ADDICTED AVATARS?
No. I seriously do not think so.
If it were so, they would not be on a computer rather, dragging it to somewhere to sell for drug money but behind every avatar is an individual who just might know someone they fear may be headed towards a dangerous addiction.
Hopefully you have landed onto this blog to become informed.
ADDICTION DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE
A person of any age, race, color, financial and social status will fall victim to addiction if not careful. It will take your reasoning away. Nothing matters to the addict anymore but their next fix. It will take your life away. Loving, tender individuals who had great and promising futures have died due to drug abuse, drug dependancy and drug addiction. friends. Families go through emotional roller coasters, financial hardship and even illness due to drug use of their loved ones and old friendships become strained until they must all retreat from the addict in order to heal themselves. It will ostresize the addict in their community. Neighbors begin to keep a watchful untrusting eye on the addict in their community for fear that their homes will be broken into.
How to know if you are addicted to Oxycontin
OxyContin addiction is often (but not always) accompanied by physical dependence, withdrawal syndrome, and tolerance. Physical dependence is defined as a physiologic state of adaptation to a substance. The absence of this substance produces symptoms and signs of severe withdrawal, including insomnia, anxiety, and diarrhea, muscle pain/bone pain, restlessness, involuntary leg movement, cold flashes with goose bumps, vomiting, nausea and severe stomach cramps. Large doses can cause severe, potentially fatal, respiratory depression.
More people now die of oxy abuse than of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine abuse combined. There were some 11,000 oxy-related overdose deaths in 2007 (the latest national figure available), a tripling since 2000, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta.
"The number today is much worse," says spokesman Humphreys. Emergency-room visits stemming from prescription-drug overdoses doubled from 2004 to 2009, when they topped 1.2 million, report federal health officials. This year, hospitals in the United States are reporting a surge in withdrawal symptoms in newborns.
OxyContin Addiction and OxyContin Dependence Are Widespread, and Can Have Deadly Consequences and the pain of coming off it can stop most people from trying.
OxyContin dependency and OxyContin addictions are an epidemic sweeping the country.
OxyContin, like heroin, oxycodone, Vicodin, methadone, hydrocodone and other opiates and opioids, is highly addictive.
OxyContin is essentially “legal” heroin.
Oxycodone, the active ingredient in OxyContin, is molecularly similar to and has similar effects to heroin in the body.
Percodan and Percocet also contain oxycodone.
OxyContin came on the market in the mid ‘90's.
Misrepresentations to doctors about its addictive qualities by Purdue Pharma, its manufacturer, led to a $680 million fine and a guilty plea, but not until 2007.
Within just a few years of its release, more prescriptions were being written for OxyContin than all other opiate painkillers combined.
OxyContin addiction and abuse soon became the number one reason for admissions into many drug treatment centers.
Hospital emergency room visits climbed to more than 30,000.
The OxyContin/oxycodone DEATH toll has quadrupled.
OxyContin dependence means that you will experience painful OxyContin withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking OxyContin.
OxyContin addiction means that you will not only experience painful OxyContin withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking OxyContin, but also that you crave the “high” that you get from using OxyContin.
When taken for pain, OxyContin actually increases the pain in many people. This is a condition called opioid induced hyperalgesia.
OxyContin addiction and/or dependence is not something to be taken lightly
In April, oxy abuse claimed the life of "New York Rangers enforcer", Derek Boogard, who was enrolled in the National hockey League's drug treatment program.
"Batman" actor, Heath Ledger died in 2008 of a drug overdose that included painkillers; oxycontin being 1 of them.
The 2 Avatars below are an actual real life young couple.
The young man is seated and preparing their drug while his lady companion thinks of it as a Kodak moment and decides to kill time before injecting each other by snapping a pic of themselves with her cell phone cam.
I have PhotoShopped the pic by super imposing Second Life Avatar Faces in place of the real ones.
In 2009, more than 1.2 million people were treated in hospital emergency rooms for the non medical use of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. This number has more than doubled in recent years, from about 500,000 visits in 2004. For the first time, the number of emergency room visits for the non-medical use of both prescription and over-the-counter drugs surpassed the number of visits for illicit drug abuse.
Addiction Numbers are Way Up
- Opioids, which are used to relieve pain and include oxycodone (brand names OxyContin and Roxicodone), hydrocone and methadone.
- Benzodiazepines, which are used to treat anxiety and insomnia and include the brands Xanax, Klonapin, Valium and Ativan.
- Zolpidem (brand name Ambien), a sleep aid.
At the same time as the number of ER visits for prescription drugs is on the rise, doctors are writing more prescriptions for pain medications and other types of drugs. Many people who abuse prescription drugs steal the drugs from someone with a prescription or obtain a prescription illegally. Researchers at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that 20% of teenager claim to be able to access prescription drugs in less than an hour. Prescription drugs are also sold on the street alongside illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin.
