ADDICTIONS

    Perhaps Trump has started one good thing, a campaign to try to deal with the opioid epidemic. Give him that, although he spoke about it months ago as an imminent thing and it took quite some time. As usual, however, the plan is incomplete and inadequate.
     There is not enough funding, nor plans and pathways for more and exactly how these funds are to be used. Platitudes that are repetitive in nature but scarce on details are not the way to go but no surprise there as this is the Trump way, babble on and have no facts, no details,no plans.
    However, what was even more disturbing is the aim of his program, at least his stated aim.
   “The fact is, if we can teach young people — and people generally — not to start, it’s really, really easy not to take them. And I think that’s going to end up being our most important thing: really tough, really big, really great advertising so we get to people before they start, so they don’t have to go through the problems of what people are going through.”
     But the fact is, to use his own words is that in the opioid syndrome much of the addiction comes not from the kids, not from the purloined pills from medicine cabinets - and yes, there are those who start that way. But the truth is that much of the epidemic begins and stems from and continues with those people who were prescribed pills for pain relief, be it a chronic condition or a surgical situation, but the pain relief was needed. Then horror struck when these people tried to stop and could not. Their bodies were telling them otherwise. 
     So today we have a story of a billionaire who needs them and other days we read of people, plain people, just like you and me, who are stuck in a place they never wanted to be - dependent on pain pills. This addiction is different from other addictions. Trump talks of his brother who was a drunk, had alcohol addiction. That is an addiction that one starts on one's own, not via a doctor. 
    And yes, alcohol addiction, any addiction is terribly difficult to shed - hey, I am still trying to shed my chocolate addiction! People have all sorts of them but, and a great big but, this addiction to opioids via a doctor's helpful prescription is difficult indeed.
     So who to blame. Do we tell the people only take three days or some such limitation? But what if the pain is still there after a surgical procedure. Do we depend on the mind power of the patient? Do we tell the doctor to limit the amount of pills but again, what if the pain is still there and pain can be debilitating to the point of non functioning. So what to do? It is a difficult area, a conundrum.
     So talking to the young is not really the answer. For sure, talk with them, try to limit exposure, though we know that is difficult enough, but the main thrust must be via the main road - the legitimate users of opioids. I know that I have been prescribed pills and was very limiting in how many I would take for fear of addiction. I was told not to worry, but I did and thank G-d have had no problems after any of my surgeries, but it is not always possible to self limit.
     Research must be undertaken for non addictive pain relief. The young must see a world for them that has hope so they need not retreat into a drugged up world that will hide their despair. And for all this huge quantities of funding are necessary, not just pie in the sky talking and words. Details are necessary and that is what is always missing in a Trump plan. That and denying the truth.
    Trump seems to think that the fact that he has never taken a drink or smoked a cigarette makes him a hero. It does not. Neither have I or my husband or many others, but addiction is addiction and Trump has a severe one in his demand for adulation, for praise, for telling lies to cover the truth when that truth is not complimentary for him.
     And today we all have a Trump addiction, and I am the first to admit it. Me and all those who give over the news, who analyze it, who respond to it with thought pieces. How much harm can this man cause? How much danger can he gin up for us and for the world and how many people can he hurt with his blindness and nastiness and damaged brain pathways? The people of Puerto Rico are still waiting in their heat, in the dark, in their piles of rubble. The people of America are still waiting for their health care, undamaged and whole, shorn of political nonsense. The people of the world are waiting to see if America goes down the path towards demagoguery and dictatorship and war.
     We are all waiting. Those people stuck on pills and pain scripts that they wish could be undone. Those kids seeing despair and hopelessness for their future who turn to ways of escape. Those of us who are waiting for Trump to at least try to be presidential and turn away from his addictive behavior. That harmful behavior. Those plans that go nowhere. The addictions that remain.
     We are in a bad way today in our country. Our leaders are not. Period. They are engulfed in their own addiction to wealth and to perceived power. They are obsessed with remaining in office. They are consumed with past misdeeds and the hope that they are not exposed.
     We all have issues and problems so let us at least approach addictions with open minds and clear pathways, with honesty, with no moral judgements, with proper funding and realism in the plan. If we do not- who will and where will people go for help?