The actress Tatum O’Neal was arrested recently on charges of buying crack cocaine from a man on the street near her New York City home. She is a 44-year-old mother of three. She has spent years in and out of drug abuse treatment (which she chronicled in her 2004 memoir), and according to her publicist she will continue to “attend meetings” for drug and alcohol abuse.
Ms. O’Neal illustrates a disturbing trend among those being admitted to substance abuse treatment services: a growing percentage of older women are being treated for harder drugs.
Data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration revealed that the total number of admissions to treatment services from 1996 to 2005 (the last year for which detailed data are available) stayed about the same among people under 40, but jumped 52 percent among those 40 and older. Of the 40 and older group, the rise in admissions among men was 44 percent. Among women, it was 82 percent.
I confess that the 82 percent figure blew my mind. Wow. Read it all.
Drug and alcohol addiction is no respecter of persons or religion. It doesn’t care how rich you are, how strong you are, how faithful you are. It just traps you and all those around you.
My mother was addicted to prescription sleeping pills and that addiction ruined her life and had huge impacts on my life, my sister’s and brother’s lives and cause untold headaches for my father.
Please pray for Tatum and her families as well as all those trapped in addiction.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I would invite folks to visit my blog (Northern Plains Anglicans) and see today’s post for some more stats on female drug use and for an opportunity to help a good program in this part of the world.
This is the truth and it stands in start contrast to the picture drawn by the Baby Boomers of “recreational” drugs and the relatives. The Boomers have said so often that they have smoked marijuana with their own children and that no one has been the worse for it. These data tell the real story, and there is precious little recreational about it.
Tp be sure, there are some who have been trapped accidentally, and for them, one can only feel sympathy. But for t hose, and these are the bulk of the Boomers and their descendents, who have chosen this course, I have no sympathy. They chose to walk into hell and deserve the reception they receive. Alas, however, before they find their reward, they spread their poisonous ways to others who might have otherwise escaped, because the users quickly become the sellers. The women’s numbers are appalling, and yet, this is freedom’s price: You chose and then you are obliged accept the rewards of your choice. Alas again, they choose, and then blame everyone else.
WE are being offered a stark choice. The socio=-economic disasters around us suggest that this country is at a nexus. The drug data, like the foreclosures, the homophile agenda, the Society of the Perfect Consumer, TEC and its handmaidens, all tell us in compelling terms that, if this is not the world we want, we must change our ways. WE have an opportunity now, the socio-economic pressure is so great, the harm so near and present, to tell ourselves that we must actively choose to reestablish a world of self-discipline and self-restraint, of acceptance of responsibility, or we can choose to let this present world rule our lives and perpetuate the world of immediate gratification and narcissism – but that world’s price is in the data above. Now, right now, Christianity MUST speak clearly and incontrovertibly of choice and the consequences thereof. THIS, THIS is what should come from the meeting in England. Larry
The article’s author is Charles “Blow?!” Is this an intentionally sardonic attempt at a pseudonym.
Mr. Blow has been with the Times since 1994 except for a short stint at National Geographic:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/CHBLOW-BIO.html?ref=opinion
Hi,
I have read the article Charles Blow: Why Is Mom in Rehab? and all your comments. I want to say My grandmother is suffering from addicted to prescription sleeping pills and that addiction ruined her life and had huge impacts on my life, what to do???? please help me
Shareefa
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