People who are so deep into heroin addiction must undergo rehab to get their lives back on track. Amy Norton of HealthDay reports on a looming situation affecting middle-class America:
“Today’s typical heroin user is a middle-class suburban dweller who started off with prescription painkillers, a new study reports.
Once mainly a problem of teens living in impoverished neighborhoods in large cities, heroin use now more commonly affects whites in their early 20s, according to research published online May 28 in JAMA Psychiatry.
“There really has been a shift, in just the past five years or so. There’s been a migration (of heroin abuse) to the suburbs,” said lead researcher Theodore Cicero, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis.”
The JAMA study was based on findings of around 2,800 patients, averaging 22.9 years old, who are being treated for heroin abuse. A further breakdown of the starting points showed that the patients first took a hit when they were teenagers.
The study hits too close to home for residents of the great state of Missouri. A new study by the Missouri Recovery Network showed a great deal of drug arrests from 2007 to 2011 that yielded considerable amounts of heroin, and hospitals report increasing numbers of patients diagnosed for heroin abuse.
Treatment programs at a credible Missouri rehabilitation center may include on-site counseling sessions to help the patient wean off the drug. Some of the treatments can involve injecting certain medicines to suppress the craving. Dr. Cicero said the data warrants serious attention due to potential consequences from sharing needles or ingesting impure heroin.
A rehab specialist may also have to dig deep into the personal triggers of the patient as to why they turned to heroin abuse. In the JAMA-published study, for example, fifty-four patients admitted being originally hooked on prescription narcotics, but lack of funds prompted shifts to heroin, with middle-class residents providing the product. A bag of heroin reportedly fetches $6 against $80 for a pill of oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), or fentanyl (Duragesic).
Nobody wants to see their loved ones suffer and put their lives in danger with heroin use. If your loved one is struck hard with heroin addiction, pull them back from the brink of total self-destruction through reputable drug rehab centers in Missouri, such as the Midwest Institute for Addiction. Rehab centers like this could give a fighting chance for the drug abusers to recover from their addiction and reform their ways.
(Source: Today’s Heroin Abusers Often Middle-Class Suburbanites: Study, HealthDay, 28 May 2014)
