‘He was crying like a baby’
George battled his addiction for “a good four years, maybe longer,” Brown said.
“We tried to get him into every rehab you could think of,” she said. “It’s not easy — you have to be — like, dying.
“And when they do take you, you’re in for three to five days,” Brown said. “All they do is wean you down, then you’re on your own. That just defeats the purpose. I think once they accept them it should be mandated, a locked facility for 30 days,” she said.
On the nights he went cold turkey, trying to get clean on his own, she was up with him all night, holding him as he writhed on the floor “crying like a baby.”
George got “lucky” when got into a methadone program, his mother said. “Methadone did help.” For a time.
Lack of sufficient, accessible detoxification and rehabilitation programs remains a problem, according to a state legislative task force that issued a report this week, following a series of community forums held throughout the state to gather information on heroin addiction.
The detoxification process takes from seven to 14 days, the legislators heard, but insurance companies often allow three or fewer days for detoxification. Many hospitals are closing their detox centers because of insufficient Medicaid reimbursement rates, according to the report.
Parents often resort to having their children arrested so that they can get detox services, the legislators heard.
Rehabilitation is required following detox, or the addict is sure to relapse. But rehab programs are “fraught with problems,” the report says: unwillingness of insurance companies to pay for inpatient services; too few programs; long waiting lists to get into existing programs; and the high cost of drugs used to treat heroin addiction.
And without long-term care following rehabilitation, relapse still remains likely, according to the task force findings.
But Steve Chassman, executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, says prevention and rehabilitation efforts are futile unless they address what causes of alcohol and drug use in the first place.
“In the digital and highly technological world we inhabit, we are inundated with stimulation,” Chassman said. “Our world is so full of stress and uncertainty. And I think people are looking for relief.”
His organization, which offers counseling at three offices on Long Island, including one in Riverhead, saw more than 1,300 people last month, a record in its 60 years of operation.
A disproportionate number of them are 15 to 30 years old, he said.
“Why are people trying to anesthetize themselves at such a young age?” he asks. He believes it’s “overstimulation, which leads to anxiety, which leads to drugs. People are looking to self-medicate,” he said.
“We need to do better as a society. We need to teach healthy coping skills,” Chassman says. “We need to do better with education and prevention, with building self-esteem, improving communication skills and creating healthy support networks.”
Government sends mixed messages, irresponsible messages, he argued, pointing to medical marijuana and the legalization of marijuana for recreational use.
“Our young clients, every single one of them started with alcohol and marijuana,” Chassman said. And marijuana today is not the same as the pot smoked when these kids’ parents were young.
“Marijuana today is 200 to 300 times more potent than it was in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” Chassman said. “We let parents know, if you smoked a little in the ‘60s ‘70s or ‘80s, this isn’t that marijuana.”
“We have to teach our youth that there are healthier ways to socialize,” he said. “Get involved helping others. Invest in being emphatically and socially useful to others. Learn to regulate your own emotions without pills and powders and potions. Shut off your computer, put down your phone.”
An addict’s story
Melanie (not her real name) started socially drinking in high school. She grew up in a home where both parents drank — to excess, she now knows.
The Wading River woman is 31, a new mother, a business owner — and a heroin addict in recovery.
“I did very well in school. I didn’t do drugs. I saw a lot of people do a lot of drugs, but I stayed away. And never heard the word addict.”
She continued social drinking and then one day, almost on a whim, she “tried a pill” offered by a friend, she says. “I said, ‘why not’ and took it. Then I kept saying ‘why not’ and began experimenting. Then the why nots kept coming more frequently. Without even realizing it, I became that addict.
“I was truly comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life,” she said. I was able to handle life situations, a skill I didn’t have. I didn’t realize it would transform into ‘I need this’ the way it did, so quickly. I was about 20 or 21,” she said.
“In the blink of an eye, I found I was highly addicted to heroin. I couldn’t say no anymore. It had me. It truly had me.”
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