Going From Being A Portland State XC Runner To A Heroin Junkie In Two Years

Each situation is so different, and often subtle, so subtle that it can take years of therapy, with brilliant therapists to discover the most likely cause of an addicts descent into addiction. But it almost always has to do with neglect, abuse, or improper parenting (overly strict, rigid rules, anger addicted parents, violent parents etc.)

Hey there Get Real Real.

I don't buy your "it's the parents fault" for one second. Are you from the X or Y generation who expect everything on a silver platter and yet want no consequences to your actions? I'm an alcohol addict. I have been for five years now. It in no way, no way what so ever is my parents fault one millionth of a percent. I chose to drink, I chose to drink in excess and my body became chemically dependent on the alcohol in my bloodstream on a daily basis. I've been through counseling, no one in my family is an alcoholic (at least not in the immediate or second tier). I stand alone and it's my fault for abusing a drug. I was not "self medicating" due to poor parenting. My mom and dad were perfect and my sisters as well as my first 30 or so years of my life show that.

This kid became a user not because of his parents forcing it down him but because he chose that life. You can't go on blaming other people for your own actions all the time, eventually you gotta grow up and own up.

Lee Corso Phrase wrote:

"Santana had no criminal record before this year and says he never did drugs beyond pot in high school."

Boom, gateway drug.

so is alcohol.

Seriously. Maybe I'm in the wrong crowd, but I've never had one of my "bros" walk up to me at a party with opium. And if one had, I would've said, simply, "No thanks." As a kid in the 21st century, how do you convince yourself this is a good thing to start?

It's this kid's fault he's riding the H train. Unless his friend strapped him down and got him high against his will, it's his bed he made. Now I'm not saying he doesn't need help; this thing he's fighting is bigger than him. But just like he chose to start, he's not going to get better unless he chooses to get better. Right now he's taking advantage of the system and living the junkie life.

In my experience there isn't a lot of time spent trying to "discover the most likely cause of an addicts [sic] descent into addiction." I'm an alcoholic. Why? I don't know. Sure, there's a lot of alcoholism in my family but knowing where it comes from doesn't particularly help me. So what? I'm a drunk, so I got into rehab, got sober, work on my sobriety every day, and take responsibility for my actions before and after sobriety. And it's just my opinion, but I think your statement that "it almost always has to do with" those factors is a pile of crap.

[quote]my gf has a whooty! wrote:

Each situation is so different, and often subtle, so subtle that it can take years of therapy, with brilliant therapists to discover the most likely cause of an addicts descent into addiction. But it almost always has to do with neglect, abuse, or improper parenting (overly strict, rigid rules, anger addicted parents, violent parents etc.)

Where are all these people handing out free drugs? My friends are losers.

Rojo-

It's funny that you say, please don't make any crass comments without reading the article, yet the title of the thread calls him a "heroin junkie". Maybe you should cut the derogatory comments if you want people to be respectful. "Heroin user" would have been just fine.

Sure sounds like a junkie in the article. I think it's a fair judgement.

Get Real Real wrote:

Wow, you really show your ignorance in your paragraph about parents.

I thought rojo was mentioning the parents in a support system context, not a blame context.

As in: this judge is apparently acting in place of the parents. Why isn't he going home between relapses?

Off the Grid wrote:

Get Real Real wrote:

The message of Ryan's story...is basically the parents raised a kid who could be stupid and self loathing enough to say "what the f" and accept an offer of opium to smoke?

I mean, who does that?

A kid from a truly healthy family?

I cannot imagine my kids or my nephews ever taking that leap.

it must feel SO good to be judged by you!

me next! please!

I wonder when the last time you actually looked up the word "judged" in the dictionary. (Clue, judging is not a negative thing. That's a pop-psychology delusion. Judging is assessing based on evidence.

I'll wager I am far better educated on this topic than you.

My childhood best friend became a heroin addict, and I've spoken to dozens of experts and read about 100 books on the subject.

--For the record there are library shelves of books on toxic parenting, familial causes of addiction etc. etc. etc. BTW, cause and blame are separate issues. You seem to be overly sensitive to the blame idea, guilty conscious?

"Genetics," is the easiest excuse. General denial is the most often used. Your attitude fits right in as a prime example of Denial.

Check out a book called: "When Society Becomes an Addict."

I am sure you find it painful to realize you are the cause of your kid's addictions...

thepinkmonkey wrote:

[quote]Get Real Real wrote:

Yeah, duh, it is painful for parents to have addicted children. The human mind is also prone to deny or minimalize personal responsibility in causing a child to turn to drugs or alcohol. The greatest cause of addiction is parental neglect or abuse.

Each situation is so different, and often subtle, so subtle that it can take years of therapy, with brilliant therapists to discover the most likely cause of an addicts descent into addiction. But it almost always has to do with neglect, abuse, or improper parenting (overly strict, rigid rules, anger addicted parents, violent parents etc.)

I wouldn't disagree with you but I think you should add TRAUMA into that mix.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Yeah, I thought of that after posting...you are absolutely right.

The thing about trauma is that the whole trauma theory and research is very new. I've had several conversations with...probably the world expert on this stuff -- Dr. Robert Scaer. The second edition of his book "The Body Bears The Burden," is great on evidence, but you'll note the chapter on healing modalities is thin. --It is just where we are as humans, experimenting and iterating towards finding what solutions work, and what solutions work for what and whom...

Great catch.

5er wrote:

'counseling' is the only place on the planet where professionals get away with saying that bad behavior is not the fault of an individual.

This is just dumb on its face - here are some places I am responsible for my actions:

school

work

marriage

parenting

running

personal finances

health

weight

grammar

how I dress

how I speak

Here is a list of places I am not responsible for my actions:

addiction

someone explain this to me.

You miss a few distinctions.

I'll point them out by asking some questions.

At what age is a child able to reliably tell the difference between right and wrong?

Where and when is emotional regulation set in the individual?

Who established "impulse control" levels in a child?

After age 18 everyone is Legally responsible for their actions.

Blame and causation are separate issues.

Blame is basically useless, it never leads to anything good.

Determining causation, can lead to positive things.

Basically your entire post is fallacious.

The predominance of evidence is that addicts are Made not Born.

The therapeutic model is not about "blame," but about causation. Once cause is determined, or at least indicated, then the therapists and the individual can begin to chart a healing path. Education, and learning healthy coping skills, and secure adult life skills.

The genetic causation model is an old model, and since basically we know more about genes and neuroscience in the last 10 years, than in the entire human history before.

Yes there has been research that suggest they have found the genes for this addiction and that addiction, but there is also research that shows genes can be effected, or mutated, by stress in early life. (Trauma as another poster astutely pointed out -- and I'll bet most of you do not know the definition in psychology terms -- of trauma.)

hmm. You excel in jargon. I mean that as a sincere insult.

Can you write more clearly? I have trouble understanding your argument.

It seems like you use the word 'causation' to mean 'all the bad stuff that has happened to me to make me an addict'

Do I have that right? someone set a 'emotional regulation' wrong. someone established 'impulse control' on a person wrong. These are all so passive - about blaming other people.

Seems to me that whenever I do something bad - don't train right, eat badly, don't work hard enough...blaming myself rather than my parents is a much more effective strategy to correct the problem. Are addicts so different?

I don't really want to sit an moan about what has been done to me. I know I can do something right. Are addicts so different?

Your 'causality' is so pessimistic about peoples' ability to take responsibility for themselves. So bookish.

But really, I can't make heads or tails of your argument, so if you want to write it better, I'll try again.

hooba dooba wrote:

Am I really an idiot? I grew up with two guys who were identical twins. As far as I could tell their seemingly reasonably middle class parents treated them the same their whole life. They did similar sports with similar success, we all hung out with the same friends, etc.

In university one of them got into hard drugs and spent 7 years totally addicted. He is clean now, but I don't think you can pin that one solely on his parents, as the initial guy I was responding would have us do.

While your friends' parents may have given both twins the same opportunities and treatment in life, in utero, twins rarely have the same access to nourishment and often one twin's health is compromised more than another's at birth in terms of positioning, birth timing and access to oxygen.

I work with a lot of twins and triplets, and frequently see mild to very significant neurological differences between 'identicals'. Even with the same genetic code and parental treatment, from early on twins are exposed to varying life circumstances that have the potential to affect early brain development and cause one of the pair or tri to be more succeptable to addiction than the others.

Which is not to say that the twin with the higher susceptability to addiction isn't responsible for his behavior. He is, and I've never met a counselor who would suggest otherwise.

I haven't read the whole response from this thread but after reading this article, I think it's really sad for a young athlete to fall.

To the poster who said it was the parents fault due to strictness or abuse, you don't know that for sure. Each child or individual is different and who knows why they are led to a destructive behavior regardless of how they were raised.

Unless you've been in that situation you really can't judge.

Someone mentioned that he got his "inheritance" from his grandfather...couple things...

Maybe his parents were killed or not around and his grandparents raised him but they too passed away recently?, therefore explains the 'inheritance'? Secondly, just because he got an inheritance doesn't necessarily mean it was A LOT of money--just enough to survive? Either way, this young kid got steered the wrong way and I am sad for him. An addiction of heroin is terrible and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.

It will be a tough road for this kid. Hope the best for him.

Get Real Real wrote:

I mean, who does that?

A kid from a truly healthy family?

I cannot imagine my kids or my nephews ever taking that leap.

Parents want to blame it on a "bad influence," or a "bad element," kids from truly healthy families (or families healthy enough) do not roll the dice with an offer of "opium."

I'm putting a hundred down that you don't have any kids. Your well written prose reads like text book spew, not like it is coming from someone trying to raise kids and seeing friends struggle to do the same. It's the toughest thing I've ever done. What is a truly healthy family? I've never seen one.

P(potheads)S(stoned)U(usually) wrote:

Sad story about Ryan but PSU is a program with many with substance abuse issues. Common knowledge that the team parties more than it trains and I know of at least a half dozen who showed for practice stoned. While most not nearly as bad a case as Santana this kinda explains why the program as a whole sux.

Were you in PSU athletics? Did you ever even attend PSU? Do you even know Ryan or anybody that was/is on the XC/Track team?

Speaking as a former PSU runner (I was on the team with Ryan Santana), the team never partied more than it trained, and there are a few instances of people showing up still drunk from a party the night before, but no one I can think of showed up stoned (are you thinking of the football team?). The program doesn't suck because people like Santana are (were) on the team, it has much more to do with changing coaches 3 times in 3 years and having bad coaches for most of that time. That is why I and two of my friends quit the team and went on to run on our own. Other causes were a coach leaving and sending everybody but one on the distance squad to other places, lack of recruits, a young team, and a lot of people quitting because they didn't actually want to run in college.

Santana left the team after one season of cross country and should have been gone after three weeks, but was allowed to stay on because the coach knew he had enormous potential as a runner. Santana was more interested in getting away from being in high school and just wanted to party and play WoW. I was very surprised when I read the article about how far he had fallen, but I knew he was in a bad crowd doing some things that were stupid.

towhee wrote:

Good looking kid too--looks like he could have been a model for A&F.

Not with those arms.

Very informative post but don't agree with this bit:

'Sometimes it's just a disease obtained with one really poor decision'

You don't get hooked on Heroin having taken it just once.

I read the story in full.

I'm sorry but I fail to see why I am suppose to have great sympathy for some one who "CHOOSES" to use drugs and then it causes his/her life to fll apart.

As pointed out, you don't become an addict from one use, so its multiple CHOICES that the person made. Even it was addicting on just one use, it still was a choice.

Choices have concequences. That is a fact of life.

I choose to show my greatest sympathy for those who have hard times thrust apon them at no fault of their own, not for people who run into hard times as a result of their own foolish and rpeated mad choices.

Does anyone take herion once, or more than once and really think it will end well for them? No they don't but the pass up on the future to get the immediate high they desire. Well, its time to pay up and sadly that is what the kid in this article is having to do - pay up for his own short sightedness.