Addiction in a Relationship: A Wife’s Story.
When Mitzi and Brad met and started dating, Brad was sober, but he shared with Mitzi that although he had a history of addiction, he had been sober for quite a while.
When Mitzi and Brad met and started dating, Brad was sober, but he shared with Mitzi that although he had a history of addiction, he had been sober for quite a while.
Celebrity deaths due to drugs or alcohol, or a mixture of substances often make shocking headlines and happen all too frequently. The list is long: Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Heath Ledger, Lil Peep, Mac Miller, Tom Petty, Prince, and Chyna, to name just a few. People who seemed to have it all have died, proving that they are fighting their own battles with addiction – and sometimes losing the battle.
When we talk about addiction, the last thing that may pop into our heads is Sesame Street. But the makers of the enormously popular children’s educational show recognized an issue most of us don’t think about—the impact of opioid addiction on the children of addicts.
In the United States, over six-million women become pregnant every year. Approximately 9 out of 10 of those pregnant women take medication. About five percent of pregnant women use one or more substance that is addictive. Almost ten percent of pregnant women have smoked tobacco within the past month.
Of all the substances that people abuse, only one fits into ALL the following criteria: socially acceptable, over-the-counter accessible, the cost is not prohibitive, legal for adults to purchase in all 50 states, and often viewed as harmless or a normal rite of passage into adulthood. This magic elixir is alcohol.
While the lead headline from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) touted “Marijuana use at historic highs among college-age adults,” the institute could have also released some positive headlines.
It’s National Recovery Month, and according to the Orleans Parish Coroner’s 2018 report, deaths caused by the lethal synthetic opioid have doubled in recent years.
A recently released report suggests that there will be an increased need for recovery services in the years ahead.
Over the past 15 years communities have been affected, families destroyed, and thousands of individuals have died during the ongoing opioid epidemic. In only six years, statistics show that the rate of overdose deaths doubled from 21,089 in 2010 to 42,249 in 2016.
A Mark Twain quote states, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I’ve done it a thousand times.” This humorous quote paints a not so funny truth about addiction. Most people who are addicted to a substance have tried repeatedly to quit and have failed repeatedly and returned to their substance. Quitting is easy, maintaining sobriety is harder.