I was a mental health counselor for chronic substance users. Many of the heroin users I worked with began using fentanyl because of price and the high. Several of them died. I never met anyone that was able to stop using fentanyl. The drug is powerful and ugly. Addiction comes fast. There is no treatment that I know of for fentanyl. It h…
I was a mental health counselor for chronic substance users. Many of the heroin users I worked with began using fentanyl because of price and the high. Several of them died. I never met anyone that was able to stop using fentanyl. The drug is powerful and ugly. Addiction comes fast. There is no treatment that I know of for fentanyl. It has to be stopped with the youth. Scare tactics of the reality of fentanyl might help.
I worked with 50 adults over a two year period that had been on the streets. When they began to trust me I was told their stories of childhood. They all suffered abuse and neglect from family members who often were users. They did poorly in school and got neglected there also. We as a society need to open our eyes and begin to address this problem that often stems from youth. One client told me she began using drugs at 12 years old. Her mother supplied the drugs and pimped her out. Users self medicate for pain. We like to close our eyes to these kinds of stories. They are more common we think.
Thank you Kamal for sharing your story and the work you are doing to prevent more deaths. Your son's death is tragic because you are right he was poisoned. There are now fentanyl testing strips that can be bought online and given to youth who might be drug curious. The test shows if there is fentanyl laced in any substance. Another reality is that good kids also try substances and we want to keep them alive.
Not all users have horrible background stories, as is probably the case with the podcast’s guest’s son. Often people - especially young people - don’t have a clue about what consuming that first hit will mean for them because if they really knew the consequences of that first choice, they would never have chose it. And of course there are the unintentional poisonings. ALL of these people, however they come to these drugs, need our compassion and our assistance.
I was a mental health counselor for chronic substance users. Many of the heroin users I worked with began using fentanyl because of price and the high. Several of them died. I never met anyone that was able to stop using fentanyl. The drug is powerful and ugly. Addiction comes fast. There is no treatment that I know of for fentanyl. It has to be stopped with the youth. Scare tactics of the reality of fentanyl might help.
I worked with 50 adults over a two year period that had been on the streets. When they began to trust me I was told their stories of childhood. They all suffered abuse and neglect from family members who often were users. They did poorly in school and got neglected there also. We as a society need to open our eyes and begin to address this problem that often stems from youth. One client told me she began using drugs at 12 years old. Her mother supplied the drugs and pimped her out. Users self medicate for pain. We like to close our eyes to these kinds of stories. They are more common we think.
Thank you Kamal for sharing your story and the work you are doing to prevent more deaths. Your son's death is tragic because you are right he was poisoned. There are now fentanyl testing strips that can be bought online and given to youth who might be drug curious. The test shows if there is fentanyl laced in any substance. Another reality is that good kids also try substances and we want to keep them alive.
Not all users have horrible background stories, as is probably the case with the podcast’s guest’s son. Often people - especially young people - don’t have a clue about what consuming that first hit will mean for them because if they really knew the consequences of that first choice, they would never have chose it. And of course there are the unintentional poisonings. ALL of these people, however they come to these drugs, need our compassion and our assistance.