re: Chasing the Dragon: Raising Awareness of Opiod Addiction

One of my closest friends is a Psychiatrist and has his own practice. Most of his patients are alcoholics and drug addicts who are trying to rehab. He says people just don't become addicted from one hit of crack or meth (whatever), but it's a process of abuse that gets them to that point. They start out with weed, then pills, then needles, etc to chase the high they originally had with booze, weed, and so on. Ironically, he says many of his patients tend to blame others for all of their problems, (parents, wives, bosses, husbands).

One of his patients is a Dr., who had to go through therapy for a DUI. Turns out he was very dissatisfied with being a Dr. at a clinic and herding patients through to pay the bills and turned to booze to ease the disappointment. My friend got him in touch with a group of docs that do some free clinics that help the elderly and poor. It did him a world of good to address the root of his problem, which was his job.