Taking an Alcohol Course Online

The court ordered me to complete an alcohol education class. I figured that I might as well do it sooner than later so that I can return to my normal life and put this all behind me.

I was unable to find a class locally that fit into my schedule so the courts assured me I could take the class online as long as I had a certificate of completion. I found a reputable online alcohol class and signed up right away.

It was less expensive than the in person classes and far more convenient. It was actually interesting and I stayed up most of the night going through it. I personally liked how anonymous and confidential it was. What if someone I knew saw me in a the local class, I would have been very embarrassed.

Upon completion, I printed out my certificate and took it too the court. I feel so relieved to have my license back.

A Minor in Possession Class for My Son

When I caught my son smoking a joint in his bedroom, I wasn't sure what to do. It almost seemed like he wanted to get caught because he didn't even try to hide it very well. I tried to talk with him but he put up walls and was very shut down. I knew if we did not get to the bottom of this right then and there, that it would only lead to more destructive behavior.

I had been reading about a minor in possession class that is usually court ordered when a child is caught by the authorities, but it did not mean that it was only reserved for those kids. I decided to give my son an ultimatum. He could take those classes online and learn about the destructive path he is going down, or he would have to quit the soccer team.

He lives for soccer and agreed to take the class. He came to me and said that he learned a lot, and those walls between us, are slowly coming down.

The New Way to Take Alcohol Drug Courses

When you are ordered by the court or your current employer to attend an alcohol awareness class, you may  wonder how you will fit it into your busy schedule. Now, there is a new way to attend these alcohol classes. You can take them online from the comfort of your home.

With online alcohol classes, you log onto the website and take the course at your convenience. Whether you have to take an 8 hour, 10 hour, 12 hour, 16 hour, or 24 hour alcohol course, you can do this online. The courses cover topics about drinking and driving, how to handle stress and emotions, treatment approaches etc.The classes are accepted throughout the nation for many courts and there are websites that offer a 100% money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the class.

Once you complete the online course, you are mailed a certificate of completion that you can take to your court hearing or to your employer. Not only are the classes interesting and cost effective (since you don't have to drive anywhere) but they offer privacy and the chance to learn the material at your own pace.

Why Athletes Could Benefit from Drug Class

Professional athletes usually have very short careers. Even if one manages to sustain a long career they always end before the age of 50, usually before the age of 40, and many before the age of 30.

To stay on top for the few short years they have, athletes do whatever it takes to “stay in the game,” including taking performance enhancing drugs, anti-inflammatories  (like cortisone) as well as prescription medications to ease pain.

Athletes are drawn to prescription stimulants because these drugs give them a boost of focus and energy. Seeking a competitive edge, some players feign symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to get “legal” amphetamines.

Does Major League Baseball have a problem with stimulants? You bet it does!

The number of players getting “therapeutic use exemptions” from baseball’s amphetamines ban, quadrupled in recent years. While some players undoubtedly have a legitimate medical need for ADHD medications, it appears that others are merely looking for ways to evade the amphetamine ban.

I would like to see MLB and other organizations work harder toward keeping athletes from using prescription drugs. Just because it is available, and teams have on-staff physicians, does not mean that these should be doled out like Halloween candy. Therefore, I believe it would be very beneficial if MLB mandated drug classes for all players. They are our heroes after all.

Why Not Take a Drug Class?

As a counselor for both in-class and online drug classes I can tell you there is nothing funny about addiction. That said, I want to start this blog entry with a joke: "How can you tell an addict is lying? Her lips are moving."

The human brain is a powerful organ. It can convince the rest of the body to what it wants and when it wants. Deception and denial are sentinel features of active addiction.

Addiction leads people to commit crimes and to lie to loved ones and practitioners -- not to mention to themselves -- in order to satisfy the illness's obsession with chemicals or behaviors that deaden or otherwise alter feelings.

Think You’re Safe?

You may think just because you smoke a joint now and again for pop a Percocet here and there you are ok. Guess again! It's not just people addicted to the "hard stuff" who are in denial. There are millions of people equally addicted to legal substances, including but not limited to alcohol and nicotine.

If you think you are drinking, smoking or using drugs too often, I encourage you to take a drug class. Drug classes will not only educate you about the drugs and their effects on the human body, but help you gauge the nature of your use patterns. If you prefer to maintain total anonymity, there are online drug classes too.

Lung cancer kills 160,000 Americans each year, more than prescription painkillers and, despite the fact that it kills far more women than breast cancer, it gets much less attention. My mother, who died at 58 of lung cancer, never had to lie or commit crimes to buy her drugs, but the illness drove her to deception in myriad ways, not the least of which was to ignore her health. She smoked until the last weeks of her life and hid her cigarettes the way an alcoholic hides bottles or an addict hides a stash.

Those outside of the illness of addiction see the crimes and lies and conclude that "these people" must be morally depraved: thus the long-standing and persistent cultural conviction that addiction is a failure of willpower and morals. It can be tempting for physicians to take the lies personally and turn against their patients in anger.

Having lived with many people addicted to various drugs, including both my parents, I understand this temptation. After all, if we addicts respected you, wouldn't we tell you the truth?

Well, hell -- in active addiction, we can't spot the truth if it falls on us, which it often does. Distortion of reality is part of addiction. As the late author David Foster Wallace, himself a recovering alcoholic and nicotine addict, once said, addiction is the only illness that tells us we're not sick.

Social stigma throws up additional disincentives for an active addict to face the truth. For several years I was reluctant to admit to my physician that I was having a terrible problem with my medications: I knew if I mentioned the A-word I would be kicked out of the practice into a psychiatric hospital -- thus being forced to deal not only with the complications of drug withdrawal but also with I didn't know how much debilitating pain. Call me proud, but I also couldn't bear to see the look in the clinic staff's eyes when my chart was labeled with the Scarlet A.

In the end, after seeing my father die at 68 of gastrointestinal cancer that was untreatable because of his severe alcoholic cirrhosis, I decided I had to get help. I was able to hire a physician to manage an outpatient detox for me. I was lucky -- not everyone is so fortunate.

Facing the Truth

Dr. Capretto of Gateway told me it's hard to tell how many Pennsylvanians need addiction treatment and can't get it, but, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Recovery Organizations Alliance, in 2009 more than 800,000 people in our state couldn't get treatment because of financial constraints. Those who want to get sober who have neither the cash nor insurance to cover medically supervised detox and those on Medicare -- which, unbelievably, does not pay for treatment centers -- have to sweat it out on their own, a dubious and sometimes risky proposition, especially if they've been taking popular sedatives such as Xanax or Ativan, or even alcohol, withdrawal from any of which can cause life-threatening seizures if not monitored.

I'm not suggesting that society tolerate dishonesty or criminality. My point is that those caught up in addiction usually can't recognize that they're being dishonest. Instead of censure and punishment they need help healing from "this problem." Those who love people who are addicted also need help understanding addiction, so they can learn to protect themselves and to recover from the prolonged damage it can cause in families and communities.

Finally, we need to learn how to talk sensibly with our children about addiction prevention. Regina Labelle, chief of staff in President Barack Obama's Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the summit audience, "It's hard to talk to kids about prescription drug abuse."

But why? Kids are imaginative and intelligent creatures, and metaphor and story always work well to explain tough subjects. In my experience, speaking to them about addiction is a matter of letting them know that an internal switch exists inside the body and mind that gets flipped once we're exposed to chemicals or behavior that change or suppress one's feelings. With greater and more frequent exposure to drugs and alcohol, people with a genetic predisposition to addiction run the risk of flipping that switch permanently. Once the switch is soldered to "On," it can never be turned off. So it's important for kids to learn to deal productively with feelings and to be extremely careful about their exposure to these substances and behaviors.

I've been talking to my son about this disease that runs in his family for three years. He understands that when he goes to high school this month, he needs to be especially alert about drinking and drug use.

I'm not too worried. He's a competitive soccer player who, when injured, is vigilant even about how much ibuprofen he takes. He knows substances and behaviors can change feelings. He knows addiction can kill. So far, he wants to experience life as it is.

And this part of the message is equally important, and often forgotten: If the switch gets flipped, it's important to get help, no matter what it costs, and sooner rather than later. Effective help exists, and it saves lives.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/addicts-are-not-low-lifes-649550/#ixzz246n3kAG3