Pinsky: A hijacking of the survival system (Rush's Addiction Will Be Tough To Beat)

CNN.Com ^ | October 10, 2003

[PJ-Comix]

In a statement during his nationally syndicated radio show Friday, Rush Limbaugh acknowledged an addiction to prescription pain medication. The conservative commentator also said, "I am checking myself into a treatment center for the next 30 days to once and for all break the hold this highly addictive medication has on me."

[PJ-Comix]

It sounds like Rush has a big battle ahead trying to beat this addiction. I wish him well but according to Dr. Pinsky, it sounds like it will be tough.

[Aracelis]

The biology, the biological grip of the disease, is profound. The withdrawal is miserable and painful. And it takes a long time to recover. Treatments are drawn out. [Addicts] need to stay engaged in intensive, highly structured treatment.

More prayers for Rush...

[Support Free Republic]

Strong Conservative Forums Help Prevent Candidates Like This From Winning Elections
	Finish Strong. Donate Here By Secure Server Or mail checks to FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794 or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com
STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD- It is in the breaking news sidebar!

[BenLurkin]

There was an auto accident case where the plaintiff was seriously injured with resulting chronic severe pain. He became horribly addicted to Vicodin and for all I know still is. It was a sad situation.

[GB]

A guy who used to work with my mom had two kids addicted to Oxy. One, a son, OD'd fatally, The other, a daughter, was basically a shell of a human being at the time of her brother's overdose, barely able to function. She has gone through rehab. She is now, as best as I know, clean. She now speaks to youth groups about the dangers of Oxy. However, this young lady has told friends that she still craves Oxy every single day, because words can't describe how good the high is from that stuff.

So this stuff is tremendously tough to beat, but I think Rush has the coglioni to do it. A few prayers wouldn't hurt, though.

[Arpege92]

Very sad indeed. My hubby takes codeine for his really bad headaches once in awhile....should I be concerned?

[BunnySlippers]

Yes, prayers for Rush.

If anything good comes out of this is knowing more about the problem. It will surely be a test of Rush's resolve.

[GB]

I probably need to clarify something before I get incinerated with flamethrowers ... I didn't mean to insinuate that Rush was taking Oxy to get high, as the girl was who I mentioned in my story. I was merely trying to illustrate the physical and psychological hold that drug can have on people, regardless of why they're using it.

[demkicker]

Not only will it be tough to beat the addiction, Rush will still have the horrible pain which made him turn to the meds in the first place. I hope Rush will see the best and brightest for possible surgical relief after his stint in drug rehab. If he has successful surgery to relieve his pain, he will win his own war on drugs.

[PJ-Comix]

My hubby takes codeine for his really bad headaches once in awhile....should I be concerned?

Not if it's once in a while. I took some codeine once for a bad toothache. I swallowed down a pill at the pharmacy to kill the pain. Big mistake. Minutes later I had to pull my car off the road to go to sleep.

[PJ-Comix]

I hope Rush will see the best and brightest for possible surgical relief after his stint in drug rehab.

Dr. John Sarno?

[Odyssey-x]

The cure for addiction to bad drugs is good drugs.

http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/summaries/reader/0,1854,563333,00.html

[Edit35]

I think that Rush, being in the public eye, will have an even harder time beating this because people will expect him to be his same ol affable self and perform up to his same old standards.

But he will feel like dogmeat for months, if not longer, and I fear he might not even be able to return after five weeks, or whatever he said on Friday.


I prayed for Limbaugh today. He will need it.

[cake_crumb]

I'm praying for him, but I believe he has the strength of will to beat it.

[KC_Conspirator]

I knew someone addicted to Oxy. Nearly cost them their life. What is also sad is that there is a whole section of liberal society who is revelling in Rush's addiction.

[tubebender]

I keep having thoughts of what happened to Jack Nickleson in One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest. Be strong RUSH...

[Agnes Heep]

Personally, I don't think that an individual with a character as demonstrably strong as Rush Limbaugh's is going to have a huge problem. No doubt it will be unpleasant, but I suspect he'll be allright.

[Monty22]

This just proves how these hard drugs *have* to be strongly restricted, else someone just trying it out for the heck of it (if easily gotten) gets messed up bad.

People just don't know how dangerous drugs are. Scary stuff.

[tubebender]

His back pain could be worse than ever because while you are on pain killers you are over working the injury...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Then we engage them in an emotional dialogue with other of their peers that helps them, again, slowly, in an experience-by-experience basis, rewire some of these mechanisms that allows their brain to integrate better.

I was fascinated by the book, The Mind and the Brain, by a doc who figured out a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said the brain--even the adult brain--is amazingly plastic. He advocated a high level of self-awareness--dispassionately taking note of the thoughts/feelings, rejecting moral judgements but just understanding what is happening and not getting down on yourself when you can't control a thought. Just understanding that you do have the thought, and why it is happening.

And above all, will. In fact he writes a whole chapter on the existence of free will, which he defends by reference to the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle, I believe. He uses quantum physics to debunk the idea that free will is excluded by Newtonian physics.

He advocates concentrated efforts to use stroke-weakened limbs, on the understanding that the brain can rewire itself around the stroke damage and recreate the lost function. The brain can change itself under the influence of the will. In fact, learning does that . . . the part of the brain which remembers geography expands if the mind assays to learn all the streets in London (which you have to know to be a cabbie there).

Be interesting if that doc thinks he knows a strategy for beating this problem!