Why see it, when I'm living it with my neighbors? And it's not a church or Utah thing, considering I live in Washington with a lot of folks who are popping prescription pills... we also have hempfest and an assortment of lovely illegal drug problems as well...
--Ray
__________________
I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
Yeah, but Utah's numbers are much higher than Washington. So yes, I think it's a Utah Church thing. If we were #50 in perscription drug abuse, you know the Church would be taking credit for that.
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
We're not talking about pot. Or booze. We're talking perscription drugs. You know, the ones your BIL or Uncle or cousin or ex-mission comp. prescribes for you?
I'm loving all the excuses here. But get real, there is a problem and it's not totally divorced from the Church.
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Prescription drug abuse exists everywhere. I don't care who you are, or where you are or what the "statistics" are.
I see it every single day.
Just last week we had a guy who's daughter tried to call in a prescription for Xanax for him on a weekend. (He'd been trying to get it filled for days). His daughter is a dentist, she is not authorized to prescribe this class of medication. The only way I figured out she was a dentist was it happened to flash up on the screen when I was doing a "doctor search" on the computer. The pharmacist refused to fill it.
Alright, if no one cares about saving the world (or at least Utah Mormons) I guess I'm on my own. But really there's no saving needed, cuz there's no problem. The statistics are all fabricated - some sort of conspiracy or something. Everything's peachy-keen.
Fine.
I'm gonna go eat worms.
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
If it's prescribed, there's no abuse that I can see. I'm not talking about that. (Adding an edit here... there *can* be abuse even if it is prescribed but I'm not trying to focus so much on the numbers, but *why* there is so much drug use in general among LDSs - more than average.)
I just think that we have a tendency to look the other way, put our heads in the sand, say it isn't really true when things become difficult. We don't want to deal with it. This doesn't make the problem disappear, it makes the problem bigger. Even if our kids aren't the ones with the drug problem, chances are they will be marrying someone with one.
What do you do to try to keep your own kids off drugs? How do you know they aren't actually taking drugs? (Kinda reminds me of the women who don't want to hear that their husband is getting ready to or has already cheated on them. Don't want to HEAR it? O...kay.)
-- Edited by Cocobeem at 18:11, 2008-04-01
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Fwiw, I know of three neighbors addicted to prescription pain pills too... I agree, however that a lot of LDS don't see prescriptions as potentially harmful, because of the "for medical reasons" clause that most of us tack onto the Word of Wisdom...
Then again, I overeat, though chances are it's not in terms with the Word of Wisdom.
--Ray
__________________
I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
rayb wrote:a lot of LDS don't see prescriptions as potentially harmful, because of the "for medical reasons" clause that most of us tack onto the Word of Wisdom...
That is part of it. I also think a lot of members are drifting into the "world" and becoming a part of it.
I think there's too much commentary about the doctrine sometimes. Like we need someone to explain the scriptures to us so we buy all these "commentaries" and books - it's really quite the market, isn't it? I think that leads to being dependant not so much on the Spirit, but on other people for our understanding of things. Things as they really are.
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
Do you think that people who are addicted to prescription drugs realize it? I think that as a result of being drugged, they may not have the ability to realize the harm.
It makes me nervous to see how much drugs doctors prescribe. Unfortunately, not all doctors are diligent and looking for drug seeking behaviors in their patients. In my job, I review a lot of medical records and I will occasionally see a patient getting a prescription from one doctor and getting the same prescription from another doctor. Using more than one pharmacy helps to shield the multiple drugs.
__________________
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
The doctors/medical folks are supposed to file a "Pain Contract" if they see abuse... is that what you do, beefie?
No, I work for a private insurance company. If we see something that is obviously abusive, we will often call the doctor's office to "discuss" the condition and amount of meds.
Unfortunately, we can't simply "tell" on someone or require anything from the patient. We have so many regulations from the state and federal government that we are limited in what we can report. (We even have some limitations on reporting fraud! grrrr!)
__________________
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
So I'm curious what you can do, or what you might do as a parent if you thought that this was going to be the next big thing, and your kids would struggle with prescription drug abuse, how would you prepare them?
--Ray
__________________
I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
I don't know who you're asking, ray, but I'll put in my two bits' worth...
Assuming first off that the tendency toward drug abuse stems from the desire to "escape" from one pressure or another... I think we can start at a very young age teaching children to not seek out these "escapes" from life. Life is not something you escape. For example, when my oldest child's 2nd grade teacher died when he was in about 4th grade, we went to the viewing and talked quite a lot about her and the situation. When MrCoco's cousin died and he went to the viewing with his parents at around age 10-11, his dad made him sit in the car to not see the dead body. He sees his good intentions, but his parents' *over*protection did not help him mature in some ways.
I think kids pick up on how their parents deal with difficult times. I'm so bummed, I'm going to go eat a big bowl of ice cream. I'm so ticked off, I'm going to drink this Jack Daniels all by myself. I'm really burned up, I'm going to go kick the dog now. I really think kids *learn* how to respond to tough things by watching us. If things don't go right do we get upset? Do we lash out at something later on that has little or nothing to do with the real problem?
Do we try to avoid pain at all costs?
Of course, there may be other reasons they turn to drug abuse in the first place, other than escape.
__________________
Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid. -John Wayne
