"What's also frightening on top of being sad and heart breaking is you have medical professional who are addicted to some of these drugs including heroin."
And lawyers, judges, plumbers, housewives, etc. Drug addiction does not discriminate. Have you ever seen the commercial with Pax Prentis selling his program at Passages Malibu and he says, "Ten years ago, I was a drug addict and today I'm not?" That's a lie. Once you are an addict you are an addict for life. Just like being an alcoholic. If you become an alcoholic and go get detoxed and then go to rehab, great. You are no longer drunk, but you are still an alcoholic.
I counsel on drug addiction. I have a program that I do at schools, prisons, rehabs and churches. I do one on one and group all for no charge. There are many and I mean many rehab centers in this country. For some institutions it is big money. Like anything else in life, there are good rehab facilities and bad rehab facilities. Some use the 12 step program and some have their own program. All that I tell the people that I counsel when they ask me which I recommend is to be careful of the ones that guarantee that they will get you clean and keep you clean. Almost all will get you clean and that's not where the work lies. It's keeping the addict clean that becomes the problem.
AprilT, I see you live in Florida, which is one of the worse states for having the number of addicts. Nevada, California and a few others are not far behind. Even though nicotine is the U.S.'s most addictive drug, once a person beats it, they probably will not go back, although, I do know some people are off for an extended period of time and then start smoking again. Other than cravings, there is hardly any other side-effect to the withdrawals with nicotine. Withdrawals from hard opioid narcotics are far more extreme and the addict learns what Hell is all about. Most addicts will fail in their first attempt to quit. Withdrawals is the number one reason why addicts do not quit.
Sorry for the long response, but maybe you can tell that this issue is something that I consider worthy of to be keep hammering on. I hate seeing anyone ruin their life through drug abuse. Seeing young people doing drugs breaks my heart.