It`s not just celebrItIes dyIng from prescrIptIon drug overdoses, wrItes

focus :09
Pics courtesy Newspix
 What do Anna Nicole Smith, Heath
Ledger and Michael Jackson have in
common? Aside from making their mark
on Hollywood, each died well before their
due time, reportedly to drug overdoses—
prescription drug overdoses.
In the US, the misuse of pharmaceuticals ‘has risen at an alarming rate,
touching the lives not just of celebrities
but of a large number of non-celebrities,
including teenagers’, according to leading
science magazine www.livescience.com.
A current US government health and
human services survey found that the
abuse of certain prescription drugs had
nearly doubled from 2000 to 2007.
The report revealed that the country
was in the ‘throes of a growing epidemic of
controlled prescription drug abuse involving opioids like OxyContin and Vicodin,
depressants like Valium and Xanax, and
stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall’.
Scary stuff indeed. Unfortunately, here
in Australia the story isn’t much rosier.
According to Melbourne’s Herald Sun,
‘GPs are writing a record 10 million scripts
a year for patients with chronic pain,
ADHD, depression and anxiety’.
‘Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme statistics show more than 2.2 million scripts
of legal opiates were filled in the past 12
months—three times the number of a
decade ago.’
And those most at risk of misusing pharmaceuticals are Australians aged 20 to 29,
according to Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph.
‘The 2007 National Drug Strategy House-
It’s not just
celebrities dying
from prescription
drug overdoses,
writes Jen Vuk.
hold Survey found about 600,000 Australians had used painkillers for non-medical
use in the previous six months.’
As Dr Alex Wodak, of Sydney’s St
Vincent’s Hospital, told the newspaper:
‘We’re worried that if consumption keeps
rising, we’ll begin to see the same kind of
problems they saw in the United States,
with overdose deaths from this group of
drugs outnumbering heroin-overdose
deaths in the year 2000.’
None of this is news to Salvation Army
counsellor Sally Finn.
Having worked for many years in family
therapy, most especially in child psychiatry
at Victoria’s Child and Adolescent Mental
Health Services, Sally has seen the terrible
ongoing repercussions of drug abuse.
In particular, she tells Warcry, she ‘began
to think of the unacknowledged grief that
family members and loved ones would
have been feeling in regard to these people
they’d lost suddenly to overdoses’.
‘And I felt there was a need to build
awareness around the occurrence of overdoses and to make some inroads to lower
the stigma attached to these deaths.’
Towards this aim, on 31 August 2001,
Sally launched a national Overdose Awareness Week.
The day not only commemorates those
who lost their lives and the family and
friends left behind, but also those who have
survived and who now live ‘with permanent
damage due to an overdose’, says Sally.
Last year, in addition to Overdose Awareness Day being formally recognised by the
United Nations and the International Harm
Reduction Association, Salvos began collecting tributes to put up on their website*.
‘Some local communities, such as
Frankston [in Victoria], have been collecting tributes on banners for years.
‘The silver badge, which signifies the profound loss of someone cherished, will be
available for anyone to wear, whether they
wish to show their understanding or to offer
condolences to those bearing the burden
of grief, or, indeed, to signify their own grief.’
Sally believes the day achieves a number
of things; ‘however, the most important is to
send a message that we, the greater community, do care that someone, anyone can
suffer an overdose and that we give our
condolences to those who are grieving for
someone lost from such an event’.
‘We hope that this will send a message
to all that they should take care.’
There is little doubt that initiatives such
as Overdose Awareness Day help spotlight a pressing issue, but more importantly
they also point to ways in which overdoses
may be avoided.
‘There is still work to be done to make
everyone safer,’ Sally says.
‘All over the Western world there seems
to be a rise in people taking prescribed
medications, and it is vital that on Overdose
Awareness Day we raise awareness about
the dangers of mixing drugs together.’
Nina Crompton will be a speaker at the
launch of Overdose Awareness Day. Her
son, Christopher, died from an accidental
overdose on 27 September, 2001.
 Chris was studying at Southern Cross University (Qld) and came home
towards the end of the year. One morning, at the breakfast table, he informed
my husband, Allan, and me that he was taking heroin. You can imagine the
shock we felt.
We had a very good relationship with him—a lot of people have told us it’s
unusual for someone using heroin to tell their family. It must have been playing
on his mind. His addiction had a hold on him then, and he was pretty bad for a
few months but then he got himself together.
He went up to North Queensland to do some fruit picking and met Sarah,
a backpacker from England. She came to Melbourne with him and we spent
Christmas together. My daughter was getting ready to go to
England with a girlfriend and Chris decided to go, too.
Sarah had her plane ticket home booked for a week later,
so she stayed with us before she left to join him. I talked
with her about Chris, because I wasn’t sure if she knew
about his problem. She said Chris had told her, but there
was no problem at all, and he was getting on with his life.
Chris did a season in France with Sarah—they
managed a chalet together—then he went to Italy,
before travelling to Jersey where he got work. Then
he worked in London, and all the time we thought,
‘He’s fine’.
*Go to www.salvationarmy.org.au/crisisservcies and click on the Overdose Awareness Day link.
22 August 2009
10: focus
heroin ruined
chris’ life, but
i’m not going
to let HEROIN
ruin my life. chris
wouldn’t want
you to sit around
trying to change
something you
can’t change. we
have to focUs on
the good times.
—CHRIS’ SISTER
My daughter was working in London,
too, keeping an eye on him; they were very
close. She told me, ‘Mum, he’s OK, don’t
worry about him’.
Chris started working in a pub in Kent,
which was managed by Australians; he had
accommodation there as part of his job.
He’d had a day off, and went to London.
The staff were having a drink that evening—
they’d get together and have a chat after
work—and they said Chris was great,
although they noticed he was drinking soft
drink. So he knew what he was going to
do that night. He’d come back with heroin,
although they were unaware of that.
He was due to start work the next morning.
When they went to check on him in his room,
they found him deceased. It was a terrible
shock for them.
The coroner said it was accidental death.
He was 27 when he died.
It’s been a harrowing time. You’re never
the same people after something like this.
I started volunteering at the Family Drug
Help Line, and worked there once a fortnight for five years until recently.
It’s for families who want to know what
they can do to help their child (or other relative) who is taking drugs or alcohol.
I went to Families Anonymous. (The Family
Drug Help Line had been going for only a
few months when it happened to us and
I didn’t know about it.) It was a great help
because you meet people like yourself, at
their wits’ end.
It’s something you never expect to have
to deal with. You don’t know what to do, or
who to turn to. You feel ashamed; you don’t
want to talk to people because you don’t
know how they will react. But at Families
Anonymous, you could just talk, and we’d
support one another.
Sometimes drug users are stereotyped,
but people need to understand that they
come from all socio-economic situations
and all family situations.
Chris had a loving family, a loving father,
mother and sister. He was so well loved and
he knew that.
I’d say to him, ‘Chris, I’d do anything for
you’, and he’d say, ‘Mum I know, but you
have to get on with your own life.’ And he
would assure me that he was OK.
My daughter has a very positive outlook.
She says, ‘Heroin ruined Chris’ life, but I’m
not going to let heroin ruin my life. Chris
wouldn’t want you to sit around trying to
change something you can’t change. We
have to focus on the good times.’ And we
had some fantastic times.
But it will always be there.
He was a lovely son. He was a deep
thinker and a great writer; he wrote us letters when he was overseas and I keep them
close by to read, to have that time with him.
Overdose Awareness Day is important
for so many families out there to share
their grief and remember their
loved ones.
When a drug
user dies it’s
seen as different to dying
from an illness.
It’s great that it’s
coming out in
the open and
people are
talking about
it more.