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maryelizabethtrevino

Category Archives: Addiction

Big Deal

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by mbtrevino in Dealing Drugs, Marijuana, Opioid Overdose Epidemic, Uncategorized

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My Danish grandma mailed me a box once a month when I was off at college. It contained homemade brownies and a note with a $5.00 bill. I lived in a dorm. This was required of all incoming freshmen. My roommate had an older cousin. She was almost always with her. My suite mates had boyfriends that they were always with. I liked being basically alone in my corner suite and on my own.

Just down the hall were some friendly girls from the Rio Grand Valley. I was born there too. They always had lots of people coming and going from their rooms. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the fragrant smell of marijuana. I didn’t smoke it but I had been around it plenty. Everyone I knew who smoked pot in the 70’s got the serious munchies.

First they just wanted a taste of my brownies. I shared. Then they tried to get me to spend my $5.00 on their weed. They were crafty business people.

Close to our dorm was a convenience store. I walked down and spent my 5 dollars. I bought three tubes of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough; the refrigerator kind. I brought it back to my room.

My granddad (from the other side of my genetic equation) had given me a toaster oven. I baked my first batch of dorm chocolate chip cookies. That smell wafted down the hall.

Soon I had a room full of girls with the munchies. They had money. They wanted warm chocolate chip cookies. It didn’t start out to be a business but it turned into a big deal. I saved enough money to help put myself through college.

After the toaster oven got confiscated, I just sold raw dough. They liked it raw just as much. I never sold my grandma’s brownies. That seemed wrong; practically sacrilegious.

There were four girls. Early on, they realized their pot selling days in the dorm were numbered. They petitioned to move off campus at the end of the first semester. They moved into one side of a duplex. On the other side of the duplex lived a young recently married couple.

My friends asked me to water their house plants while they went home for spring break. There was big patio area between the two units where some of their taller plants were.

The husband of the couple was lying on a lawn chair. I called his name. He didn’t answer, I thought maybe he was asleep. I walked closer, then I saw the needle.

He was dead at twenty. He had overdosed. I did not know he used heroin. I’d seen one other person overdose from heroin when I was still in high school. He was only 18.

Death by an overdose of drugs; what a tragic waste of  life. That was 40 years ago.

Now, four decades later, our nation is experiencing a serious opioid overdose epidemic.

I don’t sell cookies anymore. My job is in the field of improving public health; primarily through outreach and education of addiction prevention. Learn about recognizing hidden addiction; it really is a big deal.

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About Addiction

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by mbtrevino in Addiction, Overdoses, Public Health, Social Norms, Uncategorized

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addiciton

“Thanks for keeping up the pressure for recognition of addiction as a treatable problem.” This email was sent to me yesterday by a researcher who holds a position at a leading university. Her title is Ph.D. Her department is Pharmacology and Toxicology.

My last post about Tweaking was another attempt of mine to raise awareness about addiction so I repeat; “If you are struggling, seek help.” If I offended or confused any readers with my R-rated content, I am sorry.

I wanted to create awareness while attempting to entertain. It was a true story. If it helps one person, my blog did its job. (Good thing I have a paying job; I only have a few fans.)

The job I hold is in the field of addiction. My formal education is in Resource Management. Our greatest natural resource is people. I am privileged to work in a way that combines both; I’m tasked with reducing risky behaviors and increasing protective factors along the lines of public health through targeting social norms.(The email was in regards to my job.)

Addiction has reached epidemic proportions. Overdoses and deaths are just one tragic component of the problem. Some of the economic costs are measurable: increased health care, crime, rehabilitation costs to name the obvious, but the cascading effects are not.

The combined pressures it exerts on families and communities is immeasurable but addiction is treatable. Please encourage anyone who may need help to seek help.

 

 

 

Tweaking

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by mbtrevino in Addiction, Meth, Tweaking, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Addiction, Meth, Tweaking

My tattered dictionary defines TWEAK as a sharp twist or fine adjustment. Yesterday, I heard the word used in the tale of a previous evening encounter. The narrator explained that the person he went to see was tweaking.

(I googled it)

It is listed as the fourth stage in the Stages of the Meth Users Experience; following The Rush, The High, and The Binge. It describes this phase as the most dangerous; Tweaking is a condition reached at the end of a drug binge. Disconnected from reality; the user is dangerous to himself and others.

The drug, Meth, is also called Tweak.

My friend uses social networking sites to seek a sort of companionship. When he arrived at his destination, the person he was going to visit was tweaking.

The tweaking person revealed that had been laid off from his job over a month ago. He decided that his stay-cation would be to smoke meth for a month before moving back to his MidWest hometown to re-start his life. (What had been intended as a hook-up/companion connection; tweaked into a hard lesson in the sad depths of addiction.)

The unemployed thirty-something Meth user was obsessed with trying to make the world’s best Meth Pipe.  His coffee table was littered with all kinds of laboratory-grade glass equipment that could be fashioned into some Hi-Tech-Meth pipe.

I googled ‘beaker’; (drug-bongs popped up first) with the price listed and being unemployed, he has apparently become a Tweaker of the Beaker; the legit dictionary kind of tweaking.

I was also informed that the Meth-using person admitted that he had been engaging excessively in repetitive rounds of masturbation; so he was no longer interested, or perhaps simply unable to function in the anticipated activity. End of tale.

But this tale is not tweaked. Tragically, it involves real people with real families.
Drug abuse is a genuine tragedy. If you are struggling, seek help.

Addiction can permanently tweak your life.

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