While figures for some kinds of drug use among teens have dropped slightly over the last several years, prescription drug abuse shows no signs of letting up. Supporting this abuse is the ease with which our young people can lay their hands on prescription drugs to abuse, particularly prescription pain relievers, such as xanax and oxycontin.



A recent report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University shows that one-third of teens who know prescription drug abusers say that these kids get their drugs from home. Another third say they can get these drugs from a friend or classmate. This means that our households are what are providing the drugs for our kids. Shouldn't our homes be the safest place for our children not the most dangerous?

The annual survey of teen attitudes on substance abuse drew the conclusion that probably half of all prescription drugs being abused by teens are coming from someone's home medicine chest.

And this ease of acquisition showed in the statistics on prescription drug abuse. By 2007, one in every twenty high school seniors had found and tried OxyContin, a powerful narcotic painkiller with a high, when abused, similar to heroin. While this is bad enough, the statistic of seniors who had abused Vicodin, a painkiller containing hydrocodone, was almost twice as high.

?Prescription pain relievers are addictive, whether it's teens or adults abusing them,? stated Derry Hallmark, Director of Admissions and a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor at Narconon Arrowhead. Narconon Arrowhead is one of the country's leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. ?We help people of all ages, from eighteen to seventy-five and up, recover the drug-free life they lost. Seventy percent of our graduates remain drug-free after graduation, as a result of our holistic program that addresses the three main barriers to recovery: the cravings, guilt and depression experienced by every addict.?

Addiction recovery at Narconon starts with addressing cravings by flushing the residual by-products of drugs or alcohol that remain in the fatty tissues and are involved in stimulating cravings. The program uses a dry-heat sauna and a strict regimen of vitamins and other supplements to sweat out these residues then goes on to restore a person's interest and involvement in life through counseling and life skills training.

The ages of people who are becoming addicts are extremely young. We need to step up and protect our children from the cycle of addiction. People are always concerned and wound up in the economy and other issues but seem to forget about the ever increasing problem of drug and alcohol addiction. Addiction is taking over. People are losing jobs, families, and their lives. If as a country we do not step up and take control of this problem it will take over. The best place to start is at your own home and with your own children. If we can each keep our own families safe and educate our children on addiction then we will undoubtedly make a huge impact on the problems we face in regards to addiction.