How Addiction Treatment Killed Cory Monteith

Jesus.

 

Wow. That's like the second article about drug users I've read recently that didn't make my blood boil.

Maybe there is some kind of paradigm shift happening, and soon - like, 10,000 years - we'll have sane, humane and responsible drug laws.

Can't wait to tell my children, on my death bed, "don't worry - your children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children's, children may have a better life. So long as the world doesn't get blown up before hand.

Yes, I know that my math doesn't check out or is even close, don't judge me.

 

I didn't know Kurt Cobain had escaped a detox shortly before shooting himself. That was before suboxone, so I guess everything was cold turkey.

Do a lot of detoxes still force you to withdraw without suboxone?

Yeah, he was forced into a detox facility in LA and purportedly hopped the fence shortly thereafter, boarding a plane for Seattle. Coincidentally he was seated next to Duff McKagan, of Guns and Roses, another Seattle native. He spent a few days in Seattle and near his country spread with a dealer and then offed himself. Small town was Seattle back then! He suffered from chronic mysterious and serious stomach pains.

AFAIK suboxone has gained in use in detox facilities but is still less common than Just a few days of "comfort meds" ( clonidine and hydroxyzine, trazadone or seroquel, benzos if you are lucky) or CT. But I admit it has been a few years since I've been anywhere near that scene, thankfully.

Didn't know this guy before his death but at least his passing has resulted inna few high profile decent articles breaking from the usual paradigm, such as this one.

 

i highly doubt he didnt know you cant mix alcohol and heroin
i just think he didnt care

as much as it sucks he died, this wasnt some retarded drug war death that never should of never happened. i feel bad for him being troubled, but i dont feel bad for him for ODing.
he knew what he was getting into, in this day and age tons of info is available, you play a risky game and if youre not careful you will get burned

 

If we don’t want to keep losing patients, we’ve got to actually treat addiction like a disease, by providing evidence-based treatment, not just repeating faith-based philosophies.

^ that right there.

 

I dont keep reckless company like that anymore memphis, i just meant it as i know that there are ppl out there who take amounts like that frequently. I actually dont really even hang out with any drug users irl.

 

good article but dont blame Kurt Cobains death on heroin..he had always been a miserable person, his suicide would have likely happened with or without heroin..

 

and who knows if subuxone maintenance would have helped this guy..i know plenty of subuxone users who constantly go on and off subuxone, back to heroin, then back to subuxone, rinse and repeat..

 

I would also like to say that some of the things described in those 'troubled teen programs' are fucking horrible and I can't believe that shit went on so recently. Is that shit honestly legal? Assuming not I hope there is some follow up on these claims that places are making people scrub toilets with their own toothbrushes and being made to dress in drag, that is some messed up shit and someone should put a stop to it immediately.

qft

"The turning point in Monteith's life came when his mother and a group of friends staged an intervention when he was 19, and he began attending a rehabilitation program." (wiki)
...maybe someone should rewrite that wiki page to include some of the information about the "troubled teen programs" mentioned in the thefix article.

 

I didn't know Kurt Cobain had escaped a detox shortly before shooting himself. That was before suboxone, so I guess everything was cold turkey.

Do a lot of detoxes still force you to withdraw without suboxone?

Actually, as reported by a reputable journalist in his biography on Cobain, Kurt was supplied with daily doses of buprenorphine dating back to 1992 by a Los Angelos physician Robert Freemont.

 

Actually, as reported by a reputable journalist in his biography on Cobain, Kurt was supplied with daily doses of buprenorphine dating back to 1992 by a Los Angelos physician Robert Freemont.

Yeah I'm reading now that Courtney Love injected him with buprenorphine in 1993 to bring him back from an OD.

 

Drug detox/treatment did not kill this actor Cory Monteith. He made the choice to use opiates and drink alcohol with them.

 

^ You missed the point of the entire article. It doesn't say that drug detox/treatment killed Cory Monteith, it essentially says (and I'm paraphrasing) that they certainly didn't help. The point is... these programs that are set up to help people shouldn't be focusing on the morality of drug use, they should be focused on the desire to help people get clean by any means necessary, provided they have the resources.

 

^ You missed the point of the entire article. It doesn't say that drug detox/treatment killed Cory Monteith, it essentially says (and I'm paraphrasing) that they certainly didn't help. The point is... these programs that are set up to help people shouldn't be focusing on the morality of drug use, they should be focused on the desire to help people get clean by any means necessary, provided they have the resources.

Someone who is addicted to drugs can be forced or go voluntarily to the best rehab/detox or treatment center ever, stay there, go to 1,000 AA/NA meetings in a year, and have the best counselors/addiction therapists available, and be on medications if they are addicted to alcohol or opiates but it's all going to be useless and a total waste of time if the person themselves has no real desire to change themselves, change their life, and realise that they have to stop using drugs of they'll die.

FYI, high priced rehabs that are more akin to private country clubs like Betty Ford that celebrities and rich people go to are a total joke. They're just as much of a joke as that place Passages in Malibu that you see commercials for on TV.

I agree with the other posters who wrote about how this actor knew what he was doing, but he just didn't care that mixing opiates and alcohol will kill you.

 

Why is he compared to Cobain twice, gross

Also makes a good point that rehabs are very single minded and aim to brainwash instead of educate. Rehab should teach people to enjoy life and how to value themselves and sobriety rather than the harsh black and white degrading methods.

Also, naloxone should be handed out at every street corner, but of course, that would make less dead junkies, and that stereotype wouldn't be able to further support the "war on droogz" anymore

 

That's no good, it's always so frustrating when someone ends up lost when with just a bit of common sense and, more importantly, compassion, they could not only be alive but be happy to be that way. Ya know, like when a guy like, say, the late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains went out, it was one of those things where you could tell there was little that could have been done to save him; he'd been working towards that destination his entire life, and he was in such a bad place and had been fighting for so long it was almost better that his misery finally came to an end. Someone like this didn't need to wind up this way, they could've been helped.

I'm a simple fellow, I don't really want much in life, but if there's one reason I wish I could be rich and famous, it's so that I could use what I had to try to help people understand what emotional disorder and addiction is really about. There's just so much damned pain and suffering that could be easily avoided if so many people weren't still lost in the traditional idea that addicts are dirty, no good lying junkies who just have weak wills and that quitting should be as easy as just not using. The funny thing is that people like this fellow are getting the kind of bullshit treatment outlined above while the U.S. is caught up in a god damned obesity epidemic; if anyone should be understanding of what it's like to be a slave to your urges it's the fucking United States. Yet many of the people who seem to think so little of addicts are the same ones who struggle so much to keep their weight/health under control. They don't see it though; their addiction comes in a different form, so theirs is acceptable.

Although on that note it's becoming more and more widely understood that eating disorders ARE an addiction, and that eating junk food is no different than drug abuse, so all I can hope is that between that understanding and the way in which the world is slowly coming around to drugs, with MJ on track to legalization, and alternate lifestyles in general, hopefully some day soon things will at least get better. I doubt it will ever be perfect, if it is it won't be for a long, long time, but perfect isn't the issue; all we need is for it to improve enough that young people like this can stop needlessly dying. There's no fucking reason for this kind of shit to still be happening in the modern world, none whatsoever.

 

There should be a device that injects you with a jet of naloxone if your breathing rhythm falls below a certain frequency. They can pass them out at middle schools and you can wear it every time you use. Would it need to hit a vein, or is naloxone effective IM? I'm making this.

Another question: How does inhalable naloxone work if the people who need it aren't gonna be breathing?

 

Yeah I don't know a single person who stayed clean after being ambushed by an intervention or being forced to go into treatment. As a matter of fact, a lot of people I know, including myself, not only didn't get clean after but often got even worse.

 

He didn't die because of addiction treatment, he died because he took a bunch of heroin. You can't do that.

 

Wow good read. That guy should on no way be mentioned with Kurt on a talent level but I digress. I quit a 5 year opiate addiction with out ever setting foot in a rehab or being prescribed maintenance drugs so it is possible though I do not recommend it. Everyone is different imo.

All this being said; there is no way this poor guy from that gay show was 30+ years old using drugs for many many years and was not aware or used subs/methadone. This shit happens all the time.

 

Wow good read. That guy should on no way be mentioned with Kurt on a talent level but I digress. I quit a 5 year opiate addiction with out ever setting foot in a rehab or being prescribed maintenance drugs so it is possible though I do not recommend it. Everyone is different imo.

All this being said; there is no way this poor guy from that gay show was 30+ years old using drugs for many many years and was not aware or used subs/methadone. This shit happens all the time.

I also quit alcohol and drinking daily for a long time on my own without going to rehab/detox, AA/NA, or any sort of medications like Antabuse or whatever they have you take with the Sinclair method. I don't think this works for most people though, but I did not have any sort of withdrawal from alcohol despite drinking a large amount daily for a long period of time but I did not just completely stop drinking I slowly cut back, and then stopped.

I asked my doctor and medical professionals about why I didn't get any sort of withdrawals and they said I have excellent genes. I mean OK yeah I have the genes for alcoholism as a lot of people in my family do but I didn't get any alcohol withdrawals but it just showed me that I can't drink or use at all so it was a good lesson to learn.

Yeah I don't know a single person who stayed clean after being ambushed by an intervention or being forced to go into treatment. As a matter of fact, a lot of people I know, including myself, not only didn't get clean after but often got even worse.

I know a few who did get better this way but the one person had to go to jail and they never wanted to go back there and that's how they got sober but they did relapse.

When I was at the height of my abuse if somebody tried to "force" me to go to rehab or treatment I would have been really angry. If they had tried to film me on that reality TV show Intervention I would have said something like, "Turn off the cameras I'm not your or anyone's entertainment. I'll go talk to a counselor but I'm not going to some inpatient rehab/detox place."