Intervention Canada ~ A story from my Small Northern Ontario City …

Posted on February 6th, 2012 by roxxyroller in Free Coupons Canada Samples Canadian Free stuff.

 

 

Com­ing from a small town in north­ern Ontario such as mine, one tends to usu­ally know every­one else’s busi­ness. In my city, the last time that I checked, we had a pop­u­la­tion of 80000 which really is con­sid­ered small as opposed to other cities in Ontario Canada such as Toronto and elsewhere.

Street drugs and non-prescription drugs are just as bad here as any­where else, and it has got­ten to the point of die-hard “junkies” (a word that really ticks me off!) doing rel­a­tively any­thing to get their next ‘fix’ which is shock­ing, yet not sur­pris­ing. Home inva­sions are on the rise here, with the users enter­ing any ran­dom home, (they do not have a time pref­er­ence) bound­ing and tying up the home­own­ers (so that they can­not speak or move), while these drug–junkies search these homes for any­thing valu­able to steal and sell so they can afford to feed their addiction.

The thing that really both­ers me the most is that these addicts do not care what age you are, they will invade your home, period. The frail and inno­cent elderly are often the vic­tims, and it sick­ens me as to what these addicts will do what­ever it takes to get street drugs, and this includes harm­ing any­one at all in their way, not even car­ing if there are even chil­dren in their pres­ence. An addic­tion is an addic­tion, and it does not mat­ter whether it’s mar­i­jauna, cocaine, crack, heroin, methadone, mor­phine, opi­ates, ecstasy pills, per­co­cets, (or any pill that is habit-forming to snort or crush and smoke) and I am think­ing that there are many oth­ers that I am not even aware of!!

Oxy­codone {or oxy­con­tin} addic­tion has been on the rise all over Canada, and right now it’s one of the most abused pre­scrip­tion drugs! It actu­ally got to the point of phar­ma­cies being robbed at gun or knife-point to get a reliev­ing buzz. Many phar­ma­cies stopped car­ry­ing Oxy­Con­tin for this very rea­son, and I don’t blame them one bit!!

In Canada, the increase in rob­beries has accom­pa­nied an increase in treat­ment pro­grams for peo­ple addicted to painkillers, espe­cially in the age bracket of 18 to 24 years old. Some attempt to steal the med­ica­tions for their own addic­tion, while oth­ers resell them on the streets at prices of $50 per pill or higher. Oth­ers have resorted to more orga­nized meth­ods of crime, such as offer­ing to buy pre­scrip­tions from legit­i­mate patients in or out­side of phar­macy wait­ing areas or using fake pre­scrip­tions cre­ated for themselves.

 

Oxy­codone is a drug addic­tion that pro­gresses rapidly. Users who begin tak­ing the drugs fol­low­ing an injury or surgery can quickly become addicted and will begin using the drug for its euphoric effects and to reach a state of “nor­malcy,” even after their injury has healed. Stronger dosages are needed as the addic­tion esca­lates. Aside from pill form, oxy­codone can be injested through the nose or by injec­tion. While I am not obliv­i­ous to the fact that these ille­gal drugs are sold all over the world, I just hear it more in our tight-knit com­mu­nity and it’s a shame that I actu­ally have a close friend or 8 that have became addicted as well, it really hurts.

 

 

Awhile back my best friend Deb­bie was inform­ing me of a young girl named “Mar­cie” (not really her name) from my city who hap­pened to be appear­ing on the show “Inter­ven­tion Canada”. In case you have never heard of this pop­u­lar tele­vised doc­u­men­tary, it is described as a pow­er­ful and grip­ping tele­vi­sion series in which peo­ple con­front their dark­est demons and seek a route to redemp­tion. The series fol­lows the for­mat of the mul­ti­ple Emmy-nominated ground-breaking U.S. series. It pro­files peo­ple whose depen­den­cies on drugs and alco­hol or other com­pul­sive behav­iour have brought them to a point of per­sonal cri­sis that cul­mi­nates in an inter­ven­tion with fam­i­lies and pro­fes­sion­als offer­ing assistance.

 

 

My husband’s best friend since grade school hap­pened to assist in rais­ing “Mar­cie” and even­tu­ally mar­ried her mother.  Every­thing was great, until Mar­cie turned 13. She began to drink to the point of get­ting plas­tered, and passed out one night at a house party, where Mar­cie got raped.

Things turned worse after that, and she began using some of the more minor yet pop­u­lar drugs on the street, smok­ing weed and oil. Mar­cie then met a man who was about 20 years older than her, and since he was an expe­ri­enced drug and nee­dle user, intro­duced her to the very pow­er­ful and addict­ing drugs. Together they shot up and smoked almost every­thing imag­in­able, and it got to the point that Mar­cie was in a fried and veg­e­ta­tive state daily, won­der­ing where her next fix was com­ing from. She was just as addicted as he was, and the num­ber of grams used daily would rise and increase to the point of not being able to afford these drugs, and when Mar­cie was 17, she robbed a con­fec­tionary store just to get the money for their next fix. Of course, she got caught.

 

 

 

Mar­cie was a very attrac­tive young girl with the most amaz­ing blue eyes and had the per­fect fig­ure. At the young age of 17, she became preg­nant by the older man that she was with, both daily drug users. Mar­cie ended up break­ing all of the veins in her arms and hands, thus lead­ing her to shoot up in the legs and feet, if she or any­one else could find a vein on her body to insert the nee­dle into.

Mar­cie knew imme­di­ately when to quit, how­ever still required methadone daily — methadone is given at the phar­macy and is given by the phar­ma­cist directly to an addict to curve that crav­ing for users. The prin­ci­pal effects of methadone main­te­nance are to relieve nar­cotic crav­ing, sup­press the absti­nence syn­drome, and block the euphoric effects asso­ci­ated with opi­ates. Methadone main­te­nance has been found to be med­ically safe and non-sedating. It is also indi­cated for preg­nant women addicted to opi­ates. As part of her rob­bery charge, Mar­cie was banned from see­ing that older man that she was in a rela­tion­ship with, yet con­tin­ued to sleep at his house every night. After the birth of her baby, some­one helped Mar­cie raise the lit­tle one, so Mar­cie would visit her baby every day and became an excel­lent mother. There was absolutely noth­ing that Mar­cie would not do for her child, and her own mother would also par­tic­i­pate in car­ing for her grand-baby.

 

 

Through all of this, I watched as the story unfolded on tv. She con­tin­ued on using after her baby was born, but only at night at her boyfriends as she had the baby to care for on an every­day basis. They expected the baby to be born an addict, how­ever Mar­cie got lucky, as this child endured absolutely no with­drawl symp­toms. Praise the Lord!!

I also watched Marcie’s mom on the show who is also the same age as me, admit­ting that she also was a user and strug­gled every­day for months. She even admit­ted to ‘using’ with her teenage daugh­ter (which Marcie’s mother was not proud of), and thank­fully quit using the harsh drugs by means of smok­ing them or shoot­ing up by syringe about 5 years ago after she stepped back and watched her daugh­ter slowly hit­ting rock bot­tom. She decided that even­tu­ally her daugh­ter would die if she con­tin­ued shoot­ing up the way she was, so that was when she reached the actual turn­ing point in her life. Inter­ven­tion Canada was called upon by the fam­ily mem­bers, and the show was almost shot imme­di­ately, right here in my own city.

 

 

The point of this story? Marcie’s mom is  now a very good friend of mine. I have got­ten to know her, and we are now the very best of friends thanks to Inter­ven­tion Canada! Marcie’s mom is no dif­fer­ent than you or I. She is tall, very beau­ti­ful, per­fect body, ram­bunc­tious, happy, out­go­ing, and those are just a few of the words to describe her. Inter­ven­tion Canada helped Mar­cie out immensely, and since the inter­ven­tion she no longer see’s the older man who assisted in drag­ging her down, the baby’s father. She is much bet­ter off, and is now in the works of get­ting her lit­tle one (now 2) back and into her very own apartment.

Addic­tion sucks. I admit that I have a strong addic­tion, and that is to the evil nico­tine. It over­whelms me day and night, and I almost wish that as a stu­pid naive and eas­ily per­suaded teenager that I never even attempted try­ing a cig­a­rette, ever. I strug­gle often with it, and yes, it is a vice that many peo­ple have. Other’s are addicted to gam­bling. Cer­tain oth­ers are addicted to alco­hol. No mat­ter what, an addic­tion is always an addic­tion and addic­tions are extremely hard to curb!

My new friend is clean now, yet peo­ple that know her from the past life still con­sider her a ‘junkie’ and it hurts. Per­son­ally I hate that word, because I beleive that every­one deserves a sec­ond chance in life. Junkie seems to be a harsh and hurt­ful word to me, (I pre­fer ‘addict’, it just sounds bet­ter per­son­ally) and I just wish that peo­ple would quit stereo­typ­ing oth­ers from their past.

I will con­tinue on help­ing my new friend in any way pos­si­ble to ensure that she does not relapse and go down the wrong path again. I really hope that you will all do your best to help oth­ers as well dur­ing these hard times in life. By even sav­ing one per­son, you are mak­ing a huge dif­fer­ence in someone’s life, I assure you. Know the warn­ing signs and do as much research into this as you can in case you are some­day faced with this prob­lem. It could hap­pen to any­one — it does not mat­ter if one has a high end job and lead­ing an extremely wealthy lifestyle, or just a per­son just sim­ply who is lay­ing in an alley some­where wait­ing for their next fix. It’s all around us every­where, so don’t turn the other cheek. They are really hurt­ing inside, and may very well be hurt­ing and look­ing for a way out of this awful habit.

Let them know that you care. You may be the only one.

 

 

 

 

 

In clos­ing, I am going to leave you with a poem that I learned from my sis­ter when I was just a young teenager, and I’ve always remem­bered it ever since.

 

 

Take Me in Your
Arms

(Miss
Heroin)

 

So now, lit­tle man, you’ve grown tired of grass
LSD, goof­balls, cocaine and hash,
and some­one, pre­tend­ing to be a true friend,
said, “I’ll intro­duce you to Miss Heroin.”

Well honey, before you start fool­ing with me,
just let me inform you of how it will be.

For I will seduce you and make you my slave,
I’ve sent men much stronger than you to their graves.
You think you could never become a dis­grace,
and end up addicted to Poppy seed waste.

So you’ll start inhal­ing me one after­noon,
you’ll take me into your arms very soon.
And once I’ve entered deep down in your veins,
The crav­ing will nearly drive you insane.

You’ll swin­dle your mother and just for a buck.
You’ll turn into some­thing vile and cor­rupt.
You’ll mug and you’ll steal for my nar­cotic charm,
and feel con­tent­ment when I’m in your arms.

The day, when you real­ize the mon­ster you’ve grown,
you’ll solemnly swear to leave me alone.
If you think you’ve got that mys­ti­cal knack,
then sweetie, just try get­ting me off your back.

The vomit, the cramps, your gut tied in knots.
The jan­gling nerves scream­ing for one more shot.
The hot chills and cold sweats, with­drawal pains,
can only be saved by my lit­tle white grains.

There’s no other way, and there’s no need to look,
for deep down inside you know you are hooked.
You’ll des­per­ately run to the push­ers and then,
you’ll wel­come me back to your arms once again.

And you will return just as I fore­told!
I know that you’ll give me your body and soul.
You’ll give up your morals, your con­science, your heart.
And you will be mine until, “Death Do Us Part”

 

Author Anony­mous

 

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