Despite overall prescription drug addiction abuse dropping dramatically among adolescents over the past 15 years, addiction treatment centers across the country are seeing a surge in the number of young people hooked on Xanax, according to Pew.
addiction practitioners say they’re seeing a surge in the number of young patients who are hooked on Xanax. Many take high daily doses of the drug, sometimes in deadly combination with opioids and alcohol. -Pew
This increase has yet to be reflected in national data, which doesn't surprise Boston Children's Hospital head of adolescent addition, Sharon Leavy - who says that addition treatment centers are "the tip of the spear," and she is "not surprised that the spike in Xanax use isn’t reflected in national data yet."
Addiction specialists say they're expecting an "onslaught of teens addicted to Xanax and other sedatives," according to Pew - one of many anti-anxiety drugs known as benzodiazepines, or "benzos."
“Adolescent benzo use has skyrocketed,” Levy said, “and more kids are being admitted to hospitals for benzo withdrawal because the seizures are so dangerous.” At the same time, she said, far fewer kids are seeking treatment for prescription opioid addiction.
“When I ask them if they’re using opioids, they say, ‘No. I wouldn’t touch the stuff.’”
Like any addictive substance, Xanax when used early increases the risk of addiction later in life. According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2016 report on drugs and alcohol, nearly 70 percent of adolescents who try an illicit drug before age 13 will develop an addiction within seven years, compared with 27 percent for those who first try an illicit drug after age 17. -Pew
Johns Hopkins psychiatrist and professor Marc Fishman says that benzos are rapidly overtaking opioids as the primary prescription drug of abuse among adolescent patients seen at Mountain Manor Treatment Centers in Baltimore and other locations throughout Maryland. Many, he says, are extreme, "high-dose users."
Highly addictive
Xanax and other benzos are incredibly addictive, while people with mental illness are at a far greater risk of addiction than the general population, said Fishman.
And while there are three FDA-approved medications which can treat the symptoms of opioid addiction, "no medicines exist to blunt the withdrawal symptoms and cravings associated with benzodiazepine addiction. Instead, patients typically enter residential treatment where a specialist gradually tapers them off the medication. If stopped too quickly, benzodiazepine withdrawal can result in seizures and even death," according to Pew.
Pew highlights the case of Melissa Ellis, a Baltimore native who was immediately hooked on Xanax from the moment she tried it.
“I noticed this new guy I was dating kept nodding off so I asked him what he was taking. He told me it was Xanax and gave me a handful of bars [the pill form with the highest dose]. I’d never heard of it before. But as soon as I tried it, I knew it was for me.
“It takes away everything you have in your mind that’s bothering you and everything you feel that hurts, and before you know it, those feelings are just gone.”
Melissa was 15 then and just entering high school. Now she’s 24 and struggling to take care of her 3-year-old son. She says she’s determined to beat her addiction to Xanax and be free of all drugs except the depression medicine she’s been taking for more than a decade. Otherwise, she said she could lose her son.
The first time Melissa tried to stop taking Xanax, she was four months pregnant. She managed to get through her pregnancy without relapsing. “But the day after my son was born, I told my friend in the hospital to bring me some. And I started all over again.”
Melissa also started injecting heroin then. “The two drugs are made for each other,” she said. “What one doesn’t have, the other one does. With the dope [heroin], the high doesn’t last as long as Xanax. So, I was more into the Xanax.”
But after she started combining the two, she overdosed, and her mom found her passed out on the floor one day. That’s when she first checked into Mountain Manor.
Melissa detoxed from both drugs, spent two weeks in residential treatment and started taking Suboxone to relieve her opioid cravings. She also attended outpatient classes and stayed sober for a year.
“I got so much closer to my son back then,” she said wistfully. “Everything was better. I was doing so good. But I started hanging out with old friends and I relapsed on Xanax.”
Now, she’s back at Mountain Manor, trying again. She hopes to leave treatment by the end of the week and move into a mother-and-child sober living facility nearby. For now, her mother is taking care of her son.
“It’s really hard,” Melissa says. Withdrawal from Xanax can cause irritability, insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks, tremors, nausea and other flu-like symptoms. And unlike opioid withdrawal, which usually lasts for about a week, it can last for months.
“Treatment is scary all around. It’s fine when you’re here. You can’t go down the street and meet your dealer. The scariest part is when you go back out there.”
Isaac Thompson
Eurofag here, what's Xanax?
Lucas Brooks
fucking divorced parent households with their retarded kids
Aaron Rodriguez
Anti-anxiety medication. The reason why I'm associated with it is because the doctor I was seeing back in 2007 said Xanax would induce zombie like symptoms in me ala "you wanted to feel nothing? This will do it." I never started it.
Austin Stewart
I thought Xanax was all you needed, baby? These people are fucked.
Jaxon Young
Interesting.
Luke White
Just about. My parents made it, my spouses parents, too. All the children from both marriages are doing relatively well.
Jayden Diaz
It's because Valium is used to treat Opioid addiction in rehab
europe doesn't have this big opiod problem as the us, but kids have been using benzos here for a long time. Up here it's mainly a pill called rivotril these days which is basically free and down in mainland europe it's even cheaper than here.
like any kid can go buy 100 such pills in a glass for less then 100$(again cheaper in mainland europe as it is with all kinds of drugs). Back in the days they would have to pay a lot more for this, they would get about 20 pills for today's price. This is street price it's cheaper if you have connections.
Xanax is sold too but not at the same scale, I am however actually not sure what the street price is for those at all. Either it's made illegally or it's imported from the us. That's the ones I've seen at least.
Xavier Morales
it's a heavy benzo, your probably know rivotril as that's everywhere these days. It's the same class though more heavy. It's basically today's rufees
though I am actually not sure which of those are most addictive. rivo is damn addictive and really hard to kick far worse than ie rufiees ever was. I know many people that have shat them selves on those (((pills))) and they are lit everywhere
Wyatt Hughes
articles on drugs are the most stupid of the lot. they literally don't know what they're talking about
Just another medication the shekel sniffers push on children to (((control))) them. This is the result
Josiah Kelly
they're actually the same potency mg by mg. The "secret" to xanax higher addiction rate is much lower half life. Lower half life means a faster and more intense "crash", that leads to redosing.
very much like the difference between cocaine and crack cocaine.
Michael Cox
alprazolam, treatment for anxiety. it's one of the most prescribed in Europe though, so stop LARPing as euro.
you don't know what you're talking about. benzos are ineffective for opioid treatment therapy, both short and long term
t. jew
Ethan James
coupling this with the fact that (((chinese))) manufacturers produce heaps of pressed fakes of xanax/other benzos that consistently kill white youths at epidemic-style rates (they cut the pills with fentanyl/carfentanil), this "story" is just covering tracks for a problem that was intentionally created to murder european youths in america specifically. these drugs were "destined" for the culturally depraved landscape the 21st century has produced, and they have succeeded in dismantling any sense of hope in the communities they have ravaged.
Jack Baker
Former addict here with recomendations for the annons who might be struggling with benzos. I havent been hooked on years but today I could take 4 mg alprazolam and bot even nod.
Get treatment if you are depressed. Usually you will get SSRI. Keep it at low doses and exercise and develope/retake a hobby.
There is a new meta study that there is no beneficial effects after taking one tipe of antidepressant, so dont let the doctor pop you 5 tipes of pills.
Also, when you are treated with ssris benzos lose their edge for you will not have anxiety because of loose serotonine.
Give that a try user and leave that jewy fucking thing. I know antidepressants are jewed too and a ton of shit but thats my expierence. I started with paroxetine and currently on vortioxetine. Low doses, npt more than 30 daily. Also get a male doctor. Woman absolutely sucks because when they see you happy and with the brain functioning as it should they will fucking kill it with higher dosage because theyll think its mania becaise no goy you cant think faster than I do.
Tyler Hill
People get addicted to this shit because we literally have a built in way to deal with these problems, meditation. We've known about it since forever and it's proven to work but people are too fucking lazy to put in a little time every day instead of the instant fix of fucking themselves up with drastic brain altering chemicals, to avoid feeling your feefees like a little bitch.
I wonder how the fuck people cured depression back in Antiquity/Medieval without these chemicals.
Oh fucking wait.
Nolan Fisher
He's not LARPing, I'm an Eurofag and most of the medicine you get from the pharmacy is the generic name for it, so yeah, he might have never heard of Xanax or any other branded stuff.
Angel Lee
Hold uppers. Short downers. Dump all hallucinogens.
Elijah Ward
These addicts will vote for anything that keep giving them drugs, thats the secret.
Landon Baker
I'm doing exactly this currently with Paroxetine 10mg but I still need to kick my Zolpidem addiction. Its hypnotic feature allows me to sleep without wandering thoughts.
I've seen similar shit happen in intact families as well.
Christian Sullivan
Been through it, had the seizures, experienced the methadone clinic. Benzo withdrawal is agony. The sad thing is, the majority of these kids won't ever kick the pills, and if they do, life just isn't the same afterwards. Especially the girls, they 100% of the time whore themselves out for drugs. It sure is strange the (((FDA))) would approve the prescription of opiates to 11 to 16 year olds back in 2015, during this prescription drug epidemic. These pharmajews are the worst of the worst.
Nicholas Edwards
Get off the SSRIs ASAP. Even if it means withdrawals, that shit is poison. Zolpidem or similar GABAergic sleep/anxiety aids are fine as long as it doesn't affect your ability to function in a negative way; in truth they really help a lot of people. Only take when needed, it's a lot better than sleep deprivation.
Jayden Parker
Medfag here, fuck off with SSRI's. They fuck with your dick and should only be considered for severe depression. Mild to moderate can literally be treated with placebo and elevate mood without the side effects of SSRI's. Depression for people on Zig Forums is mostly environmental, not personal, when you know the truth and are living in a world of lies and slow genocide the depression comes from knowing this and seeing others being complacent with their upcoming deaths. One can work but the recommended is to take 2 or 3 different ones before you rule them all out, but again, placebo works for mild to moderate depression. No, fuck you, do not recommend SSRI's or benzos to people. Shit's are not worth the high and should be used sparingly when medicating patients. So you admit its kike shit and that its shit in general but still recommend? Marketer pls go. Vortio's highest pill comes in 20mg, 30 is literally an excess. But the brain should not normally function without serotonin reuptake you fucking faggot. If by kill it you meant kill your higher dose prescriptions thats a good thing, if you meant kill the brain with even higher doses then why even bother to take high doses like 30 anyway?
low dose but i woudn't recommend any SSRI unless you're an exceptional case Try to alternate between days of use and non use, it's not so bad if you only use it to sleep and can wake up on time without side effects hitting you all the time.
It is very popular though mostly in college kids who frequently abuse marijuana, alcohol, xanax (aka bars) and adderall.
Samuel Adams
In the fucking world of fucking make believe. Opioids are easier to get. There are no analogs of xanax that are easily made in clandestine labs like there is heroin.
Keep dreamin slide thread.
Nathaniel Bell
I actually tested that crap once well it's years ago now, I didn't even know what it was then, just hear it mentioned on tv.
Safe to say, I returned them the next day. Man I didn't like that at all, was completely messed up the next day. I realized then this was the new rufees.
Caleb Diaz
my mothers husband is prescribed 2mg of Xanax a day, she is prescribed 1mg. They're both zombie that don't see how their lives have fallen apart. In a way it's like dealing with junkies. I was thinking last night they don't understand the english language, what words mean, how they are defined, how they are used, and the ramifications of improperly defining things, events, recollections of events, etc.
Life seems to be like being stranded on a life boat waiting to be rescued. But months simply drift by.
Ryder Perry
Soma of the masses.
James Clark
This wouldn't have anything to do with all coon tunes promoting (((xanny bars))) would it?
Logan Myers
You mean the jews promoting it?
Zachary Barnes
Xanax use is probably getting worse dueo the fact that weed is way more powerful now, and that many people use xanax with weed to get a high that feels quite nice due to zero paranoia. This shit is really bad for our people
Elijah Ramirez
I know faggot jews like david geffen produce coon tunes, it's part of the trickle down of degeneracy via mass artificial culture
Eli Gutierrez
anything ever come of that john hopkins searcher saying SSRI's during pregnancy seem to correlate with autism developing?
Jayden Stewart
prepare for a massive wave of school shootings ban all the things tho, amirite?
Nathan Thompson
Do not take SSRIs. Compared to placebo, they are known to be an etiological factor in the worsening of depression. There's evidence that the supposed mechanism of action (serotonin reuptake inhibition) is false, and that it does little to stabilise the neurotransmission situation in the brains of depressed people. I felt soulless the whole time, anhedonic even. It exacerbated by insomnia and only before dawn after hours of exhaustion would I break down in compulsive crying fits, the type that comes from the stomach that you have to swallow to keep down. I started having intrusive homicidal thoughts that scared me because it felt like my being was hijacked by a foreign entity. It gave me erectile dysfunction that went away only a half year after I stopped taking them. The aforementioned side effects coupled with my ADD (for lack of a better name) trashed my social life at the time when my academic burden was at its peak. This gave me serious anxiety issues, so I was prescribed an anxiolytic to mitigate the effects of the antidepressant. This brought along its own set of side effects…I stopped taking them cold turkey after two years of this hell, which resulted in a breakdown. When I got a new shrink, they told me I should never have been on the meds I was on (of which there were four) and recommended I sue for malpractice.
Your experience may vary. Coming from a person that sane, if a little depressed at the beginning, and an absolute wreck at the end—do not take SSRIs.
This. They are creating a new electorate that is driven by drug use. There will be a push to make this and that legal and to cast opposition as some evil force that wants to take said drug away/regulate it when in truth, corporations will already be regulating these things under the guise of freedom.
Did this shit for a couple months. Got to the point where I was taking up to 10-12 bars a day. (a half a bar will put most people down for 4 hours) How I stopped? Woke up in the hospital after seizing out due to not having enough around. Do not recommend. They work for a week or two, but then you just take them to feel normal.
1) Benzos literally make you dumber than any other drug 2) Benzos are a way to remove social anxiety and stress of everyday life when used recreationally
Therefore, benzos are a perfect tool of elites to control the simple minded. Push lower wages, shittier jobs, longer hours, smaller rentals and shittier life prospects in general to population and then give them a drug to numb out their expected emotional response to their environment.
Its because they need to take an edge off the Adderall, which benzos often get prescribed side by side. I'm willing to bet my entire crypto stack that prescription stimulants/meth will unravel to become a similar happenstance as prescription opiates/heroin. Seriously go to any college campus, more than half the students are tweakers during midterms/finals. So benzo use going up is indirect to this i would wager, especially since we're talking about teens. Not to mention benzo withdrawls will literally kill you(alcohol too, and for similar pharmacological reasons), not even heroin does that aside from 3 days of hellish withdrawl.
Brayden Evans
Everything Stevie Nicks said about Klonopin is accurate. Society is terminal ill. Benzos mask the pain whilst it is in it's death throes. If you disagree you're a bugman.
Jose Martinez
Xanax is fucked. Watched my old roommate destroy his life and eventually start using heroine because of it. Another high school friend recently shot himself in the head while extremely high on xanax.
Logan Reed
The entire genre of drugs is weak and unfun unhealthy shit for neurotic manlets, whose little broken hearts shove tainted Jew blood around their rotten veins at a quick enough speed for them to even experience an effect beyond annoyance with how shitty and unnoticeable the high is. Get good.
Wyatt Scott
And also something to mention, when you undergo intensive surgery, they give you a healthy dose of opiates sure but they also give you short acting benzos (literally roofies) so that you have no memory of it/antianxiety incase you wake up.
Sebastian Kelly
Psychedelics should be the only psychoactive you should ever consider doing
Colton Cruz
Apparently there's a new epidemic of fentanyl laced cocaine on the rise throughout the country. This combo makes zero fucking sense other than intentionally malicious
Levi Richardson
...
Brody Sullivan
Ten years ago I suffered from panic attacks. I visited a psychiatrist one time and asked him to prescribe me something that I could carry with me in case I really needed to stop a panic attack. He prescribed me Xanax. Since I only wanted it as a precaution I never took it until there were a couple of months left before expiration date. I took one and then a second one, as per the doctor's instructions to see what's the whole deal with Xanax. It makes you unable to become anxious, I also felt some muscle relaxation. I do not understand how someone could become addicted to it. A glass of wine is much better than this thing.
Hudson Morgan
It functions differently in people who don't have severe anxiety, just like most drugs when they're abused.
Antidepressants work great for me but ketamine and the like are obviously able to be abused by neurotypicals.
Robert Phillips
As someone prescribed benzos, yeah they make you numb and desensitize you. Ive tried quitting but its impossible to sleep without them because its pretty much reactivating. Im not a complete zombie and im anything but slow. Ive been prescribed them because my docter thought I was way too finicky and ancxious, well heres the kicker when i stop taking them my i get rebound anxiety and theres no end to it. The irony. Btw I was a wee lad when he prescribed them so i didnt know what i was really getting into at that time. God damn pharma kikes.
Whats fucking dumb is most doctors will prescribe Xanax or Ativan over Valium initially due to it being "outdated and having a bad rap". Even though Valium & Librium are the go-to when tapering off any other benzo, usually.
Robert Peterson
…aaaaaand now they're coming after the frontline PTSD treatment. fuck these kikes
Adam Russell
psa that if you have a high drug tolerance or supernaturally functioning kidney / liver these things will not work and you will wake up won't feel pain but you'll be awake happens at least every time i've had to be sedated; even warn the guys hey i'll try to fight you so sedate me good they never do it because they're scared of killing someone and always smugly look at you afterwards like they did you a favor fuck you no i don't want to wake up in the middle of an appendectomy and no i'm not drug seeking for a higher dose before a necessary one day outpatient surgery
John Watson
so much this. i don't even see why people think its "fun"
i have such crippling generalized anxiety that I actually concentrate better while on benzos - think more clearly
Charles Campbell
You guys have no idea how much over prescribed anxiolytic/benzo/SSRI are with women. Most women I have seen throughout time have been progressively getting more into this medications. I am here to warn you for when your mothers/grandmothers/spouse go to the hospital to not get this prescribed.
They can be cunts, and instead of dealing with a cunty bitch. They get doped up coming back for more and always needing an increasing dosage because of their tolerance. You will concede because you are tired of their cunty self.
“A brisk 30-minute walk or jog around the track three times a week may be just as effective in relieving the symptoms of major depression as the standard treatment of anti-depressant medications, according to the results of a Duke University Medical Center study.”
Whenever I take benzos my posting habits online become more extreme. For example, instead of wanting to participate in nuanced threads about the shifts in trade patterns between China and the EU, I want to shitpost about the feasibility of flaying undtermench and making niggerhide lederhosn in an underground tannery.
Jacob White
That's normal for most drug addicts, hard to concentrate during withdrawal
Hunter Gutierrez
I took some once. It made me sleepy. My friends said I probably didn't have anxiety if it didn't make me feel any different. The aversion I feel towards other people is just general misanthropy. Go figure. Shit tier drug for a shit tier generation. Pic related every song Xanax and codeine.
Has any other drug apart from cannabis/ alcohol been lionized by a musical genre more than Xanax has? Pfizer may as well sponsor SoundCloud. College students listening to gangster rap in the 90’s weren’t going to leave their dorm rooms, drive to Inglewood and attempt to join a street gang after listening to an Ice T album. They will however wander to their local dealer and buy some Xanax after listening to “Lil Estrogen” sing the drugs praises on every track of his album.
Nicholas Garcia
Cocaine but compared to some of these shitty downers Cocaine would be a nice change. Everyone likes to think they're some kind of tortured artist when their feefees get hurt. Just gotta exercise until you're sore you won't have time to think about how butt hurt you are when your butt literally hurts.
Nicholas Bell
I'm sure that's true, but if someone has major depression, they probably are hardly even able to move.
Jason Anderson
...
Brody Hall
You are so much more right than you know. This shit is just as bad as seroquel.
Landon Perez
I saw someone fall into a campfire fire on xanax. They were sitting there, next the the fire, and then they tried to do something and face planted into a bunch of coals. They were a burn unit 40 later, and stayed there for a couple weeks. Their face ended up ok after some surgery, and a few hundred thousand dollars.
What fucking idiots. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad and misguided. Benzo withdrawal is 1000% worse than prescription opiates.
Prescription opiates are heroin's little brothers. You feel euphoria and a great body high. Xanax and other benzos don't really give you that body high or euphoria. I never understood why anyone would bother with it but I'm starting to understand now.
This is a generation of kids who deal with social anxiety and depression. They do drugs not to feel good but just to feel "ok". Let that sink in. I would go on with a wall of text but we all already know the root of these issues.
How old were you? They prescribe xanax to minors now?
Zachary Butler
I, as the (((alleged))) author of that post, would just like to say that I have no idea why I my sentences were turned into retard. Seriously, look at that shit. [elexa, post on full chins]
Adam Gray
this is a psyop
Connor Jackson
I don't understand you faggots that are addicted to drugs, if your life is that shitty you need something to help you survive the day without committing suicide, you're just a fucking pussy. We need massive wars again so the weak can hurry up and die.
And what do nearly all (((mental health))) drugs have in common? They lead to liberal ideologies. Those are not side effects. Paranoia Mood "changes" Nervousness Restlessness Excitability Irritability Agitation Anxiety Fear
Oh and look at these; Loss of interest in sex Impotence Difficulty having an orgasm
And that drug is forced on young boys primarily.
John Bennett
So I've been thinking about the study posted on Zig Forums yesterday about how 3/4 of people don't have an inner voice. Then it dawned on me: it's the (((mental health drugs))). Source: I've been heavily medicated on those drugs, I sperged out all the time despite the claim that's what they prevented, and I had no fucking inner voice.
Angel Taylor
That's a really retarded way of thinking. Most people with these issues are ones that are physically and genetically susceptible. A self-conscious person heavily depressed about their schizophrenia can't just "stop being a little bitch." And speaking of that, mental illnesses love to come in pairs or more. There's no need to be an edgelord (I don't like this word but it fits here.)
Now I'm not surprised with the news in the OP. America is literally the worst country on Earth right behind China in terms of brain health. Mentally ill individuals are a symptom of a larger problem though.
