmaceutical drug replacement therapies, much like those already in existence for nicotine and heroin addiction. If the bill does see passage, the U.S. will experience a dramatic change in criminal reformation and mental health care.

The ultimate goal is to sever the problem at the source: the demand for methamphetamine. The legislation hopes to prevent crime and threats to public safety by reaching those using methamphetamine before it’s too late. Multiple studies have shown that recovery and aftercare are much more affordable and beneficial to society than increasing law enforcement and crowding the justice system. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), over 10 million Americans have tried methamphetamine during their lifetime, and 1.3 million have used the substance in the past year.

After Congressman Carnahan introduced the proposed bill before his district’s community, the St. Louis Police Department made a statement to the media agreeing with Carnahan’s proposal, believing that more legislation on methamphetamine treatment would help protect families by aiding those with methamphetamine addictions.

The Democratic congressman collaborated with Republican Congressman George Radanovich of California to create this  bipartisan legislation that is geared toward reaching those most affected by methamphetamine use and related crimes.

Congressman Introduces Legislation to Treat Methamphetamine Abuse is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Medscape Today reports that The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network Prescription Opioid Addiction Treatment Study found that those who tapered off the medication using buprenorphine during a 9-month period, whether initially or after a period of improvement, almost universally relapsed.

Roger D. Weiss, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and chief of the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, said: "There has been virtually no research on the treatment of persons dependent on prescription opioids, in spite of the major increase in prescription opioid abuse and in the numbers of persons entering treatment for addiction to prescription opioids.”

"The trial was designed to help the physician manage patients who are dependent on opioids and want off the drugs but refuse treatment in a drug abuse treatment program," Dr. Weiss said.

The study enrolled 653 people with prescription opioid dependency and offered them standard medical management, which included buprenorphine, an initial one-hour visit, and weekly 20-minute sessions with a physician who counseled the patients and monitored for adverse drug effects. Half the group remained in this standard medical management group and half received enhanced medical management, which included twice-weekly 60-minute individualized drug counseling focusing on interpersonal issues, coping with triggers and high-risk situations, homework, and more.

Patients were evaluated after periods of individualized buprenorphine tapering and maintenance and were assessed for abstinence from opioids at various times.

Several patients reported current chronic pain (42%), and some were taking opioids for this condition. Many patients reported a lifetime history of heroin use (23%), alcohol abuse (60%) or dependence (27%), cannabis abuse (47%) or dependence (15%), and cocaine abuse (32%) or dependence (18%).

Opioids used within 30 days included sustained-release oxycodone (35%), hydrocodone (32%), immediate-release oxycodone (19%), methadone (6%), and others (8%).

Thirty percent of subjects had received some previous treatment for opioid dependency, primarily self-help (59%), inpatient/residential treatment (42%), outpatient counseling (40%), and methadone maintenance (31%). But Dr. Weiss noted that the trial was the first treatment for most subjects.

Treatment success was defined as four or fewer days of opioid use per month, no positive urine screens for opioids for two consecutive weeks, no other formal substance abuse treatment, and no injection of opioids.

In the standard medical management group, only 7% met the criteria for success, as did just 6% of the enhanced medical management group. "Nearly all patients relapsed after a four-week taper," Dr. Weiss said.

Patients who relapsed were asked to enter phase 2, at which time 360 patients were randomly assigned to standard medical management or enhanced medical management and received 3 months of buprenorphine stabilization, then had treatment tapered for one month, with a two-month follow-up.

At the end of the stabilization (at week 12), substantial improvement was noted for 52% of the enhanced medical management group and 47% of the standard medical management group, though there was no additional benefit to enhanced management.

Substantial improvement was defined as abstinence for three or more of the final four weeks of buprenorphine stabilization.

However, by the end of the stabilization period, many patients had relapsed again, Dr. Weiss reported.

"We went from an average success rate of 49% to 26% at week 16,"he said. At week 24, only 9% of patients remained successfully treated.

"At the end of the study, we were back into phase 1 territory," he said. "Seven of eight patients doing well on buprenorphine maintenance had relapsed."

The study also found that the presence of chronic pain did not influence outcomes. Patients with chronic pain were equally likely to enter phase 2 (indicating early treatment failure) and were equally likely to be substantially improved at week 12 of phase 2 (53% vs. 47% for those without chronic pain).

"Interestingly, we found that in many cases the patient’s pain got better," he added, explaining that one cannot assume that buprenorphine itself improved the pain, as there was no control group, but he noted that it is an interesting possibility.

Study Examines Treatment for Prescription Opioid Dependence is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

"He just really wants to get better," a source told the magazine. "This has been an ongoing battle for him."

New York Daily News writes that the 32-year-old actor’s latest attempt to get sober follows a RadarOnline.com report that claimed he recently became "belligerent" and "disruptive" when airport staff prohibited him from boarding a flight after noticing he was "pounding drinks" before take off.

The drunken incident, which reportedly occurred at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport in early May, is said to have resulted in the actor getting banned from flying United Airlines in the future.

This isn’t the first trip to rehab for Rhys Meyers, who has had a string of airport-related incidents end in scandal

The actor first checked into rehab for alcohol abuse in May 2005. Seven months after completing a second rehab stint in 2007, the actor was arrested at a Dublin airport and charged with public intoxication and breach of the peace.

He checked into rehab a third time in February 2009 to seek treatment for his addition to alcohol. In June 2009, Rhys Meyers was detained after an alleged drunken assault on several bar employees at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers Returns to Alcohol Rehab is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

The game, called “Guardian Angel,” works by leading the player through a series of mini games that mimic the choices addicts face leaving rehabilitation. For instance, players begin the game without a job or driver’s license, and must complete objectives such as planning routes around the city without passing a liquor store, or ridding their homes of alcohol and related triggers. The game also includes an emotional component, with a “craving meter” that keeps track of the user’s character’s stress level and state of mind. If those cravings get too high, the player relapses.

The hope, says Dr. Marcia Verduin, one of the UCF professors developing the game, is that players will make these mistakes in the game to see what happens instead of doing it in the real world. Another professor involved with the project said they also wanted to make practicing relapse skills more enjoyable.

Research was set to terminate at the end of April, but has been extended to June, with the possibility of a second research cycle in the fall with a larger sample. The current pool comprises 40 VAMC volunteers. Once research is complete, the professors hope to make the game available for free on the Internet.

Video Game Hopes to Help Recovering Alcoholics Stay Sober is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

The Associated Press reports that the new drug control strategy boosts community-based anti-drug programs, encourages health care providers to screen for drug problems before addiction sets in and expands treatment beyond specialty centers to mainstream health care facilities.

President Barack Obama called the plan a "balanced approach to confronting the complex challenge of drug use and its consequences."

His drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, was more blunt. "Calling it a war really limits your resources," Kerlikowske told reporters. "Looking at this as both a public safety problem and a public health problem seems to make a lot more sense."

The plan — the first drug strategy unveiled by the Obama White House — calls for reducing the rate of youth drug use by 15 percent over the next five years and for similar reductions in chronic drug use, drug abuse deaths and drugged driving.

Kerlikowske criticized past drug strategies for measuring success by counting the number of children and teens who have not tried marijuana.

"Quite often the marijuana issue was front and center in almost all of the discussion, and yet we have seen significant increase in drug overdose deaths mainly driven by prescription drugs," Kerlikowske said.

The new drug plan encourages health care professionals to ask patients questions about drug use even during routine treatment so that early intervention is possible. It also helps more states set up electronic databases to identify doctors who are over-prescribing addictive pain killers.

"Putting treatment into the primary health care discussion is critical," Kerlikowske said in an interview.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pointed to research showing that kids who reach their 21st birthday without developing an addiction are less likely to develop an addiction when they’re older.

"The goal here is to prevent and treat substance abuse before it becomes life threatening," she said.

The policy shift comes in the wake of several other drug policy reforms since Obama took office. Obama signed a measure repealing a two-decade old ban on the use of federal money for needle-exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV. His administration also said it won’t target medical marijuana patients or caregivers as long as they comply with state laws and aren’t fronts for drug traffickers.

Earlier this year, Obama called on Congress to eliminate the disparity in sentencing that punishes crack crimes more heavily than those involving powder cocaine.

Some drug reform advocates like the direction Obama is heading, but question whether the administration’s focus on treatment and prevention programs is more rhetoric than reality at this point. They point to the national drug control budget proposal released earlier this year, for example, which continues to spend about twice as much money on enforcement as it does on programs to reduce demand.

"The improved rhetoric is not matched by any fundamental shift in the budget or the broader thrust of the drug policy," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors drug policy reform.

Nadelmann praised some of Obama’s changes, but said he is disappointed with the continued focus on arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating large numbers of people.
Kerlikowske rejected that as "inside the Beltway discussion," and said there are many programs that combine interdiction and prevention.

The drug control office’s budget request does include a 13 percent increase in spending on alcohol and drug prevention programs, along with a 3.7 percent increase for addiction treatment.

Shift in National Drug Policy Announced is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

In 2008, the MHPA was expanded by the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). Under this new Act, the original protections imposed by the MHPA were preserved, and new ones were added. For instance, the new Act requires parity with regard to both mental health and substance use including annual dollar limits, lifetime dollar limits, financial requirements and treatment limitations. As with the MHPA, the MHPAEA does not require a group policy to offer mental health or substance use benefits. Instead, the Act only requires benefits equivalent to medical and surgical benefits if mental health or substance use coverage is offered.

The MHPAEA applies to large group (50+ workers) self-funded plans and large group fully insured group health plans. Medicaid managed care plans are also subject to the MHPAEA. However, the Act does not protect insureds under individual plans or small group plans, unless state law requires it.

Major changes made by the MHPAEA include requiring group health plans to treat benefits, deductibles, co-payments and treatment limits (number of visits or days of coverage) equally whether the insured is using medical, surgical, mental health, or substance use coverage. In addition, the insurance companies cannot require insureds to maintain separate cost sharing or treatment accounting based on the type of benefits being used; all cumulative financial requirements must integrate both traditional medical-surgical treatment and mental health or substance use treatment. If the group plan provides for out-of-network medical surgical benefits, it must also provide for out-of-network mental health and substance use benefits. Further, the standards used by the insurance company for making medical necessity determinations and denials must be disclosed, as well as the reason for the denial.

MHPAEA Exception for some Large Groups

While, on its face, the MHPAEA seems to go a long way in equalizing treatment for those suffering with mental health issues or substance abuse disorders, a major exception exists for large group policies that may make the law largely ineffective. Large group health plan sponsors that meet the Cost Exemption exception and demonstrate that compliance with the MHPAEA increases claims by at least two percent in the first year, or one percent in subsequent years, can request to be exempt from the provisions of the MHPAEA. Further, state or local government self-funded employers may also be able to opt-out of the MHPAEA protections.

Although the MHPAEA was passed in 2008, regulations implementing the law did not go into effect until April 5, 2010 and will only effect plan years beginning on or after July 1, 2010. Under the regulations, the parity requirements must be applied separately to all six potential benefit classifications. If medical-surgical benefits are offered in one of the classifications, any benefits offered for mental health or substance use must be identical. The classifications include benefits for in-patient in-network, out-patient in-network, in-patient out-of-network, out-patient out-of-network, emergency and prescription drugs.

The protections for mental health, drug addiction and alcoholism provided by the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 can be bolstered by state law. Almost every state has its own mental health parity law, but the protections afforded by them vary widely.

State mental health parity laws fall into roughly three categories. The first type of protection, equal coverage, prohibits insurers from discriminating between coverage offered for mental illness, serious mental illness, substance abuse and other physical disorders or diseases. Insurers must provide the same level of benefits, no matter what the issue. The parity requirements apply to visit limits, deductibles, co-payments, annual limits and lifetime limits. Some states, such as Arkansas, provide broad coverage for all mental illnesses. Other states may limit coverage to a specific list of biological-based mental illness. States in this category also differ with regard to whether substance use is protected, in addition to other forms of mental illness.

The second type of state protection, minimum mandated benefit, requires insurers to offer some level of coverage for mental illness, serious mental illness, substance abuse or a combination of the three. These are not considered full parity laws as they allow differences in the level of benefits offered between mental and physical illness. However, some do require co-payments and deductibles for mental health to be equal to that of physical illness.

The final type of state parity laws, mental health mandated offering, doesn’t require mental health or substance use benefits to be offered at all. However, some states require an optional coverage to be offered, usually at a higher premium or require equal treatment if benefits are offered (like the MHPAEA).

Michelle’s Law

Another law restricting the unfair or unscrupulous practices of insurance companies, Michelle’s Law, was signed by President Bush in October 2008. Michelle’s Law, named for Michelle Morse of Manchester New Hampshire, ensures that seriously ill college students who take medically necessary leaves of absence do not lose health insurance coverage by doing so. Under traditional law, some individuals who are insured solely as a result of their student status, either via their parents’ policy or school health insurance, would lose coverage if their enrollment dropped below a certain level. For seriously ill students, this forced them to chose between taking time off to recover, and thus losing insurance coverage, and staying in school against medical advice.

Michelle Morse was a student at Plymouth State University when she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Michelle’s doctor recommended that she take a leave of absence from her studies so that she could devote her full attention to beating her cancer. However, Morse knew that her insurance coverage would lapse if she failed to maintain her course load. In the end, Morse opted to stay in school in order to keep her health insurance. She died shortly thereafter.

Michelle’s Law amends ERISA, the Public Health Service Act and the IRS code to require a group health plan to continue coverage of a depend child who is on a medically necessary leave of absence from a postsecondary educational institution until either one year has elapsed or the date on which the coverage would normally terminate, whichever is earlier. In order to invoke the protections of Michelle’s Law, the health insurance plan must receive written certification by a treating doctor that the serious illness or injury requires a leave of absence.

Related Article: Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Can Lead to Loss of Health Insurance

Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

In general, exercise is known to be a practical form of distraction that can reduce depression and anxiety. Physical fitness can help purge the body of stress, tension, and illness by amending an immune system that has been impaired by depression and anxiety disorders. Surprisingly, little research has been done on the effects of exercise in adjunct to addiction treatment, even though exercise helps facilitate much needed lifestyle changes that are required during maintenance aftercare.

Some research available proves that exercise has created lasting positive effects on patients’ lives during recovery. Not only is physical health enhanced during the rehabilitation stage, but psychological health, lifestyle behavior, self-perception, self-esteem, level of stress, coping mechanisms, and social support are also improved. Physical activity may become a viable (and healthy) replacement for compulsive drug intake habits that experienced addicts develop, and can essentially reinforce the same pleasurable physical experience that drug use once provided the bodily system.

Exercise provides an emotional sense of enjoyment and satisfaction after having accomplished a physical exercise; in exercise programs that involve a group of patients, recovering addicts may gain a sense of self-worth and better self-image that is reinforced by team-encouragement and leadership. Exercise during rehabilitation and beyond has also shown to significantly decrease the potential for relapse. These benefits, among many other positive gains from physical activity, encourage recovered addicts’ continued exercise practices and healthy mentalities after recovery.

In Faulkner and Taylor’s 2006 edited collection, Exercise, Health, and Mental Health: Emerging Relationships, Marie Donaghy and Michael Ussher report on several treatment facilities that have been studied for their exercise programs which included aerobics, meditation, cardiovascular workouts, strength training, or traditional sports such as baseball/softball, biking, or running/jogging. Although Donaghy and Ussher note that limited research was available on the subject of exercise in conjunction with alcohol and drug addiction rehabilitation at the time of their study, they found “unequivocal support that physical exercise regimens have a positive effect on aerobic fitness and strength if administered as an adjunct in alcohol rehabilitation” for recovering addicts, and that exercise regimens may potentially reduce depression and anxiety (which are believed to provoke relapse), suppress alcohol cravings, and improve abstinence from alcohol when combined with addiction rehabilitation.

An added perk of exercise intervention is the attention to flexibility, balance, control, and coordination that physical activities require; these concepts align with addiction recovery’s therapeutic emphasis on attaining self-control, becoming goal-oriented, and developing positive, lasting habits that break away from repetitive drug routine behavior. Substance abusers will have considerably damaged their physical health prior to addiction treatment; by undergoing a physical fitness regimen, these patients can restore their physical health and renew their participation in a variety of activities they once enjoyed but lost to addiction.

In the 2009 edition of Principles of Addiction Medicine, Dr. James O. Prochaska states that “physical activity helps manage moods, stress, and distress. Also, 60 minutes per week of exercise can provide a recovering person with more than 50 health and mental health benefits. Exercise thus should be prescribed to all sedentary patients with addiction.”

Additionally, alternative physical activities, such as breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, or prayer have also been connected to significant reductions in alcohol consumption for alcoholics. Murphy, Pagano, and Marlatt concluded in their 1986 study, "Lifestyle Modification with Heavy Alcohol Drinkers: Effects of Aerobic Exercise and Meditation," that regular meditation practice and daily aerobic exercise were especially effective in reducing alcohol use among heavy drinkers and produced a sense of self-control and balance. Shonna Porter, a mental health practitioner and exercise physiologist from Gig Harbor, WA, incorporates cognitive-behavioral therapy and physical fitness regimens for her clients to help treat depression, anxiety, and addiction disorders. Porter believes that behavioral disorders—such as food addictions, eating disorders, sex addiction, Internet addiction, and mood disorders—are rooted in emotional, physiological issues that have not been properly dealt with or managed. Emotional suppression, Porter teaches, directly affects the decisions one makes and the way one manages himself or herself physically due to distressed self-image. She treats her clients with an emphasis on the mind-body connection, based on the belief that a healthy state of mind and healthy body work together in producing a healthy lifestyle.

Conclusively, exercise unites the mind, body, and spirit by activating will power, motivation, desire, self-reliance, and self-awareness. Gaining coordination over one’s thoughts, emotions, and body generates a rewarding sense of self-satisfaction, capability, and physical and mental strength. Many recovering addicts who participated in a fitness and/or meditation regimen reported continuing their exercises months after completing recovery as well as making significant physical lifestyle changes in their everyday lives. Mindfulness became their overall coping mechanism for successful recovery and healing.

Exercise Leads to Positive Results in Recovery is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

This study is a natural extension of Dr. Pagano’s 2004 study, "Helping others in Alcoholics Anonymous and drinking outcomes: Findings from Project MATCH," published in the Journal of Studies on Alcoholism. The study involved 1,726 treatment-seeking alcoholics in Project MATCH. In this study, Dr. Pagano demonstrated that AAH cut the risk of relapse in half in the year following discharge.

"Service was originally conceived by AA co-founders in Ohio to represent one-third of the 12-step recovery program. Many counselors agree that service has diminished over time as an important recovery activity to involve alcoholics in as a method to stay sober," said Dr. Pagano.

With evidence of the salience of service work in sustaining sobriety, Dr. Pagano developed a method to quantify and gauge an alcoholic’s participation level in AAH. In in-depth interviews with AA members with more than 20 years of sobriety, her continued research found AAH to be rated as very important during early recovery as well as in long-term recovery. As a result of the empirical work and qualitative interviews with recovering alcoholics, Dr. Pagano designed a tool that assesses AAH participation, the "Service to Others in Sobriety" (SOS) tool.

"The SOS measures the degree to which an alcoholic is giving service as a good citizen of AA, such as being the coffee maker or door greeter," said Dr. Pagano. "It also measures service activity in sharing recovery experience, strength and hope with fellow sufferers."

Both concrete acts of service and personal sharing appear important in living sober as reported in the study. Individuals were asked to report how often in the past month they participated in common AAH activities. The responses ranged from "rarely" to "always." SOS items were then summed to form a total score ranging from 12-60.

"Service activities measured by the SOS are free, accessible, available to all patients regardless of education, gender, or racial background, and can be encouraged right from the start," said Dr. Pagano. "The SOS tool provides a snapshot of a patient’s participation in AAH, a clinical threshold associated with sustained sobriety, and concrete service activities encouraged as part of the 12-step program of recovery."

Dr. Pagano validated the SOS using a sample of 301 treatment-seeking alcoholics. Interviewed three years following treatment, alcoholics reported low AAH participation (i.e., SOS items rated "never" or "rarely") in taking calls or spending time with a sponsor (66%), guiding another through the 12-steps (59%), and holding a service position (53%).

In contrast, the most common forms of AAH endorsed (i.e., SOS items rated "often" or "always") were putting away chairs after a meeting (75%), encouraging a newly sober alcoholic to go to a meeting (72%), and donating money to a 12-step organization (63%).

Findings demonstrated adequate psychometric properties of the SOS, including convergent validity, internal consistent (alpha=0.92) and test-rest reliability (r=0.94).

With a recent three-year grant award from the John Templeton Foundation, Dr. Pagano is extending prior work with adults to include adolescents suffering from the disease of addiction.

This study was funded by the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse.

Gauging an Alcoholic’s Level of Engagement in AA is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

According to a piece in the Zanesville Times Recorder, the funding for treatment is continually shrinking, while the number of addicts needing help is not following the same trend.

For Steve Carrel, Muskingum Behavioral Health executive director, his office is treating 600 clients per year, but doing so with a 20 percent cut in staff and a budget of $800,000, down from $1,000,000 two years ago.

National Drug Control Policy Director, R. Gil Kerlikowske told international delegates at a conference in Vienna, Austria that drugs are a huge threat to society and one that demands a comprehensive and effective response.

Kerlikowske has A National Drug Control Strategy due later in the year, which is expected to emphasize and focus on a commitment to reduce drug consumption in the United States. One key theme will be community-based prevention which will mean an increase in the national drug budget of 13 percent.

At present, substance abuse costs the United States more than $50 million in health care spending every year. Kerlikowske believes it is time to integrate care for substance use disorders into the entire health care system. This inclusion would mean the expansion of screening and brief intervention and referral to treatment programs in an array of settings.

The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Agency in Ohio, run by John Postlethwaite, lost $2.9 million in funding, a big loss for an agency that helps other law enforcement agencies with overtime, additional officers and drug interdiction programs.

“It’s been a tight budget,” Postlethwaite said. “What I suggest people do is write their leaders in Washington. We sponsor 13 task forces across the state, but right now have no discretionary funding. That results in our highway interdiction program, which produced tremendous results by stopping drugs from coming into the state, being cut.”

Budget Cuts Not Helping Drug Abuse in U.S. is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

“What I try to always explain to people is that we can’t blame Hollywood, it’s not Hollywood,” he said. “Those are bad choices that I made. I made some stupid personal choices. But I can’t blame Hollywood.”

“When the show got canceled is when my whole life fell apart because everything caught up with me,” he explained. “At 12 years old I was molested by my publicist and my father took my publicist’s side."

Bridges said it was after the successful ‘70s sitcom ended its eight-season run that his drug addiction ensued. “People don’t realize that during the process of the show, I was always very professional, so that kind of kept me together,” he said.

Once the actor had more time on his hands, he said he began to deal with his past.
“No one ever goes into addiction thinking that you’re going to get addicted to drugs. You do it to cover the pain up,” he said. “But then when I got caught up in addiction, Hollywood didn’t throw me away, I threw Hollywood away.”

Karen Berg of FoxNews.com writes that luckily for Bridges, his mistakes did not cost him his life, as they may have fellow child star Corey Haim, who died last week of an apparent prescription drug overdose.

“A lot of people don’t feel like they have a problem and that’s one of the biggest problems,” said Bridges. “One of the biggest things with Corey Haim was [that he] thought that he was just taking prescription medication, which if you take it according to what the doctor tells you, you’re going to be okay. But if you take it the way an addict is going to take it—take a bunch of them and don’t listen to what the prescription bottle says—that’s what happened.”

Bridges’ co-star, Dana Plato, who played Kimberly on the show, also battled an addiction to prescription drugs and used them to end her life in 1999.

But Bridges’ wake-up call happened years before. “For me, 17 years ago, I woke up one day and decided things had to be a little different,” said the 44-year-old. After pleading guilty to drug possession in 1993, the judge gave Bridges two options: jail or rehab.

“I chose to go to rehab,” he said. “I still wasn’t quite ready at that moment. So when I got in there I got really angry and I got really mad at the hospital [staff]. And they strapped me at four points and I was in there for three days. When you’re in your 20’s and you have a big diaper on and you were on a hit show, there has to be a change in your life,” he said.

Bridges, who has two young children, has advice for parents everywhere. “Never give up on your child. But also, you have to love your child. What I do with my kids is I tell them I love them every day, but also I tell them the truth," he said. "Our parents back then would say, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ And you can’t do that anymore. Children need explanations and they deserve explanations."

Former Child Star Todd Bridges Talks Addiction, Hitting Bottom is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment