Tag: addiction treatment

Rod Stewart's Daughter Says Singer Helped Her With Addiction

The music icon’s eldest daughter has been sober for two years.

Sarah Streeter, the eldest daughter of British rock legend Rod Stewart, told the UK press that the singer has helped her to overcome the toll taken by addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Streeter, who was born to Stewart when the singer was 17 years old and given up for adoption, remained estranged from the singer until 2007. Stewart, whose son Sean has also struggled with substance use disorder, offered both emotional and financial support to Streeter and introduced her to his family.

The 55-year-old Streeter said that she has not only been sober for two years, but also enjoys a closer relationship with her father, noting, “Now he’s just dad to me.”

Streeter was born in 1963 to Stewart, who was at the time struggling to make a name in music, and art student Susannah Boffey. “I was too young to know what being a father was all about when Sarah came along,” said Stewart in a 2010 interview with the Mirror. “Adoption seemed like the best option.”

After spending five years in foster care, Streeter was adopted by Gerald and Evelyn Thubron, and remained unaware of her father’s identity until she turned 18.

They met—reluctantly, according to Streeter. Streeter was hesitant to forge a relationship with Stewart. She was also battling addictions to crack, cocaine and alcohol, with frequent bouts of sobriety and relapse.

“Why I’m still here, I don’t know,” she said. “I carry a huge amount of guilt about what I put people through. The way it affected my family and loved ones was terrible. But I’ve chosen to talk about it because I think it’s important to be honest and to show that even if you hit rock bottom, you can get over it.”

When Streeter’s adoptive mother passed away in 2007, she reached out again to Stewart, and found that he was receptive and understanding of her situation.

“It’s not all new to him, of course,” said Streeter, referring to her half-brother Sean’s drug issues. “There’s no judgment from him at all. I don’t talk about it a lot now, but he always asks me if I’m all right.”

Streeter revealed that she receives a monetary sum from Stewart each year—an amount that she insists was not requested. “It just happened,” she said. “It helps and it came at just the right time. It got us out of debt, which I’d run up because of the drugs.”

More significantly, she now enjoys a genuine familial relationship with Stewart, who has introduced her to her eight half-siblings. Streeter said that she understands why he maintained distance from her as a child: “I can see he was in a difficult position while both my parents were still here. I think he didn’t want to upset them by encroaching on their territory after all these years.”

The closeness they experience now had to be built over time. “He’s not just my dad, is he? He’s a big star, so of course, that makes it difficult,” said Streeter.

But time has brought them together, and Streeter said that she now feels like a true part of Stewart’s family. For the singer, their relationship, though complex in its past, is simple in explanation: “She calls me dad and I call her my daughter,” he said. “We’re doing our best.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 October 2018
Exploring The New Opioids Package: What Does The Legislation Cover?

The wide-ranging bipartisan legislation addresses overprescribing, overdose prevention, medication-assisted treatment and more.

New legislation intended to aid in the fight against the opioid epidemic was approved by both the House and Senate in early October, and is currently headed for signature by President Donald Trump.

The bill, known as the Substance Use Disorder Prevention That Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (or SUPPORT), is a rare bipartisan effort, authored primarily by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and offers $8 billion in wide-ranging programs that intend to boost access to substance treatment, as well as methods of intervention to reduce the influx and availability of opioids.

Policymakers have expressed their support for the bill, though treatment advocates have voiced reservation about the scope and effectiveness of the legislation. Here’s what is proposed by the SUPPORT Act:

– Expansion of provisions for Medicaid programs, including expanded access to opioid addiction treatment, including secured flexibility for alternative services not permitted under a state Medicaid plan, improved data sharing between state databases, and increased screening for opioid dependency during doctor’s visits;

– Increased Medicaid coverage for opioid treatment programs that prescribe medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which is currently not recognized by Medicaid, and an increase in the number of health care specialists that are allowed to prescribe and dispense such treatment;

– A provision to expand a grant program that allows first responders to administer naloxone for opioid overdoses;

– Creation of a grant program from the Substance and Mental Health Services Administration to establish comprehensive opioid recovery centers, which will provide dependency and recovery programs for communities;

– A provision to allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish “high impact, cutting-edge research” for combating the opioid epidemic and development of non-addictive pain management medication, which will be funded through reauthorization of the Common Fund from the 21st Century Cures Act;

– Authorization for the Drug Enforcement Agency to reduce manufacturing quotas for controlled substances, including prescription opioids, when the agency suspects diversion;

– Authorization for the Department of Health and Human Services to allow doctors to remotely prescribe medication-assistant treatments to assist needy individuals in remote or rural areas;

– The “STOP Act,” which will assist the U.S. Postal System in preventing the import of fentanyl through international mail by improved digital tracking;

– Improved coordination between the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to allow greater means of detecting and halting the import of drugs at borders;

– Increased penalties for manufacturers and distributors in regard to overprescription of opioid medication.

Response from health care and dependency officials to the bill was mixed. Some, like Kelly J. Clark, the president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, called it “an important step in ensuring that individuals with substance use disorder are able to get the help they need.”

But Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University who worked with White House staff on the bill, viewed the scope of the bill as limited.

“This reflects a fundamental disagreement between the parties over whether the government should appropriate the large sums a massive response would require. Lacking that, Congress did the next best thing – which is to find agreement on all the second-tier issues as they could.”

View the original article at thefix.com

12 October 2018
First-Ever Case Of Netflix Addiction Being Treated In India

The man would turn on Netflix first thing in the morning and binge-watch shows and movies for more than seven hours every day.

Internet addiction disorder is not officially recognized in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but it’s very much a reality for some.

A serious case of digital addiction in India highlights the serious effects of getting hooked on technology. According to The Hindu, last week a 26-year-old man became the first “Netflix addict” to seek treatment at the Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore.

The man would turn on Netflix first thing in the morning and binge-watch shows and movies for more than seven hours every day to escape the reality of being unemployed. He did this for six months, the Hindu reports.

“Whenever his family pressurized him to earn a living, or when he saw his friends doing well, he would watch the shows on offer continuously,” said Manoj Kumar Sharma, a clinical psychologist at SHUT. “It was a method of escapism. He could forget about his problems, and he derived immense pleasure from it.”

SHUT was established in 2014 to help people experiencing a “pattern of excessive use of technology.” Sharma and his team help address the problematic use of technology and replace the technology with healthy activities, build coping skills and strengthen a patient’s support network.

The unidentified patient—who experienced fatigue, disturbed sleep and eye strain as a result of his Netflix habit—was put on a regimen of relaxation exercises, therapy and career counseling at SHUT, according to the Print.

Sharma said that many of his patients who excessively watch TV and movies on streaming platforms also struggle with gaming addiction. “The best advice is to avoid the use of technology if it becomes a coping mechanism,” said Sharma.

While not officially recognized as a mental disorder in the DSM-5, internet addiction disorder affects many—young and old.

The Hindu notes that children also struggle with digital addiction. “The addiction interferes with the child’s academic performance and counselors are advising students and parents to keep a close watch on the duration and the shows they watch,” said Mansoor Khan, a school official in Bangalore who said they have begun noticing the problem in young students.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 October 2018
Olympian Ryan Lochte To Enter Treatment for Alcoholism

A pair of incidents with the law were the reported driving factors behind Lochte’s decision to enter treatment.

Twelve-time Olympic swimming medalist Ryan Lochte will seek treatment for alcohol addiction after a string of incidents culminating in a car crash on October 4.

Lochte’s legal representative, Jeff Ostrow, stated that the 34-year-old “has been battling from [sic] alcohol addiction for many years, and unfortunately, it has become a destructive pattern.”

Ostrow added that his client’s goals are to be “the best husband and father he can be” and to return to competitive swimming for his fifth Olympics in 2020.

Lochte has amassed an impressive treasure chest of laurels in swimming, including six Olympic gold medals, but since 2016, has also generated headlines for his involvement in several swimming-related scandals.

He was widely criticized for embellishing his account of a 2016 incident during the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro in which he and three teammates were allegedly robbed at gunpoint.

Lochte later apologized for his statement and for what he described as “immature behavior,” including damage to a gas station bathroom, which caused an altercation with security guards.

He was subsequently suspended from swimming for 10 months and banned from participating in a 2017 world championship event.

In 2018, Lochte was suspended for a second time for reportedly receiving an intravenous infusion without a therapeutic use exemption.

Though Lochte claimed that the injection only contained vitamins, he was handed down a 14-month suspension, which effectively halted his comeback after the 2016 incident.

On October 4, 2018, police were called at approximately 3 a.m. to a hotel in Newport Beach, California where Lochte had kicked in the door to his room while allegedly under the influence of alcohol. No arrest was made, but according to TMZ, he was involved in a car accident in Gainesville, Florida, after flying in from California.

Police were again summoned, and Lochte, who had reportedly failed to brake before striking the car ahead of him, was cited for “careless driving.” Alcohol was not mentioned in the police report, as TMZ noted.

The pair of incidents was apparently enough for Lochte to seek assistance for his substance use issues.

According to his lawyer, he “has acknowledged that he needs professional assistance to overcome his problem, and will be getting help immediately. Ryan knows that conquering this disease now is a must for him to avoid making poor decisions, to be the best husband and father he can be, and if he wants to achieve his goal to return to dominance in the pool in his fifth Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.”

No word as to where Lochte will seek treatment has been given as of this writing.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 October 2018
New Rehab Reform Laws Aim To Clean Up California's Troubled System

One of the new laws puts a ban on patient brokering.

California Gov. Jerry Brown last week green-lit a series of measures aimed at reforming the state’s troubled and under-regulated rehab system.

One of the new measures, which come on the heels of media scrutiny of the state’s recovery industry, would require rehabs to refer to evidence-based models or the American Society of Addiction Medicine treatment criteria for a minimum standard of care.

“It’s an unbelievably unregulated field, and we’re going to try to put our arms around that by requiring some standards and the best scientific evidence before these facilities are licensed,” state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) told the Orange County Register. “We may be able to solve a small part of the problem, and save some lives.”

The legislation gives the California State Department of Health Care Services five years to figure out the details.

“This bill would require the department to adopt specified standards for these facilities as minimum requirements for licensure,” the law reads. “The bill would authorize the department to implement, interpret, or make specific this requirement by means of plan or provider bulletins or similar instructions until regulations are adopted and would require the department to adopt the regulations by January 1, 2023.”

The governor also green-lit other rehab-related legislation, including one bill that puts a ban on patient brokering and another that makes rehab licenses provisional for a year and revocable.

Although the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, some cities and the Orange County Board of Supervisors voiced support for the new measures, an emergency room physicians’ associations worried whether giving in to NIMBY demands for regulation would work to increase stigma around addiction, according to Cal Matters.

And, despite what advocates view as legislative successes, some proposals didn’t pass or didn’t make it into the final legislation, including language that would have raised sober living home standards and created criminal consequences for patient brokering.

“Now we have legislative intent and precedent to address this issue in a larger context,” activist Ryan Hampton told the Orange County paper. “We’re going to continue to build on this success in the next session and in the future. We will get to the point where we have full protections in place. At least we’re not going backwards.”

Though the various pieces of legislation had different legislative sponsors, at least one credited the newspaper group—and comedian John Oliver—with lighting the spark that ignited change.

“Thanks to you and the paper and John Oliver for opening my eyes to the issue and the abuses,” state Sen. Hill told the publication. “Southern California has such a prevalence of these facilities. It’s not benefiting anyone, and harming so many people.”

View the original article at thefix.com

1 October 2018
Views From A Rehab Counselor

No amount of comfort is enough when there is a look of terror on someone admitting to treatment for the first time.

“I want to be that little girl!”

A woman in her late 40s is sitting in front of me in my office, sobbing as she stares at a black and white picture of my then four-year-old daughter being twirled on the dancefloor, her white crinoline dress slightly blurred by the movement of her swirl. She has a smile of joy that only a four-year-old can have.

The woman is a patient I’m admitting to the rehab facility where I’m a counselor. She is highly intoxicated and emotionally distraught. This is her first time in treatment.

I immediately regret having the picture so visible, something I know a lot of counselors and therapists would never do and as I move to put the picture facedown on the window sill, she begs me not to. For some reason she is fixated on my daughter’s image.

In the three years that I’ve been in the field there is something new happening—more and more older men and women—those in their 40s through late 60s—are entering treatment for the first time for their alcohol dependence.

It’s also happening with people in their 20s—young, suburban, college-educated, fresh-faced young people attempting to stop drinking.

Prior to this job, I worked in an all-male halfway house for 30 men. In the year that I was there, maybe four of the 50 or so guys I had on my rotating caseload struggled with alcoholism. The rest were mostly 20 and 30-year-olds who were addicted to heroin.

This carried over into my current job where initially most of the patients coming in were younger, a little rough around the edges, wanting to detox from opiates and benzos. Then suddenly, just a few months ago, something seems to have shifted.

I’m stunned by the amount of alcohol these patients have been drinking on a daily basis. I went into my local liquor store to ask the owner to show me what a “handle” is and what a “sleeve” of nips looks like.

For me, someone who is not in recovery and looks forward to a glass of wine at the end of the day, who stops the second I feel a little buzzed I can’t wrap my head around that desire, that need to completely obliterate oneself to the point of blackout. I can count on less than two hands the number of times I’ve been even slightly drunk and only one time when I actually got a touch of the bed spins. I’ve never thrown up from drinking, never passed out.

I know enough to realize that a good number of people with substance use disorders are self-medicating for one thing or another, for the pain and anguish, the unaddressed trauma and mental health issues that lurk beneath the surface.

If a family member accompanies the patient to our facility they will often take me aside and fill me in on some details that the patient wouldn’t necessarily reveal themselves during the intake process. It comes out eventually during the customary 28-day stay, with the gentle guidance of insightful therapists and peers.

Obviously the hard part, the seemingly impossible task, will be for them to find other ways to cope once treatment is complete.

I have a special fondness for the men and women who arrive to the facility under the influence. I love the rollercoaster ride they take me on with them, the ups and downs, the loop-the-loops, the crying and yelling.

I’m okay with being told to “fuck off” and then only two minutes later being told that I’m their guardian angel. I was recently told that I was “hotter than a hand grenade” by a man whose blood alcohol level was off the charts.

I told him that when he sobered up how disappointed he’d be in my “hotness” level. And yes, when I DID see him the next day, he barely remembered me.

No amount of comfort is enough when there is a look of terror on someone admitting to treatment for the first time. I can only do so much by telling them that it’s going to be okay, that they’ve come to the right place, that they’re so brave for making this first step. I get to go home at the end of the day. I don’t have to be woken up every four hours to have my vital signs taken or worry about who my roommate might be.

Some time during my intake the woman sitting in front of me looked at the picture of my daughter, put her head down, still sobbing and defeated and filled with shame and said, “I’m NEVER going to be that little girl.”

It was clear that she didn’t think she would ever achieve a moment of such complete joy and freedom, that she would ever be spun around on a dance floor in a twirly dress. It took a couple of hours to complete her paperwork and by the time we wrapped up, she had sobered up quite a bit.

As I stood up to escort her to the unit, she looked at the picture one more time, some strong and silent resolution having been made, the belief that joy could and would be achieved in her life and said, “I’m GOING to be that little girl.”

I so hope that she has found many joyful and free moments since she left treatment, that she dances in her living room with a smile on her face.

Gayle Saks has written extensively about her work as a substance abuse counselor from the unique perspective of someone who is not in recovery herself. Her blog, My Life In The Middle Ages, was voted one of the Top 20 Recovery Blogs for 2016 by AfterParty Magazine. She has written on the subject for The Fix, HuffPost, mindbodygreen and Thought Catalog. She has also written about being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the eventual suicide of her mother. Her pieces on the subject have appeared in kveller where she is a regular contributor, The Jewish Journal, and MammaMia.

In 2013 she was invited to be on a panel on HuffPost Live to talk about being middle-aged, where her 15 minutes of poignant and intelligent conversation turned into a soundbyte about her having a hot flash at a Justin Timberlake/Jay-Z concert.

Saks grew up on Long Island, New York, and lives in the Greater Boston area with her husband, daughter, two cats and two dogs or as her husband says, “Too many beating hearts.”

View the original article at thefix.com

27 September 2018
Treatment Clinic Beat The Odds To Help Patients During Hurricane Florence

“Some of those nurses were without power, they sustained damage to their homes, but they showed up every day.”

When Hurricane Florence swept through the middle of the country, it left behind patients in treatment without access to their possibly life-saving medications.

The hurricane brought with it flooding and blocked roads and bridges—putting patients in addiction treatment who use methadone or buprenorphine at risk of withdrawal or worse, relapse.

One opioid addiction clinic, the Carolina Treatment Center, worked beyond its means to provide care for the stranded and desperate coming in from far and wide.

The clinic would have been in dire straits if the nurses working there—most of them severely and personally affected by the hurricane—had not been able to show up.

The clinic’s head nurse Kristen Morales worked 16 days in a row while living at a nearby hotel to ensure she could show up for her job. Huffington Post interviewed the treatment center director, Louis Leake, as he worked cases from as far off as Louisiana.

“We can do a lot of things, but we can’t do a lot of things without nurses,” Leake said. “Some of those nurses were without power, they sustained damage to their homes, but they showed up every day.”

Past studies have shown the toll that intense storms take on the community of addiction recovery. One study published in Substance Use Misuse, on Hurricane Sandy, concluded that among other troubling findings (such as the increase of shared use of needles) 70% of those in opioid maintenance therapy could not obtain sufficient doses to remain off of opioids.

The town of Fayetteville’s clinic was closed for a mandatory three-day evacuation. Patients were given between three and six days of treatment medication to take home, after which they had to be resupplied.

The Carolina Treatment Center was outside of the evacuation zone and took in all of Fayetteville’s addiction treatment patients, to treat a total of more than 900 patients.

Despite the four days of medication that patients could take home, between the three-day evacuation and road closures and flooding, many patients would have had to suffer through withdrawal or relapse if the Carolina Treatment Center had not gone above and beyond to provide a safety net for this vulnerable community.

Patient Teri Cooper told The Huffington Post, “It was busy, but thank God I could come here. I guess I would have got some damn drugs, to be honest. [if the clinic were closed] If I didn’t feel good. That’s the truth.”

View the original article at thefix.com

27 September 2018
Why Hospitals Offer Treatment Referrals In Lieu Of Addiction Services?

Only 5% of ER doctors work in hospitals that offer buprenorphine or methadone.

A recent Huffington Post feature highlights a conundrum within the medical community’s response to the opioid crisis: emergency room patients with opioid use disorder who receive a dose of buprenorphine are twice as likely to continue treatment within the next 30 days than those who were referred to outside treatment facilities.

Despite those statistics, a survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) found that only 5% of ER doctors work in hospitals that offer buprenorphine or methadone, of which there are less than 100 in the United States.

The ACEP study, which polled 1,261 emergency physicians in 2017, found that 9 in 10 respondents felt that the number of patients seeking opioids had increased or remained the same during that year. But at many hospitals, patients seeking medical assistance for addiction-related issues are given the phone number for local clinics.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, cites a number of reasons why this approach might be favored over administering buprenorphine or other opioid treatment drugs.

Emergency doctors and nurses may have antipathy towards drug users, who are often in their worst possible states when arriving at emergency services, said Kolodny. Hospital administrators, too, may perceive such patients as poor insurance risks, especially those in states that have not expanded Medicaid; offering services beyond treatment referral could take up staff and available beds.

Prescribing buprenorphine also requires a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and many physicians are not willing to complete the eight hours of clinical training required to receive it.

But as the Huffington Post feature notes, a number of hospitals across the U.S., including 10 in Maryland and multiple locations in California and South Carolina, do offer addiction services, which typically entail screening by caregivers and an interview with a peer recovery coach to determine if the patient is willing to accept treatment.

ER doctors and nurses will treat the patient’s most urgent medical needs, and then administer a dose of buprenorphine.

A 2017 study by the Yale School of Medicine found that patients with opioid use disorder who receive such a dose in an ER were twice as likely to be involved in some form of treatment a month later, compared to those who were not. Dr. Eric Weintraub, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is a proponent of addiction services in emergency rooms, and now works to help other hospitals adopt that approach.

“We’ve learned that certain places are conducive to engaging patients in treatment,” Weintraub told HuffPost. “One of them is the ER. The other is the criminal justice system. We need to grab those opportunities and offer patients effective treatment when they’re ready.”

Currently, addiction treatment specialists are watching addiction services programs in Maryland and other locations to see if the approach proved effective over long-term periods. “If this movement… is successful and starts to become normalized nationwide, it could change everything,” said Kolodny.

“If you really want to see overdose deaths come down in the United States, getting treatment with buprenorphine has to be easier and cheaper for people with substance use disorders than getting heroin or other opioids off the street,” he said. “And what could be easier than walking into an ER and getting started on buprenorphine?”

View the original article at thefix.com

24 September 2018
Senate Passes Sweeping Opioid Legislation, Treatment Advocates Unimpressed

“None of the bills include providing the one thing communities hit by the opioid crisis need most: funding,” says one treatment advocate.

A bipartisan effort to stem the opioid crisis, while impressive in scope, does not have what it takes to stem the national opioid crisis, say treatment advocates.

On Monday (Sept. 17), the Senate passed a package of 70 bills—racking up a cost of $8.4 billion—with a 99-to-1 vote to address various aspects of the opioid crisis. The lone dissenter was Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

The goal was to tackle the opioid crisis from multiple angles—like expanding access to treatment and thwarting shipments of illicit drugs from abroad—but not everyone is impressed with the expansive legislation.

Joy Burwell, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which represents American health care organizations that deliver mental health and substance use disorder services, expressed her organization’s disappointment that “Congress missed this opportunity to make a meaningful, long-term investment in our nation’s addiction treatment system.”

One way to accomplish this, Burwell says, would be to include the the Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Expansion Act, a bill that would expand a current program that has shown success in improving access to addiction treatment services.

The package of bills passed in the Senate, however, falls short of their expectations. “None of the bills include providing the one thing communities hit by the opioid crisis need most: funding,” wrote Burwell in a statement. “Nor do they offer a comprehensive solution to the country’s addiction crisis.”

The legislation package includes various measures intended to fight substance abuse. They include expanding access to opioid-addiction medication (like buprenorphine); funding recovery centers that provide temporary housing, job training, and other support during a transition to recovery; expanding the scope of mental health professionals where they are in short supply; expanding first responder naloxone programs; and preventing illicit drugs from being shipped via the US Postal Service.

Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio admitted that the legislation does have missing pieces. “It doesn’t include everything all of us want to see but it has important new initiatives and it’s a step in the right direction,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “Congress is committing itself to actually putting politics aside. It’s not just bipartisan—I think it’s nonpartisan.”

According to the Post, the House passed a similar measure in June. Now the two chambers will go over the differences before sending the package off to Trump.

View the original article at thefix.com

19 September 2018
"Dopesick Nation" Chronicles Struggle To Find Addiction Treatment

“TV is typically the domain of heroes and monsters and we don’t believe in either.”

A new docu-series shows the day-to-day struggle of finding help for people with substance use disorder.

The first episode of Dopesick Nation, a new 10-part series that premiered on VICELAND last Wednesday (Sept. 12), follows Frankie and Allie as they seek treatment for Nate and Kelly, two drug users in South Florida.

Frankie and Allie, who are in recovery themselves, explain the root of South Florida’s current heroin and fentanyl crisis—going back to the feds’ crackdown on prescription pills and the subsequent rise of heroin and fentanyl.

South Florida’s recovery industry is among the most notorious—people flock there to get help because it is “brimming with treatment centers on every corner,” Allie explains. Many are “predatory” in nature.

“I have family in South Florida and they started to tell me about this billion dollar rehab industry. It seemed like everyone down there had a finger in that pie. It was a big, dark, open secret,” producer Ian Manheimer told The Fix via email. “In my research, I met a lot of people who were making a piles of fast money in this industry. Their incentives weren’t necessarily aligned with those of their clients and it led to a lot of horrible things happening.”

The documentary follows Frankie as he tries to get Nate into treatment. He secured a scholarship for Nate, but they must wait for a bed to open up before he can be admitted. Until then, all Nate can do is wait and do his best to survive, one day at a time. “I don’t know if I can make it through another night,” he says as he is forced to wait longer than expected. “I fucking hate everything about what I’m doing.”

Viewers can feel the frustration of this waiting game. It’s clear that Nate is sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. He’s ready for change, and to be present for his son.

Frankie asks him, “Are you tired, and just done man?” Nate says, “It’s more of a mental/emotional thing, not as much of a physical thing like my body’s tired or my arms hurt, or I don’t have any veins left—you know, all those different reasons why people would stop getting high. Just emotionally and mentally drained as fuck, you’re like just done. It’s never been this bad before for some reason. I just want to have my family back.”

Nate’s experience is like any other individual who is ready to quit, but can’t stop. After using for so long, Nate is physically addicted to heroin. If he can’t get professional help, the only thing that will make him feel better is heroin or Suboxone, a medication for opioid addiction.

“This is a God-given opportunity. I’m not supposed to have this. And for whatever reason, I got it,” Nate said about the scholarship that Frankie got for him. “I need to take advantage of it because I can’t keep doing this anymore. This can’t define who I am. This isn’t me. Because I have more potential than that,” he says before he hits his pipe.

At the end of the first episode, Nate is finally admitted to a treatment center, and is out in 30 days. He looks different—healthier and happier.

Kelly, on the other hand, is harder for Allie to keep track of. She’s enthusiastic about recovery one day, but is no where to be found the next. But Allie, who met Kelly on her path to recovery, isn’t about to let go of her friend. “I’ll never give up on Kelly. Unless Kelly gives up on Kelly,” she says.

As the series continues, we’ll meet more young men and women at the height of their crisis, Manheimer says. “Maybe they’re prostituting. Maybe they’re stealing. They’re homeless. Allie and Frank will have to convince them, against all odds, to get into detox before someone else takes the scholarship they have lined up.”

Dopesick Nation is about showing the raw reality of people’s experiences, without labels or judgment. “We wanted to make something real,” says Manheimer. “TV is typically the domain of heroes and monsters and we don’t believe in either.”

Watch the first episode of Dopesick Nation here.

View the original article at thefix.com

18 September 2018