Addictions often start in the home. Kids crush and snort pills for a quick high . Heroin is an Opiod, addictive and dangerous.
Whenever I speak about the crisis of alcohol use by our children I am often met with skepticism. Many of us find it hard to accept that alcohol is an increasing problem in our communities. Despite the fact that some teens and young adults over indulge and are known to carry flasks of vodka with them to simchas and even to yeshiva, a lack of acknowledgement of the problem still permeates. Even parents who do not usually drink and are therefore more attuned to the issue will tell me about their children’s friends who they have observed imbibing far too much while at the very same time being unable to see that their own children may be doing the same.
Alcohol, though, is not the only object of parental disbelief. We find it hard to even imagine that our children might be using heroin, but far too many are. Not in an injectable form as a street drug, but in the shape of a prescription pill. Opioids are painkillers. Doctors prescribe opioids to alleviate pain all the time. Opioid painkillers are appropriate medications designed to help individuals cope with severe acute pain. Heroin is also an opioid. We are too often slow to follow trends but our children are not. They know that there is no need to inject a dirty street narcotic to get the euphoria the addicted crave. They can get their high from perusing through a family’s drug cabinet and finding the painkillers there.