Drug abuse

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- - Making a 'Breakthrough' 10:00 PM PST on Monday, March 27, 2006 By NEKESA MUMBI MOODYThe Associated Press It doesn't take much to get Mary J.

Blige to shift into full confession mode.

In less than an hour, Blige freely talks about her personal battles with issues that would take most people years of therapy, or a few drinks, to divulge.

Substance abuse.

Childhood abuse.

Relationship woes.

Insecurity issues.

Even feelings of self-doubt and self-hate.

Blige's frankness in revealing her hurt, anguish and eventual triumph over troubles has been one of the main reasons why she has maintained strong success - and a devoted, feverish following - over her 14-year-career.

Through song, Blige has taken fans through her personal transformation, from a petulant, drug-abusing starlet to a mature, well-adjusted, sober superstar and inspirational figure.

But the transformation is not over - and Blige makes that clear on h...

...ba href=/drug abuse/a/b mental health INTRODUCTION There is a fire raging in America.

Heroin, methadone, and oxycodone dependence are consuming the lives of young people in ways we refuse to fathom.

A decade ago the problem spread from blighted inner-city neighborhoods to the mill towns, fishing villages, and insulated campuses of my home state of Maine.

That I did not see it coming can be blamed on my lack of training, but also on raw apathy, wrapped in the blithe belief that it happens only to "them," the welfare moms, deadbeat dads, and troubled youths from broken homes with too much attitude, body piercing, and jail time.

Sooner or later the truth hits us, as it did when I first met Maddie.

Madeline She agreed to meet me in the emergency department on that February evening in 2003.

Madeline had been popular and successful in high school.

Now a college sophomore, she found herself addicted to, and withdrawing from, opioids.

Exhausted by a third day of intractable vomiting, Maddie accepted hospital treatment with clonidine, promethazine, and intravenous fluids.

She was soon well enough to go home, and her parents promised that they would find her a substance abuse counselor.

I had known the family since 1986, when I treated her mother during a miscarriage; the baby did not survive, but the family soon transferred to my care.

In July of 1999, I delivered the fourth of their offspring, of whom Maddie had been the first.

She experimented with p...

... The Newport Daily News Online Tuesday, March 28, 2006 (401) 849-3300 Newport, Rhode Island - America's First Resort LOCAL NEWS HEADLINES Local workshops help parents survive teen years By Sean Flynn/Daily News staff NEWPORT - The principal of the Scituate Middle School believes about 78 percent of his students are on some type of medication, including psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Adderal or anti-depressants.Lawrence Filippelli said some of the medication is necessary, including the pills for students who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

"Some are like a motor that can't be turned off," he said.But others may not need to be medicated, he said."In many cases, kids are over-diagnosed and overmedicated," said Louis A.

Cerbo, director of psychological services at Eleanor Slater Hospital in Cranston.

He also conducts risk assessments of adolescents for Family Court.He said medication is necessary when there is a biologic need or an illness, but not to modify behavior that is the result of environmental or social factors."You have to do a careful assessment before you put them on medication," he said.

"Otherwise, kids are being taught they will get better on pills."Cerbo said he has seen more medications being introduced and prescribed for adolescents in the past five to seven years."These drugs have side effects," he said.For example, he said adolescents who took Paxil, an anti-depressant, showed a high incidence of having thoughts about suicide.

The dru...