Drug Rehabilitation that works

Binge drinking and rape seem to go hand-in-hand on U.S. college campuses.

A new study has found colleges and universities with higher rates of binge drinking also have more rapes. In addition, nearly three-quarters of rape victims reported being intoxicated at the time of the attack.

“Women need to be alerted to dangerous situations where there’s a lot of drinking and men need to be alerted to the fact that having sexual relations with a woman who is intoxicated is rape,” study co-author Henry Wechsler, director of College Alcohol Studies at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, told CBS Radio News.

Binge drinking is indisputably a major problem on most college campuses, as is rape. Previous research has indicated alcohol is associated with at least half of sexual assaults on female college students.

“Most colleges by now are aware of the problem of binge drinking, but some do more about it than others, and some are more serious in taking a stand about it than others are,” said Wechsler.

The current study analyzed data compiled from 119 U.S. colleges and universities participating in three Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study surveys over three years. In total, the surveys involved almost 24,000 women.

Binge drinking was defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row for men and four or more drinks in a row for women at least once in the past two weeks.

“That kind of drinking is quite prevalent,” Wechsler said. “About 44 percent of college students can be classified as binge drinkers in our national study.”

A school’s binge drinking rate was the percentage of students classified as binge or heavy episodic drinkers. High heavy episodic binge drinking schools had more than 50 percent of students in this category; medium heavy had 36 percent to 50 percent of students in this category; and low had 0 to 35 percent classified as binge drinkers.

Almost one in 20 (4.7 percent) of women reported being raped, and 72 percent of the victims reported being intoxicated while being raped.

Women who attended schools with high and medium heavy episodic drinking rates had, respectively, 1.8-fold and 1.5-fold increased odds of being raped while intoxicated compared to women at schools with low rates.

Women at rural schools were 1.3 times as likely to be raped while intoxicated compared to those in non-rural schools. Students from the South and North Central regions of the country were, respectively, 1.3 and 1.4 times likelier to be raped while intoxicated compared to students from the West.

In addition, women who were under 21, lived in sorority houses, used illicit drugs and drank heavily in high school had a higher risk of being raped while intoxicated.

“I think it’s very important to do the education about alcohol consumption, together with education about rape, since such a large proportion of rapes are connected to drinking,” Wechsler said.

“Alcohol and drugs dis-inhibit people,” said Paul Rinaldi, associate director of the Addiction Institute of New York City. “In a lot of these young women, their judgment is impaired. Their radar is clouded with alcohol. When they’re clearheaded, they might say, ‘This guy is not someone I want to be alone with.’”

That’s not to say the victim is to blame, Rinaldi stressed.

Rape victim advocates were critical of the findings, which appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol.

“Binge drinking is unhealthy. No one questions that, but putting the blame for rape on alcohol is an excuse. In reality, the decision of the attacker to commit rape is the only cause of that crime,” said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve worked very hard to foster a simple, undisputable understanding that rapists alone are responsible for this decision to commit this heinous crime. I think that this kind of study can be very harmful to that message. This is a crime. It’s criminal behavior, period.”

The study authors deny they have done this. What’s more, Wechsler and his colleagues are hoping the findings will be used to ramp up college prevention programs.

“Most efforts around drinking are tied to automobile fatalities, and people are generally aware of this connection,” Wechsler said. “In the public, there’s less of a realization of the relationship of heavy alcohol use to rape.”

• More than 100 people per day are admitted to the hospital in England for alcoholic liver disease.
• Alcoholism can increase the risk for certain cancers, especially those of the throat, voice box (larynx), liver, colon, kidneys, rectum, and the esophagus.
• Excessive drinking can also cause immune system problems, brain damage, harm to the fetus during pregnancy, and cirrhosis of the liver.
• Approximately 43% of American adults have had a child, parent, sibling or spouse who is or was an alcoholic.
• 6.6 million American children under the age of 18 live in homes with at least one alcoholic parent.
• More than one-half of American adults have a close family member who has or has had
  alcohol addiction.
• More than seven percent of the population ages 18 years and older — nearly 13.8 million Americans — have problems with drinking, including 8.1 million people who suffer from alcoholism.

Methadone Addiction, Detox, Treatment and Withdrawal
Methadone is a synthetic opioid with potent analgesic effects. Although it is associated commonly with the treatment of opioid addiction, it may be prescribed by for analgesia for various pain syndromes. It may be an appropriate replacement for morphine, when side effects limit dosage increases. Methadone toxicity is not always apparent in the first few days after initiating therapy and so careful follow up of all patients is mandatory. Any other medications that the individual is taking may interfere with methadone and hence careful dosing is required. Methadone treatment for pain is a lot cheaper than other long acting morphine formulations

With methadone maintenance, the opioid addicts take regular doses of methadone to decrease the withdrawal and cravings that are associated with opioids. It is one of the most successful treatments for heroin addiction. The treatment is also highly cost effective, costing about $5000 per patient, compared to nearly 25,000$ to look after a patient with AIDs.

Methadone Classification

Methadone is classified as a schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act. Initially, its use was limited to “detoxification treatment” or “maintenance treatment” within U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved narcotic addiction programs.

Because of its potency as a pain killer, the DEA has allowed physicians to prescribe it for pain control. However, most states require that a physician document in the chart that methadone is being prescribed for pain control and not treatment of drug addiction. Many hospitals, however, do not have methadone supplies in their pharmacies. All physicians with appropriate Drug Enforcement Agency registration may prescribe methadone for analgesia.

Methadone Prescription Difficulties

Methadone prescriptions for the treatment of drug addiction are not easily available. The prescriptive authority by physicians is highly controlled and monitored. Only a few selected registered physicians have the ability to prescribe the drug and physicians have to make a special application to the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The Department of Health & Human Services and the FDA also decide dosage regimens and how, and under what circumstances, methadone maintenance may be used to treat opiate addiction. Most methadone clinics must obtain an extra license and comply with extra set of both federal and state regulations.

All this has made it difficult for opioid addicts to get methadone. Although there are over 700 active methadone clinics in the Nation, many states don’t allow methadone clinics, forcing some patients to drive hundreds of miles each day to get their required daily dosage. Clinics in states that do allow methadone often have strict morning hours that make it difficult for patients to stick to the regimen.

Indications

Methadone has been studied as a therapy for cancer pain and other chronic pain states. It is an appropriate replacement opioid when pain remains poorly controlled or when side effects of other opioids limit dosage escalation. Available data suggest that methadone is effective in relieving cancer pain and has a similar analgesic efficacy and side effect profile to morphine.

Methadone Dosing

Methadone can be administered both orally and via injection. When administered for pain control, the onset of analgesia is approximately three to six hours when methadone therapy is initiated, and this duration typically extends to eight to 12 hours with repeated dosing.

When methadone is administered for drug addiction, its slower onset of action and long half life helps in decreasing the incidence of withdrawal symptoms. In the outpatient setting, methadone dose is slowly increased over 5-7 days, depending on the patient’s response. In some opioid tolerant patients, higher doses of methadone may be required over a shorter time.

During the titration phase, daily telephone progress reports by the patient, family members, home health nurses, or hospice personnel are recommended. Patients should be informed that several titrations might be necessary to reach optimal pain control.

In all patients continuous monitoring is required to ensure that withdrawal to opioids is not occurring. The dose can be safely increased in small increments while the patient is in hospital. Transition from high-dosage opioids may have to be completed in an inpatient setting with assistance from a pain specialist.

Side Effects

Side effects associated with methadone include pruritus, nausea, constipation, confusion, sedation, and respiratory depression. Excess sweating and flushing are common with oral methadone dosing. Caution should be taken with initiation of therapy and dosage increases because severe toxicities may not become apparent for two to five days. Side effects such as sedation and respiratory depression are increased when methadone is combined with alcohol or other drugs.

Cost

Methadone offers a cost savings over standard morphine preparations when used to treat pain. Legislation is being considered to reduce or even eliminate some regulations on methadone providers to make treatment more widely available.

Future

The recent availability of buprenorphine for opioid addiction treatment has brought more optimism to the field of drug addiction. Like methadone, buprenorphine is a replacement therapy. It is easier to withdraw from than methadone, however. And the risk of it being diverted illegally is even lower than for methadone; if it is injected by a would-be abuser (rather than being taken by the mouth, as it is intended to be used therapeutically); it causes withdrawal symptoms and not a “high.”

Alcohol Abuse, get my drivers license back, iowa drunk driving laws, http://www.alppinstitute.com alcohol detox dui

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Although considered the first step in recovery, is detox always necessary? Not always so, but in some cases withdrawing off of a drug can be fatal without a medically supervised detox. We have provided the following to help you to understand a little more about the detox process.

Alcohol Detox
Alcohol Rehab
Alcohol Addiction

There are two different types of alcohol abusers, the binge drinker and the acute daily drinker. Both of which may be late stage alcoholics, just with different patterns of abuse.

A binge drinker is someone who can go days, weeks or months without having a drink, but when he/she does drink it is usually in great excess, sometimes consuming near lethal amounts. This type of alcoholic does require a medical detox if immediately after a binge. If however, it has been over a week since his last drink, detox may not be necessary.

The acute daily drinker is someone who drinks on a daily basis. This type of alcohol absolutely requires a medically supervised detox or else may develop delusions, shaking, seizures or even death.

Detox for alcohol usually involves prescribed benzodiazipene’s (Klonopin, Xanax, Valium, etc) to help counter the seizures and anxiety; and high blood pressure medication such as Catapres.

Opiate Detox
Opiate Rehab
Opiate Addiction

Opiates include Heroin, Vicodin, Methadone, and Oxycontin. If the opiate abuser has reached the point where they are a daily (or near daily) user, then a detox is usually required. Although most opiate addicts are not usually in any medical danger during the detox or withdrawal process, a detox setting is recommended because most opiate addicts simply cannot withdraw on their own.

Although the detox process for opiates can be over within a week, generally speaking, normal sleep patterns sometimes do not return for months.

Methadone Detox
Methadone Rehab
Methadone Addiction

Although Methadone is considered an opiate, most clinics are reluctant to admit clients addicted to methadone because of the length of detox as well as the difficulty of the clients.

Benzo Detox
Benzo Rehab
Benzo Addiction

Addiction to benzodiazipene’s can be very dangerous if not detoxed in a supervised medical setting. Rapid withdrawal from benzo’s can lead to delusions, anxiety, seizures and even death. For this reason, it is imperative that anyone considering withdrawing from benzo’s seek out professional guidance.

Cocaine Detox and Crack Detox
Cocaine Rehab and Crack Rehab
Cocaine Addiction and Crack Addiction

The withdraw from cocaine or crack is usually not medically dangerous and doesn’t require a detox. Someone withdrawing from cocaine or crack can expect long sleep periods, lethargy, lowered blood pressure, heart rate and respiration.

Methamphetamine Detox
Methamphetamine Rehab
Methamphetamine Addiction

Withdrawing from meth doesn’t usually require a detox, however many clients exhibit acute psychotic symptoms as a result of their using and sometimes are admitted to a dual diagnosis or psychiatric facility to handle the delusions and paranoia. Although most meth users can safely detox on their own, some do require anti-psychotic medications because of the drug use.