Topic : 02/06 Pill Popping Twins

I recently watched your show on the twins and their drug abuse and was glad to see someone finally showing what drug abuse in any form can do to a family. I live with this nightmare daily. My daughter is a drug abuser and has been for over 15 years.  She has 2 children ages 2 and 12 and they are now in the system.  Both children were taken away from her over a year ago and now they reside with my husband and me.  This is the fourth time the oldest has been removed from her in his short 12 years and the damage it has done to him possibly will never be reversed.  Since HE called CPS on his mother, he has been in and out of four foster homes for violence and he is now in a group home due to death treats he made to my husband and me.  It breaks my heart not to have him with me but i am scared of what he is capable of and i fear for the safety of his 2-year-old sister.  The 2 year old demonstrates issues and we fear that she has been molested.

 Both children are extremely smart yet because of drugs and a poor court system they have been damaged. This has driven a huge wedge in our family. No one wants to have the drug abuser around and no one trusts her. She has stolen from all of us and has threatened our lives when she does not get her way.  Right now, my husband and I are in a battle for the lives of her children.  She is trying to regain custody of both children and even though she has lost the right to reunify with either of them the judge felt sorry for her and still allows weekly visits, which are extremely damaging to both. 

The 2 year old will go from a happy little girl then after a visit with mom revert to pooping her pants, not eating and destructive behavior even violence against other children.

The 12-year-old lies, steals, is extremely violent and is getting all Fs in school.

He has said he has no future and if asked what he wants to be when he grows up he has no answer.

I applaud you showing just a small part of what goes on in a drug abusers life and the people who love them.

It was heart breaking to watch the tweaking, out burst and denial from the twins, but I applaud you fro allowing it to happen.

I feel society has become numb to the blood and life sucking damage drugs do to everyone.

Daily we interact with someone who has faced this problem or is part of the problem and yet it is swept under the carpet like a dirty little secret.

WE should be allowed to be grandparents not parents. We should be allowed to spoil our grandchildren not discipline them yet because the children are our future my husband and I choose to take on the role of parent, AGAIN.

And yet the damage to these 2 sweet children is on going due to a guilt ridden judge who feels badly that she is forced to DO THE RIGHT THING and take the children away from a mother who refuses to even try and clean up.

Drug abusers are new age vampires who suck the life out of everything they touch.

 

 

hi kathy- i see other dr's also, i recently had my gallbladder out, i was walking my dog and she got into a fight with a dog and i fell into a brick wall and damaged my neck and i had already had surgery their once. now i have no feeling in my right hand and a constsant hand. mornings are my best, i guess the depressen(sp) is getting to me. I want to get off of the drugs so bad and i have written to the show many time's but i guess it just isnt bad enough yet to take care of. i am thinging if i start back on my traeadmill i can build up some streangth , it is getting off of all the drugs that is the scary part that scares me the most. thanks for the prayers kathy......michele

I am a recovering addict of seven years,( which means I have not used in the last seven years ) I used drugs for over 15 years and after watching the show I realized it was a show with these two sisters, and they were only there because the family led them there, not because they wanted to be. I am sure they would not have come in on there own at that point of that show. No addict wants the high to end or the game to be over,it is exciteing and they think everything is under control and nothings wrong. As I'm sure everyone knows with any addiction that you become a very accomplished manipulator, con artist,selfish,narrow minded,no remorse, no morals,neglectfull, and they don't care about who they hurt or what drama they have caused. I have seen parents push kids off of there laps because they are in the way of them smoking there glass pipes loaded with dope.Families are the number one  target for addicted family members which make the family the biggest enablers of an addict

they get total freedom to run amuck , with little or no responsibilities.The only thing that saved me was getting busted and being locked up for a long while. These girls need to dropped on a deserted island for at least six months and they need to move out of there playground when they get back., all there drug friends will be waiting for them when they get back. P.S.  If I can do it, so can they. Although I can't say that if I had not been incarcerated for over a year whare I would be today. So getting busted was kind of a blessing. Sorry about my spelling

 

Dear Dr Phil,

I have been just so sad for that little 9 year old boy ever since I saw the airing of this segment about the Twin mother's addicted to pills. My heart just ached for this little guy who was so desperate to go to the park. I've got to say that it sure didn't seem like the mother of these twins was the best candidate to care for these children while her daughters were in re-hab. I sensed that she had her own addictions. But, specifically! about this little boy, can you or someone in your staff PLEASE arrange for this dear child to become part of mentoring group? Dr. Phil, I have been involved in the Big Brother/Big Sister Program for 9 years now. My  "Little"  will turn 18 in a couple weeks. She and I were matched when she was 9 years old. I am currently being matched up with a 2nd little girl, age 8, since my first "Little" is aging out of the program this year. Despite her entering adulthood, she and I and our whole FAMILY have a life-long bond.  This dear little boy? If he wants to go to the Park, and MORE, needs someone that is capable of meeting his needs. A mentoring group such as BBBS would surely be a positive for him. I pray that his mother and aunt are able to pull through this but it would be an even worse tragedy for these dear children to continue to suffer and miss out on their childhood as a result of their issues. Many Blessings, RMB

Since I saw the show last week, I cannot stop thinking about these girls.  I am a 27 yr old identical twin and I cannot imagine going through the kind of treatment these girls are going through without my twin.  I strongly believe they NEED each other, they need the support of each other.---I do not think they can do this alone.  Dr. Phil said they would be separated during treatment....I sincerely hope and pray that they can have some sort of contact with one another...or they will NOT succeed.

Hi,

I loved the show and totally respected the way Dr. Phil handled it.

 

My fear is for the children being placed in the mother's care.

 

Dr. Phil:

I agree the twins need help but to leave the children in the care of their grandmother?  Wasn't she decribed as an aloholic/gambler?  Not only shouldn't they be left with her but I thought you were going to offer gandma treatment too.  It seems to me that they learned by example to "run away" from their problems by their parents drug, alcohol,gambling addictions. 

 

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

Shirley Larouche

 

 

My Mother has battled presciption addicition for most of my life. After years of presciption abuse my oldest sister fell down the stairs at her home, hit her head and died last year. She had so many severe injuries from falls and accidents in the last 5 years of her life it was unbelievable. The police/ems were called to my sisters home so many times the cops that my poor brother-in-law was beating the crap out of my sister.   Still my Mom's & my sisters doctors continued to prescribe incredible amounts of pain meds, muscle relaxers and sleep meds. I noticed on this episode Dr. Phil said the twins were taking medications not prescibed to them. My Mom and sister would always justify the meds they were taking because all thier meds were prescibed to them by thier doctor's. We had all gone to the doctors and begged them, cursed them and threatened them to please stop prescribing all the medication, all to no avail. You are right, many doctor's don't care, they are legal, licensed drug dealers getting rich on other peoples misery no different than  a crack dealer. I blame the doctors for the loss of many years of my Mothers life and for the death of my sister. After my sisters death we took my Mom to UAMS in Little Rock where we found Dr. K. She got my Mom off most of the meds while stilly controlling the pain she has.   My other 2 sisters and I are so thankful we found UAMS for my Mom but so sad it was too late for my sister.

 

I think you're absolutely right.  When you take pain meds to treat a medical condition (such as pain), your body needs a certain dosage to be maintained to be effective. If you don't get the next dose in time, the pain comes back PLUS a mild feeling of withdrawal side-effects from the body managing the drug in its system.   

 

As you start to feel better and the pain begins to subside, your competent doctor will adjust the dose down to match how much pain you have.  This is called titration.  Your body naturally and normally comes down from or off the drug. 

 

 

Staying on your pain meds is important if the competent doctor directs you to do so.

 

 

I heard of one elderly man who fell off a ladder while working on his house.  He thought he was being "macho" by refusing pain meds and just toughed it out.  In managing his constant pain, he wasn't aware he was holding his breath; since his breathing became shallow, he developed a case of pneumonia at the bottom of his lungs, and he had to spend time in a nursing home until he recovered.

 

 

One middle-aged person was taking a benzodiazepene (tranquilizer) prescribed by a competent doctor to take care of a nervous post-stress condition that was wreaking havoc on his digestion.  He suddenly couldn't take the drug anymore because "insurance" refused to pay for it, and his condition prevented him from making a level of income to afford to purchase the drug at full price anymore.  The man got worse and developed an ulcer. Three close relatives had died from digestive cancers:  two from stomach cancer!  Soon the doctor had diagnosed a pre-cancerous condition in the esophagus!  He needed the benzo to calm the nerves, which calmed the stomach, and bypassed developing any cancer-condition!

 

 

Insurance can refuse to PAY MONEY towards ANY necessary benzo-class drug since GW Bush proudly enacted the NewFreedom 2003 plan for America---which bottomlined to discriminating against a Class of persons (with nervous/mental conditions), NOT responsibly represented in these Committees that run our government now!  The Plan discriminates against The Combat vets who develop a PTSD ("nervous") condition, the epileptic whose brains NEED the benzos to calm seizures.  The Plan also banned paying for any drug  prescribed to help people with anorexic and bulemic conditions----(which conditions overwhelmingly find its roots as the sequelae of child abuse and child rape!!). (Other drugs are also banned...).

 

 

The PROBLEM is not that the drug is has a possible addictive side-effect---it's the "addictive personality" taking that addicted drug, without competent supervision, who run into trouble!!  TAKE YOUR MEDS AS PRESCRIBED BY A COMPETENT WATCHFUL PHYSICIAN.  You can take an addictive drug safely and comfortably, and NOT get "pathologically" addicted if you don't have that nature. 

 

[Regarding 02/06/08 Pill Popping Twins]