The middle school kid was big and strong, a 5-foot-7, 250-pounder who lived and breathed football.
John Haskell played offensive guard and defensive tackle in school and city leagues through his early years in high school in Kitsap County, Wash. By age 13, however, John had paid the price: five concussions and a foot injury. He suffered from chronic headaches and other pain.
A doctor prescribed John one bottle and three refills of Vicodin, one of the most abused opioid painkillers that is composed, in part, of the highly addictive narcotic hydrocodone. John, as well as his parents, weren’t aware of the dangers of being prescribed such a potent painkiller. And John’s doctor didn’t clue them in.
“I assumed it was perfectly fine,” says John, now 18 and living in Orange County. “All I noticed was how the meds made me feel. There was no more pain going on.”
But much pain would come to John in the form of addiction. “That high became all I cared about,” he says. “Once I started, there was no turning back.”
John’s story, experts say, is emblematic of a nationwide epidemic: teens, some of them like John who were athletes who suffered injuries, becoming addicted to opioids such as Vicodin, fentanyl, naloxone and oxycodone – with many dying as painfully young drug addicts.
One life is lost every minute in the U.S. to a prescription drug overdose and 50,000 a year to heroin, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Surgeon General, “Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health,” November 2016.
Jamison Monroe, founder and chief executive of Newport Academy, a teen mental health and substance abuse treatment facility in Orange County with locations across the U.S., says one in six teenagers in the U.S. has tried such powerful painkillers even without a prescription, buying them on the black market to satisfy their overwhelming need to chase a mellow morphine-like high.
Monroe says he’s seen more clients like John – teen athletes who have been injured – come through the doors of his facility in the past six years.
“If teens are introduced at such a young age to powerful prescription drugs like Vicodin, you’re only going to see damaging effects,” says Monroe, whose Newport Academy treats between 200 and 250 inpatient and outpatient clients per year locally and 750 nationwide – half of them for substance abuse. Newport Academy also treats clients for depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other destructive behaviors.
“And the younger the person is,” Monroe says, “the more likely they are to become addicts” – addicts like John, who after running out of Vicodin hit up some fellow pot-smoking pals with connections to heavier stuff and soon was stealing money from his parents to buy OxyContin from street dealers. At $30 a pill and popping at least four a day, John’s habit got expensive, not to mention the mental and physical toll the pills were taking on him.
After about a year, John – all of 14 – turned to black tar heroin, which is much cheaper than prescription meds. John says his father worked all the time and his mother has multiple sclerosis, so they missed signs he was spiraling into drug addiction.
By the time John was 16, whacked out on painkillers and no longer playing football, John’s parents finally realized he needed serious help.
They sent him to a lock-down drug treatment facility in Oregon, where he stayed a month, and then to a residential treatment center in Washington for six months, before his father searched online and learned about the Newport Academy.
Monroe, 36, a recovering alcoholic, founded the Newport Academy in 2008 after being disappointed with cookie-cutter treatment centers he says overpromised, under-delivered and failed to keep him sober.
The Newport Academy puts a modern spin on old-school treatment centers that focus more on groups and the 12-step model. Newport Academy adds a heavy dose of clinical and medical expertise and involves the client’s family in programs that are tailored to each client’s individual needs.
John enrolled in the Newport Academy’s intensive outpatient program in June 2015 and graduated a year later. He has been drug-free since November 2014.
“My problem was the other treatment programs were short,” John says. “And the staff at Newport Academy went beyond the 12 steps to push me to live a better life.”
Natalie Costa, who owns the acting studio The Performers Academy in Lake Forest and who is a passionate advocate for keeping teens from becoming drug addicts, agrees that most treatment programs are costly and highly ineffective.
“A 30-day stay costs about $30,000, and no one gets better in 30 days,” Costa says.
Early awareness and prevention programs are key to stopping teens from experimenting with drugs.
“Once they start down this pathway, it’s a road of destruction for all involved,” says Costa, producer of “Behind the Orange Curtain” (behindtheorangecurtain.net), a documentary about the teen prescription drug epidemic.
John now lives with two roommates in an apartment and works at the Newport Academy part time as a member of the alumni support staff. He’s also going to school to become a recovery counselor.
“If I can help one kid overcome their addiction,” John says, “I feel like my life has some meaning.”
Sound advice
With prescription meds as readily available to teens as a Starbucks fix, what’s a teenager and his or his parents to do?
“My addiction came from what I loved: football,” John says. “I would tell teenagers to remember what they love to do and focus on that. I loved football, and I lost the drive to ever play it again. I wish I could go back and do things all over again.”
John also urges teens and their parents to get informed.
“Do your research and learn what opioids are,” John says.
Says Costa: “Parents need to understand the power and dangers of prescribed medication. There is a time and place for powerful pain medications – broken bones and surgeries – but under the watchful eye of the doctor and the parents. It’s not uncommon for a child to leave the oral surgeon’s office after wisdom tooth extraction with a bottle of 30 Vicodin for pain. More often than not, higher doses of ibuprofen will do the trick.”
While in recovery, John underwent surgery to have four screws and a plate inserted in his foot.
“I was prescribed ibuprofen and Tylenol,” he says, “and I was fine.”
Monroe advises parents to dispose of unused medications. He cites studies that show that eight out of 10 teens that take painkillers for the first time get them from someone else’s medicine cabinet.
He also advises parents to stay involved in their teen’s life. “Know who their friends are and who their friends’ parents are,” he says, “and always check on your teen when he or she comes home.”
Monroe also is a big fan of family dinners and talking to each other – precious commodities in an increasingly digital age where texting and social media are shoving out face-to-face communication.
Signs your teenager may have an addiction problem include mood swings, taking money out of your wallet or purse, a change in your teen’s group of friends, a lack of motivation and a sudden shift in priorities.
Costa urges parents to be aware of “dirty doctors” – physicians who freely dispense meds to line their pockets. She points out that California has instituted CURES, or Controlled Substance Utilization and Evaluation System, a prescription drug-monitoring program whereby prescriptions are tracked from doctor to pharmacy in an effort to curtail doctor-shopping patients and dirty doctors who write prescriptions for cash.
Costa also urges parents to become familiar with the OC Health Care Agency’s ADEPT, for Alcohol, Drug, Education, Prevention and Treatment.
Monroe, like John, emphasizes the need to talk to doctors and advocate for the smallest amount of pain treatment prescriptions.
“If you need more,” he points out, “you can always go back.”
Adds Monroe: “Pain is not a life-threatening issue, but addiction is.”
