Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Most of our patients noted a gradual increase in job availability and hourly pay over the last 1–2 years. Historically, improvement in job availability overlapped with the early 2020 CDC report of a 4.1% decrease in drug overdose deaths in the USA, the first decrease since 1990 (1,2). Unfortunately, the 2020 Coronavirus epidemic and associated unemployment coincide with a significant increase in overdose mortality. Over 81,000 drug o

Could a spread of family addiction be prevented by a simple solution? A hypothetical solution would involve an increase in the availability of well-paid jobs. This would lead to the individual’s regained independence, therefore restoring his/her dignity. In turn, this would facilitate the rebuilding of family, breaking the rapid sequences of relapses, and slowing the recycling of the addiction disease, and an overall drop in overdose mortality. A working patient would be able

The unemployed father desires to support his new family, so he finds a job, e.g., construction, falls off the roof, and injures his back. He is prescribed pain medication (opioid) for treatment of injuries, which does not work well, so the patient gets additional pills on the street. Since heroin is less expensive, he/she becomes an IV user and acquires hepatitis C infection. Injured, sick, and stressed parent(s) progressively develop chronic pain syndrome (CPS), anxiety, and

Young "adults" use THC, opioids, and stimulants, which enhance sexual perception, resulting in sexual activity much earlier (compared to past generations), often resulting in unplanned pregnancies. The pregnant, addicted mother is at risk of intrauterine growth restriction, preterm labor, and/or fetal death. Newborn babies exposed to opioids in utero develop opioid withdrawal symptoms, called Fetal Abstinence Syndrome (FAS), which requires hospitalization and often years of m

A patient’s path toward "inheriting" addiction within the family To "manage" unemployment, hopelessness, shame, and the boredom of staying home, unemployed parent(s) use sequentially THC and/or alcohol, and then pain pills, creating a family environment that enhances the risk of exposure to addiction, first among adult family members, and next children and/or teenagers. Suddenly, instead of affecting one person, addiction spreads like an infectious disease through the family.

What are the common components of family history contributing to the recycling of relapses and spreading the addiction epidemic within the family? One frequent pattern associated with opioid addiction within the family appears to involve unemployment, trailed by the decay of the family structure (1). During the past several decades, there has been a continuous shift of American factories to foreign countries, resulting in job losses in traditional small-town and rural environ

Is the treatment of opioid addiction sufficient for minimizing the frequency of relapse? The disease is largely due to changes in brain function, including processes mediated by opioid receptors and the neural system’s response to pain and stress. Buprenorphine, a partial opioid antagonist and a medication used to treat addiction, interacts with the brain’s receptors and mitigates the effects of withdrawal, resulting in protective, stabilizing effects on patients. However,

Why does opioid addiction remain a national epidemic travesty? Why, despite the implementation of several protective measures by the state and federal agencies, including restricting prescriptions of opioids, does opioid addiction remain a national epidemic travesty, and why does overdose mortality increase (1, 2)? If it were as simple as limiting a patient’s access to opioids, the epidemic should subside. Even patients with genetic risk factors for opioid addiction would hav

Confidence without knowledge is like a pistol without bullets. -Dr. Stella