Now, it appears heroin is getting with the picture and market pressures are pushing down the price. A Suburban Chicago News article highlighted this market change, noting that it is now cheaper and easier to get your hands on heroin. In fact, with a price as low as $5, heroin is again becoming the drug of choice for both teens and adults.

The articles focuses on the reality that those who try heroin do not necessarily fit one stereotype. Individuals come from all walks of life, some experimenting for the curiosity or the thrill, while others are seeking to escape both physical and mental pain.

In Will County over the past decade, heroin-related deaths rose from five deaths ten years ago to 29 deaths this last year. Nine of these deaths occurred within a 15-day period. Leaders within this county are warning that unless something is done, the trend is likely to continue.

Statistics show that the dangerous trend is intensifying most recently, demonstrating there is an increased push to drive demand for heroin. Authorities will have to address this demand in order to turn the tide.
 

Gil Kaufman writes on MTV.com that in the show, AM (born Adam Goldstein) told Amy he wanted to help her clean so she can avoid the pain caused by her own father, who was also a heroin addict and died as a result of his drug use. The episode shows AM driving around his old hometown and meeting with Amy’s family, who called him for help.

"Heroin has destroyed my life," Amy tells the camera in the show’s first scene, which is followed by a meeting between AM and Amy’s younger sister, Meghan. Meghan explains that while she and her sister used to be inseparable, once Amy began using heroin, "all of a sudden she was gone."

Meghan explained how their father—a lifelong addict who sometimes walked into the room with a needle sticking out of his neck—died when they were kids, and how she fears Amy is going down the same path. Their older brother Joe tells a similar story, describing how Amy has stolen his children’s baseball cards and thousands of dollars in cash from him to feed her addiction, forcing him to install locks in the family’s house to keep his sister from robbing him.

AM sympathizes with Amy’s family while pushing them to get her into a proper treatment program. "I can’t cure addiction, but what I can do is offer Amy a chance at a different life," AM says before meeting Amy. Then he tells her about his own father’s death from AIDS after a lifetime of drug abuse and how it triggered his own drug addiction.

Showing the swollen injection sites on her hands, Amy breaks down. "It just sucks, because I know I’m better than this, that I used to be a good person, and I don’t want to live like this the rest of my life," she says, admitting that she knows her drug use will either cause her to end up in jail or in the grave.

"I promise you, you can be freed of that," AM tells her. "Because I swear to you there is another life."

After meeting with Amy’s family, AM stages the intervention at the family’s house, during which Amy is clearly uncomfortable about the idea of entering a treatment program. Though the trip to the California facility is a difficult one—Amy lashes out about not getting a chance to get high one more time and insists that a friend bring her some drugs before she boards an airplane—she eventually agrees to give rehab a try.

Like many people going through detox at a facility, Amy wants to leave during the first few days and obsesses about getting high again. She says that the pain in her teeth—she needs five root canals—is driving her to want to use again.

AM visits after Amy’s first five days and is amazed at how she looks after less than a week. After going to the dentist, Amy returns to rehab for 40 days, during which she receives counseling and medical treatment, eventually moving to a sober living house outside the facility after nearly 50 days.

When AM visits her at the sober house, along with her mother and sister, everyone is amazed at what a difference rehab has made.

"I’m proud of you," AM tells her, handing Amy a customized iPod that has the inscription "Don’t pawn me" as well as some of his signature mixes. "It makes me so happy to see this. You’re like a family again."

The episode ends seven weeks after AM and Amy’s first meeting, as Amy praises AM for reaching out to a stranger and giving her a second chance at life. "He understood that I was in a circle that was way too deep," she says. "He didn’t pass judgment on me, and he just took me underneath his wing and he helped me through the tough times that I had here…I never had anyone that didn’t know me that cared that much about me."

Speaking about AM’s death, Amy says, "You did help and touch lives. I want to make you proud. I don’t want to throw this gift away."

Medical Detoxification

Medical detoxification must be done under medical supervision, often in a hospital setting. If attempted alone, detoxification from heroin can lead to serious physical and emotional trauma that includes heart attack, strokes, and death. It is important to note that by itself, detoxification from heroin does noting to change long-term drug use. What medically supervised detoxification does do is manage acute physical heroin withdrawal symptoms when stopping drug use. Detoxification is a precursor to and required for continuing and effective heroin addiction drug rehab.

Methadone, a synthetic opiate, blocks heroin’s effects and helps significantly reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms. Depending on the individual, your medically supervised detox may use methadone or another therapeutic treatment. LAAM (levo-alpha-acetyl-methadol) and buprenorphine are two other commonly used detox drugs.

Since heroin addiction and abuse are serious public health problems in the U.S.,  drug rehab treatment may be  funded by state, local, and federal governments. Your own employer-subsidized or private health plan may also provide coverage for drug addiction rehab and medical consequences. Get financial help to pay for the rehab from every available venue, but get into the rehab process early. The sooner you make the first step, the sooner you’ll be on your way to recovery.

While in detox

Your urges to use will be most severe right at the beginning. It is a fact that heroin addicts gravitate toward each other in detox. That’s only natural. After all, you have something in common. But it’s important to recognize that while you are here for detox and recovery, getting too close to another heroin addict during detox may not be the best thing for your own commitment to stay in the program. Here’s why. Your new friends may start talking about shooting dope, or smoking it, or snorting it. In fact, it may be all they talk about.

They may even encourage you to leave with them, to go out and score. But they have no intention of returning. Oh, they may tell you and themselves that they want to stay clean, but their addiction will take over. If you go with them, the lure of heroin will be compounded by being in the company of other heroin addicts.

You know that heroin is a different kind of addiction. Some heroin addicts don’t shoot up to get high. They shoot up to be able to function. Without heroin, they’re just strung out. You may be one of heroin’s newest victims: young people aged 19 and under. Heroin’s popularity goes in cycles. Right now, it’s back in vogue – with a vengeance.

Don’t listen to the talk, and don’t leave to go shoot up. It will only perpetuate the problem and you’ll sink deeper into addiction. The time for friendships with other former heroin addicts will come after detox and during continuing treatment.

Treatment

Heroin addiction rehab takes place in specialized treatment facilities staffed by professionals, certified drug addiction counselors, psychologists, physicians, nurses, and social workers. Treatment takes place in residential, outpatient, and inpatient settings. Depending on the type of treatment setting you have chosen (or has been chosen for you), you may be involved in different treatment approaches. Usually, treatment involves a variety of approaches. These include counseling, psycho eduction, groups, family treatment, alternative therapies, relapse prevention, and others.

During your rehab program, it is crucial that you commit completely to the process. Expect the treatment process to last from 3 to 6 months. That doesn’t mean that you’ll stay in a residential treatment center that long, but it does mean that the recovery from heroin addiction does take time. You have to unlearn certain behavioral tendencies, identify the underlying needs and emotional urges that caused you to use heroin, as well as develop new and stronger coping mechanisms to be able to stay off the drug. During this rehab period, the structure, counseling and support you receive are the best means to provide long-term recovery from your addiction to heroin.

Lifelong commitment

Once you leave residential treatment, if this is what you’ve chosen, you need to commit to regular outpatient or group therapy sessions for an extended period. Many certified counselors are now saying that a period of one year is more appropriate and conducive to heroin addiction recovery than a 30-day, or even 90-day, residential treatment program. It takes time to undo the damage that’s been done, the habits that have to be broken, the relationships that need to be severed and new, healthier ones cultivated.

After the “official” treatment is over, the old temptations may still rear their ugly head. Your former user friends may attempt to lure you back into the pattern. It will take willpower and commitment to say no and leave that all behind you. There are many “triggers” that could put you at risk for relapse, so it’s important to develop in advance ways to cope with these triggers.

Find clean, sober individuals with whom to spend time and develop friendships. Join groups to engage in hobbies, sports, and go on sober outings. You may find these through your counseling sessions or group therapy, or through 12-step recovery programs.  Maybe it’s through your family or your church. Perhaps you could get involved in community activities or organizations devoted to helping others. It’s up to you to identify where your triggers might exist. You may need to find a new job if you used with co-workers. You may need to move into a new neighborhood. You may even need to move to a new city to avoid the traps where you once used.

You’ve got a fresh start, a new life, a new beginning. Celebrate your accomplishment by embracing all your tomorrows. Begin today.