Heroin in Savannah Ga

For those who think heroin is a problem only for places like Harlem and South Central LA, heroin use is increasing across the nation, even in Savannah, Ga. You can Google “Savannah and heroin use” to see the stories about the growing number of heroin arrests and over-doses.

For years opiates were prescribed to treat pain with little regard for the problem of addiction. Now that opiate addiction is recognized as a major healthcare problem, and abuse of prescription drugs has become such a huge problem, regulations to tighten up on opiate prescriptions have driven opiate addicts to the streets in search of relief.

Heroin is cheap now compared to a couple of decades ago, and heroin can be snorted or smoked, so the needle aversion no longer prevents first time users from experimenting. Society has to change its mind about heroin addiction — it’s no longer confined to inner city ghettoes out of sight and mind from middle and upper class America.

Once the myths and stigma are removed, what we’re dealing with is a drug addiction, medically similar to alcoholism. Often the heroin addict has a dual problem with heroin and alcohol, going back and forth from one drug to the other. When a heroin addict “kicks” heroin, they often use alcohol as a substitute. Also, a fact that few people know, alcohol withdrawal is more dangerous and deadly than heroin withdrawal. Heroin withdrawal will make a person think they are dying – withdrawal from alcohol actually kills people.

If we can treat alcoholism, we can treat heroin addiction. In the past, treatment of opiate addiction hasn’t been very successful. When addicts have gotten off heroin on their own without any maintenance, they’ve not stayed clean for long. Opiate addiction rewires the brain, and it takes a long time to for the brain to adjust in recovery. Getting the opiate out of the body is just a first step, and timing is important.

Ongoing support is critical to recovery success. Narcotics Anonymous is a good support group, but it has yet to reach the full influence and reach of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s time to stop treating heroin addicts as different, sending them to Methadone clinics to be chained away from decent society. Heroin addiction, alcohol addiction, benzo addiction — addiction is addiction and treatment professionals must deal with all addictions.

With new treatment tools like Suboxone, heroin/opiate addiction has become easier to treat, if the Suboxone is used as a proper, short-term tool and not perceived as a panacea.  At NewDay we’ve developed a treatment plan for opiate addicts that works better than the treatment efforts of the 80s and 90s I witnessed when opiate addicts would not complete treatment because the abstinence from opiates was too much to handle.

We can improve on treatment methods if society can help by dropping the stigma in their mind of the dirty, filthy heroin addict lying almost comatose in a doorway or alley. That’s all society could think of when healthcare providers first started trying to treat alcoholics — the skid row bum lying on the street. The heroin addict is just as likely to be a neighbor, a co-worker, a boss, family member or a “normal” looking person you’d never suspect compared to the vision of a junkie that so many people see when they think of heroin addicts.