Not Your Average IV User

We don't have any say-so about what sort of situation we're born into. You don't pick your family history and dynamics. You don't decide to be from a small town. You don't choose to grow up in the cradle of the opioid epidemic. But, whatever cards we're dealt are the ones we've got to play. In Ep. 012, Austin - more popularly known these days as Lil Brows, talks about what it was like in the early...

One of the first questions I got asked when forming the idea of Not Your Average IV User: "Who is the audience?" "Everyone.", I thought. Have we not all been, in some way, effected by the opioid epidemic and overdose crisis? In reality, though, I know you can't be everything to everyone. That's especially hard when you're content revolves around one of the most hotly debated, controversial, and po...

Around 90% of people who become addicted had their first drink or drug before they were 18 years old. Recently, a phenomenon in the helping field, professionals are seeing the age of our patients and clients rapidly decrease (people coming into care much younger) and the severity of their symptoms is rapidly increasing (people presenting much sicker). In short - people with substance use disorders...

The opioid epidemic and overdose crisis has put the potential and actual consequences of drug addiction right in our face. These issues cross all demographic, geographic and political lines.   Are people in active addiction not aware of the risk?   From Matt in Ep. 009: "I actually for some reason, I just always believed bad things wouldn't really happen to me. I wouldn't die. I wouldn't go to pri...

While the opioid epidemic is the most invasive risk to life our nation faces today, it's not the first time we have seen the country pull its resources to navigate a drug problem.  In the 1980's crack cocaine ravaged communities in a similar fashion to opiates, and we saw a major response. We militarized the police. We created mandatory minimum sentencing. We built prisons.  The opioid epidemic sa...

Drug seeking - A term used to describe individuals who are physically dependent to narcotics hitting up the medical system trying to get their fix through the ER, Urgent Care, or their primary care provider. Stories of our system being over-run by these scenarios, and about the frustration of hospital and medical staff are prevalent. However, that's not the only way drug addiction and the medial f...

Protective factors; my guy had a few of them. A strong sense of family, involvement in the community, and more than anything - sports.   It's hard to believe that a person driven enough to sign, play - never even redshirt, at a Division 1 NCAA school would ever be susceptible to developing a substance use disorder, let alone that they were a top 150 recruit in the nation…Flown to Columbus on a pri...

Nature vs. Nurture. It might be immeasurable to identify the distinct impact of our daily behaviors that are derived directly from our DNA. On the other side of that coin, the same could be said about the parts of our actions and decisions that are just a reflection of the family we were born into or the culture we grew up in. In Appalachia, individuals have been faced with historic poverty, gener...

The gateway drug. Alcohol? Nicotine? Marijuana? What if the gateway drug wasn't a substance at all… People use for 1 of two reasons: they're trying to create a feeling or they're trying to get away from a feeling. I think the catalyst to either one of those scenarios is the gateway drug - trauma. In Ep. 004 Heather talks about the family she was born into, and how the loss her mother in a tragic a...

How do people get addicted? And what should recovery look like? When you think about a junkie; a drug addict; a person with a substance use disorder - you might have an idea in your head of what they look like and what kind of circumstances and consequences are playing out in their life. You also might have some prognosis for the likelihood that they turn their situation around. However, as a gene...

In the mid-1990's the world met OxyContin. Over the next couple of decades big pharma pushed the drug as a non-addictive pain medication to the masses. Turns out, like other opiates, OxyContin was highly addictive with an immense abuse potential. During that time frame, Southern Ohio saw the invention of the pill mill business model (yes, we invented that - despite what South Florida might want yo...

You hear a lot about rates of incarceration in the U.S. & rightfully so. As a nation we have used jails and institutions to try to navigate multiple situations to no avail. On the flip side, and something that you don't hear as much about is what it's like to break out of that system and re-enter society. A couple reasons why that might be come to mind: the system is designed for you to not come o...