Addiction Awareness
As a physician assistant and baseball wife, I have seen and been faced with the effects of the opioid epidemic daily. Though I have been fortunate enough to not have to deal with addiction personally, I have been face to face with addiction through family members, friends and patients.
Addiction is a disease that doesn’t discriminate or play favorites but affects anyone and everyone despite age, race or socioeconomic status. Whether you’re a professional athlete, lawyer, mom, or teenager, addiction is real and tearing families apart.
Every day more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids, prescription painkillers, heroin or fentanyl (1).
Addiction, as defined by the American Society of Addiction Medicine is “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences.”
I’m not sharing this info to scare you but rather to bring awareness to the subject and provide resources to help you make better decisions in all aspects of the crisis, get help for yourself, or maybe recognize addiction in a family member or friend.
One of my goals while on maternity leave, besides loving on our new baby boy Bennett, and spending some quality off-season time with my hubby and big kids, was to obtain my 24 hour Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) waiver training for substance use disorder.
What is this exactly? It’s training that involves treating substance use disorders with a combination of medications that target the brain, and psychosocial interventions like counseling, skills development and aimed at improving treatment outcomes.
Blah blah blah right? What does that even mean? Basically its means not just throwing a pill at you and saying, “see you next year,” but rather integrating multiple treatment modalities like therapy, NA, AA or medications to help treat substance use disorder.
How does this relate to baseball? Well like I said it does not discriminate between anyone, and no one is exempt from the possibility of addiction. I remember when my husband was still playing professionally (he’s coaching now) with the Florida Marlins, how easy it was for him to get a prescription for Ambien to help him sleep.
Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t misuse it or abuse it. We’d get home from the game at 11 pm and he would still be feeling the effects of adrenaline from pitching. He would have to take an Ambien if he wanted to get to sleep before 5 am.
Ambien is a controlled substance that can be easily abused or misused. I imagine it can be just as easy to obtain a script for Vicodin or Percocet whether from a prescriber or a teammate who innocently hands it to you for a sore shoulder, back, arm etc.
Sometimes all it takes it one pill to start the vicious cycle of addiction.
Or maybe they aren’t told when they get the pill about the effects of mixing it with alcohol or a Benzodiazepine like Xanax which can cause your breathing to become so depressed and slow you stop breathing all together. Or maybe a teammate or friend hands you the little blue pill and says “you’ll have an extra good time taking this tonight.”
Sometimes it starts when you or your hubby or boyfriend have surgery and are given a script for opiates for post-op pain and after four weeks your surgeon just cuts you or him off and declares you healthy but you’re still in pain. What are you supposed to do now?
Some turn to friends, another prescriber if possible, or even the streets. This also is part of the problem and contributing to the opioid epidemic. So much of what is on the streets these days are laced with enough fentanyl to OD and kill you.
So what can be done, how can you or a significant other get help, and what are signs to recognize it?
Some signs of addition to be aware of in yourself of someone around you are
Using more than you intended
Having the feeling of cravings
Giving up activities you love in order to use
You can’t cut down on use
You feel tolerance or withdrawals
You have unfulfilled obligations
You’re having interpersonal problems
You’re having medical problems
You are putting yourself at risk or in dangerous situations.
If you notice several of these signs there are a few things you can do. To start, you can always talk to a provider like a doctor, NP, or a PA like myself. (And I am always happy to talk with anyone who reaches out to me as well!) You can also start attending meetings like NA, AA, SMART recovery, etc. I will list these resources below at the end.
If you are currently on opiates, you should ask your prescriber to have Narcan at home to reverse accidental overdose. Did you know you can get it for free, and judgement free, at any CVS or Walgreens? I say this too, especially if you have children in the home, young or old. I myself bought a box of Narcan at CVS to carry around in my purse.
If you have young children or teenagers, I’d recommend storing medications in a safe place, locking it up if possible. No matter how good you think your kids may be, lock it up. Don’t forget your friends or your kids’ friends might search through bathrooms for unused medications. I see this daily.
If you have extra old prescriptions lying around at home, there are take back programs locally everywhere you can drop them off at. These include pharmacies and police stations.
My purpose for writing about this topic for you all, is that I only hope I have been able to help someone on here get help, think about getting help, or recognize it in a loved one so they can get help. And again I am always happy to be a resource or to help you get help if you need it or need someone to talk to!
XOXO
Bryant Meyer, MS-PA-C
Resources:
Dual Recovery Anonymous 913.991.2703
LifeRing 800.811.4142
Narcotics Anonymous
National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment
National Alliance of Methadone Advocates 212.595.NAMA (6262)
Rational Recovery 530.621.4374
Secular Organizations for Sobriety 323.666.4295
SMART Recovery 866.951.5357
Women for Sobriety, Inc. 215.536.8026
Substance Abuse and mental health services administration https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
References: CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, Mortality. CDC WONDER, Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2018. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
