Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer, “Hi, everybody. I’m Rob and I’m an addict.”, That breezy admission wasn’t exactly what the 350 people sitting in the Montgomery High School auditorium expected from Rob, a tall and nice-looking young man, as he gazed at them from the auditorium stage – but it certainly caught their attention., Rob, along with Erin, Dylan and Greg – all addicts in recovery and all seated on the stage – described what drew them deep into addiction at “In the Blink of An Eye” last week, which was organized by the Montgomery Township school district and community members., Rob told the attendees that he began drinking alcohol when he was 13 years old. It was fun in the beginning, he said. By the time he reached high school, he was drinking all day long., By the end of the first week in college, Rob had been introduced to opioids and, eventually, to heroin because it was cheaper than pills., “I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I didn’t think I had a choice. It’s what I was used to,” Rob said. Until he found himself sitting in a jail cell, talking to a New Jersey State Police trooper., The trooper told him that he could stop taking drugs. Rob enrolled in a drug detoxification program and within six days, he was drug-free – but in lifelong recovery., “I spent 14 years trying to chase that first ‘high.’ I didn’t do that to sit here in a roomful of people,” he told the attendees., For Greg, the descent into addiction grew out of insecurity. He was a varsity athlete in high school, but “I never felt okay in my own skin,” he said. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and he was always staring down at their shoes., Greg felt stressed, anxious and depressed., Greg began drinking, which led him to drugs. He discovered marijuana and pills. He thought that if the pills were prescription pills, it would be okay. It wasn’t exactly a “rock” (crack cocaine) or a powder, he said., Looking back on his addiction, Greg said it felt like “a prison in my own head. It is not something I would put on any of you. It is not something that happens in the ghettos in Camden, Trenton or Newark. Someone with a drug problem could be sitting next to you. It doesn’t discriminate.”, Stress, anxiety and depression can lead people down the path into addiction, said Dr. Bert Mandelbaum, who is the school district physician and the head of the Pediatrics Department at the Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro., Dr. Mandelbaum said that the number of young people who turned up in the hospital’s emergency room with mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, had grown from about 150 in 2008 to 288 in 2015. They came from all over Mercer County – not just Montgomery Township., Social media drives much of the anxiety and stress that young people are experiencing, Dr. Mandelbaum said. It’s not easy to fix, but parents can begin by limiting their children’s use of social media., The lack of sleep is another issue. Children are “over-scheduled” with activities, whose main goal is to make their resumes stand out so they will be accepted into a prestigious college, he said., Some parents won’t attend a neighborhood backyard cookout because they don’t want anyone to know that their child is not going to attend a top-notch college, Dr. Mandelbaum added., The goal for a child should not be to get into an Ivy League or top-rated college, but to find one that is a good fit, he said. The goal is for the child to grow up into an educated, independent person – but it has to start with the parents., So how does an otherwise healthy child end up as a drug addict?, It’s the availability of opioids, such as Oxycontin and Percocet, which are frequently prescribed by physicians, Dr. Mandelbaum said. The pills are laying around in the medicine cabinet, long after the patient’s pain has subsided and they should have been discarded., Dr. Mandelbaum said young people believe it is acceptable to pop a pill. If the doctor prescribed it for Mom or Dad, how bad could it be? At least, that’s the child’s reasoning, he said., But Oxycontin is in the same drug class as heroin, and it is addictive. It binds to the endorphins, which are responsible for making a person feel good, he said. It feels good, so the person wants to do it again. Over time, the body needs more of the drug to reach the same good feeling – and an addict is born., Montgomery Township police Detective Brian Hofaker, who is the juvenile officer and who also spoke at “In the Blink of An Eye,” agreed that Montgomery Township is not immune to drug and alcohol abuse., Young people are pressured to get into an Ivy League college, and they will take Adderall, for example, if it will help them to focus and be “in the zone” to perform, Hofaker said. It is the “gateway” to further drug abuse, he said., Pills are expensive, and one can get the same “high” with a $2 bag of heroin as with a $20 pill, he said, and that’s how a person becomes addicted to cocaine or heroin., “It’s killing our children. If you think someone is using drugs, they probably are,” he said. It is difficult to intervene, but it must be done, he said. It may take countless trips to a rehabilitation center to finally become free of drugs or alcohol., Hofaker urged the attendees to call the police., “We are all here to help you. We don’t want you to have a problem with drugs. Don’t be afraid to call us. If you call to get help for someone else, you won’t be charged. We are going to get you help,” Hofaker said., ,
