Ohio couple calls out heroin in teen daughter's obituary

[Burnt Offerings]

Confronted with the sudden death of their 18-year-old daughter, Fred and Dorothy McIntosh Shuemake made a defiant decision: they would not worry about any finger-pointing, whispers or family stigma.

They directed the funeral home to begin Alison Shuemake's obituary by stating flatly that she died "of a heroin overdose." They aren't the first grieving American parents to cite heroin in an obituary as such deaths nearly quadrupled nationally over a decade, but it's rare, even in a southwest Ohio community headed toward another record year in heroin-related deaths.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ohio-couple-calls-heroin-teen-daughters-obituary-33572087

Pretty sad/powerful story I thought.

 

[Carl Landrover]

There was already significant heroin usage in the NE when I started close to 10 years ago now. This has increased quite a bit over the last 10 years. I think it'll get even worse before it gets better. I don't know what the solution is, but I think more of a focus on treatment and making it more of a social problem as opposed to the criminal problem it's currently treated as.

In CT there has been a big increase in suboxone doctors and the number of people prescribed suboxone. On a local scale it's surprising how many more people are selling heroin around here. There's multiple people selling within my town and the bordering one. The number of and size of arrests has also increased.

 

[Jabberwocky]

There was already significant heroin usage in the NE when I started close to 10 years ago now. This has increased quite a bit over the last 10 years. I think it'll get even worse before it gets better. I don't know what the solution is, but I think more of a focus on treatment and making it more of a social problem as opposed to the criminal problem it's currently treated as.

In CT there has been a big increase in suboxone doctors and the number of people prescribed suboxone. On a local scale it's surprising how many more people are selling heroin around here. There's multiple people selling within my town and the bordering one. The number of and size of arrests has also increased.

Part of the reason I miss living in Hartford. Bupe must be even less on the street than it was a 7/8 years ago. Are suboxone drs as outrageous as they used to be in the state or have things improved markedly?

 

[Hiltoniano]

The suboxone maintenance and so called 'addiction medicine' in the dates is the same old story of misinformed doctors and suboxone 'experts' overprescribing and charging huge fees per visit. Suboxone, zubsolve, methadone, naltrexone implant/shots, etc; all are a part of the failed attempts to help addicts who truly need and want to get better. I speak from personal experience: sub therapy helped me, BUT only because I went against doctors advice, and stayed on a low dose for relatively short time, then tapered off as soon as I could. Many others do not get this kind of positive effect, sadly. It is a good idea that badly needs to be rebuilt into a working reality, instead of the current sad state the system in place for addicts to get 'help'.

Yes, if you can afford the price and you understand the risk of long term opioid maintenance therapies, then by all means it could help in a situation where someone wants to get off dope or painkillers, and they are actually better off on bupe or something like doing a slow taper to get off their DOC. But yes, it's still a bunch of fuckery consisting of massive amounts of misinformation combined with stigmatization and huge costs on both wallets and well being .

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

The suboxone maintenance and so called 'addiction medicine' in the dates is the same old story of misinformed doctors and suboxone 'experts' overprescribing and charging huge fees per visit. Suboxone, zubsolve, methadone, naltrexone implant/shots, etc; all are a part of the failed attempts to help addicts who truly need and want to get better. I speak from personal experience: sub therapy helped me, BUT only because I went against doctors advice, and stayed on a low dose for relatively short time, then tapered off as soon as I could. Many others do not get this kind of positive effect, sadly. It is a good idea that badly needs to be rebuilt into a working reality, instead of the current sad state the system in place for addicts to get 'help'.

Yes, if you can afford the price and you understand the risk of long term opioid maintenance therapies, then by all means it could help in a situation where someone wants to get off dope or painkillers, and they are actually better off on bupe or something like doing a slow taper to get off their DOC. But yes, it's still a bunch of fuckery consisting of massive amounts of misinformation combined with stigmatization and huge costs on both wallets and well being .

That's very true. A lot of people get on subs or methadone and keep taking them for awhile, take higher doses, and think that they can keep taking subs or methadone for the rest of their life.

 

[Felonious Monk]

My heart goes out to them, and I applaud their courage in naming their daughter's demise. I see far too many obituaries of people 18-25 that just say "died suddenly." That means one of two things, and I think it's wrong to not give someone closure like that (and possibly make an impact on someone else's life by making the cause of death known).

 

[szuko000]

The suboxone maintenance and so called 'addiction medicine' in the dates is the same old story of misinformed doctors and suboxone 'experts' overprescribing and charging huge fees per visit. Suboxone, zubsolve, methadone, naltrexone implant/shots, etc; all are a part of the failed attempts to help addicts who truly need and want to get better. I speak from personal experience: sub therapy helped me, BUT only because I went against doctors advice, and stayed on a low dose for relatively short time, then tapered off as soon as I could. Many others do not get this kind of positive effect, sadly. It is a good idea that badly needs to be rebuilt into a working reality, instead of the current sad state the system in place for addicts to get 'help'.

This exactly. I took half the dose they want me to stock piled the rest and left when they told me i couldnt. They tried to instill the fear of me relapsing at the apt center in CT. Basically told me "if you leave now you will relapse" to which i said "i always thought it would be MY choice to relapse" and left and guess what i didnt for years until something unrelated and that relapse saved my life in many ways and was needed.

A lot of people i know were directly effected by dope, me my g/f, my brother, his friends, ect. Its almost like in order to advance in life you need to conquer opiate addiction first. I hope it gets better i wish there was a way to get people to realize you can get better. But we need a complete revamping of treatment. Even my methadone is stock piled for when they tell me i cant leave or try to get me to do something retarded. I always have a back up plan and it came in handy with the suboxone.

 

[cj]

That's very true. A lot of people get on subs or methadone and keep taking them for awhile, take higher doses, and think that they can keep taking subs or methadone for the rest of their life.

I will be taking methadone for the rest of my life most likely and I'm not sad about it. Opiate addiction is a chronic debilitating relapsing behavioral disease. I like to relate it to type 2 diabetes caused by obesiety. Both are caused by the subjects behavior and both can be treated with behavioral interventions in a certain percentage of the population. However a not I significant percentage will fail at this treatment and require pharmaceutical intervention. For type 2 it's insulin and or amphetamines gastric bypass ect. In opiate addiction it's suboxone, methadone, naltrexone implants ect.

For me personally I chose high dose methadone. I am very very happy with my outcome so far. If the treatment continues to work I see no reason why I can't stay on it forever. Many people at my clinic have been on it 20 plus years and are perfectly healthy and happy.

 

[szuko000]

^ and that right there is the correct attitude about addiction and recovery and it is important to realize we all have different needs/goals. There is no perfect solution or even one that works for most people. I myself prefer a life without opiates so much so it will cause me to get off methadone sometimes soon and i have already started lowing my dose. For me the drive to live without drugs is a reoccurring one. Its the drive that made quitting daily cannabis possible for probation the one that stopped 3 years of nightly vodka drinking for my g/f and it got me off subs last time. For me the daily act of using gets to be too much and i want out it always happens at some point. But it is important to understand that just because i will eventually get "fed up" with it and put myself through hell to get off under the idea that "weeks of hell is worth it for my lifes goals as i would spend a year in WD if it meant getting to the point where i know my life is meant to go" but we are not all like that and in my mind there is no difference between someone who is on methadone for life and someone who quits never to look back. The true point of all of this is to increase your quality of life by a measurable amount. Mine might be completely turning my back to my past life and acting like it never happened and someone elses might be buying his kids Christmas presents but we all measure success and achievement differently. No one person is more right or wrong in how they choose to better their life.

 

[LuGoJ]

I will be taking methadone for the rest of my life most likely and I'm not sad about it. Opiate addiction is a chronic debilitating relapsing behavioral disease. I like to relate it to type 2 diabetes caused by obesiety. Both are caused by the subjects behavior and both can be treated with behavioral interventions in a certain percentage of the population. However a not I significant percentage will fail at this treatment and require pharmaceutical intervention. For type 2 it's insulin and or amphetamines gastric bypass ect. In opiate addiction it's suboxone, methadone, naltrexone implants ect.

For me personally I chose high dose methadone. I am very very happy with my outcome so far. If the treatment continues to work I see no reason why I can't stay on it forever. Many people at my clinic have been on it 20 plus years and are perfectly healthy and happy.

A few questions if you don't mind. I don't really know much about it.

How much does methadone cost? Is it something you can easily take every day without it breaking your bank, even into retirement on a reduced income?
Is it something that makes you high or does it just kill the craving for opiates?
If it does get you high, do you find it interferes with your abilities at work etc? Do you feel it limits you or what you want to do in any way?

If it's something someone can take and it doesn't affect their ability to meet their responsibilities and obligations in life, I don't see why people shouldn't be able to have access if they need it. In fact it would seem crazy to remove that option if people find it helpful.

 

[cj]

A few questions if you don't mind. I don't really know much about it.

How much does methadone cost? Is it something you can easily take every day without it breaking your bank, even into retirement on a reduced income?
Is it something that makes you high or does it just kill the craving for opiates?
If it does get you high, do you find it interferes with your abilities at work etc? Do you feel it limits you or what you want to do in any way?

If it's something someone can take and it doesn't affect their ability to meet their responsibilities and obligations in life, I don't see why people shouldn't be able to have access if they need it. In fact it would seem crazy to remove that option if people find it helpful.

1. The cost is different everywhere but my clinic charges 16 dollars a day. My parents are paying for it right now until I get well enough to work.
2. It doesn't get me high per se I would say its more like a nice glow. I feel warm and somewhat content for an hour or two after I dose. No it doesn't interfer with my life and no one would have any idea I'm on methadone if I didn't tell them. It doesn't limit my life in any way that I have noticed. This might be different for someone who likes to spontaneously travel or can't make it to the clinic between 6-11 am or whatever. Getting take homes would get rid of many of the downsides but I smoke weed so that won't happen for me.

Like all pharmaceutical and behavioral treatments methadone has downsides and contradictions. Like Suzuki pointed out no treatment is one size fits all. I think we need more variety and options in drug treatment not less.

 

[Jabberwocky]

It costs people about one days minimum wage job pay for a month of any dose of methadone where I'm from, although clinic prices can range significantly. On the street methadone is much cheaper than any other opioid I've run across in a while - much much less than suboxone strips or pills here.

I was also on buprenorphine for about two years, and kept it around 2mg/twice a day for the vast majority of that time. It was great for the time, but the fact I decided to get on methadone a year and a half after bupe says something. I'm frankly much happier on methadone than I was on bupe, although I've kept it reasonably low around 30mg and will probably go down to 20 and stay there for a while till I feel it's time to come off.

It is sad how fucked up most methadone and buprenorphine doctors and staff are. The only thing I cannot stand about methadone is the people who work at the clinic, but I also couldn't stand my bupe Dr either. Not all are horrible, but it seems like 9/10 do have their heads up their collective ass. Considering most people don't have enough background to use these drugs properly they have to rely on their doctors, which in any case they should be able to do (I mean they are doctors prescribing a certain medication after all)... But yea fucked up, sad situation. Even when you know what you're doing with these drugs its difficult enough imho

 

[LuGoJ]

1. The cost is different everywhere but my clinic charges 16 dollars a day. My parents are paying for it right now until I get well enough to work.
2. It doesn't get me high per se I would say its more like a nice glow. I feel warm and somewhat content for an hour or two after I dose. No it doesn't interfer with my life and no one would have any idea I'm on methadone if I didn't tell them. It doesn't limit my life in any way that I have noticed. This might be different for someone who likes to spontaneously travel or can't make it to the clinic between 6-11 am or whatever. Getting take homes would get rid of many of the downsides but I smoke weed so that won't happen for me.

Like all pharmaceutical and behavioral treatments methadone has downsides and contradictions. Like Suzuki pointed out no treatment is one size fits all. I think we need more variety and options in drug treatment not less.

Thanks for answering, I learned quite a bit!