Category Archives: Testimonies

A Stairway to Heaven Leaves a Hole in our Hearts

The Carlos Castellanos Story

By Pam Garozzo

I am a mother with a hole in her heart, one who mourns the loss of her beloved child every day.  My son, Carlos Castellanos, died at age 23 from a drug overdose, just three weeks after walking me down the aisle at my wedding and two days before Christmas.  He had been clean from an opioid addiction for ten months and was happy, healthy and loving life.  My son had a job and was expected to get a promotion the following month, loved his girlfriend dearly and was planning to resume taking college courses.  Carlos’ dream was to become an aerospace engineer and to work for a company that would enable him to be part of the Engineers Without Borders program so that he could help others.  He was sensitive, humble, kind, love and precious to all who knew him.

Smart and witty with a great sense of humor, Carlos was very musically gifted; he played drums and guitar since the age of seven.  But he was also a perfectionist and constantly doubted himself and his abilities.   Despite having much success academically and in his musical pursuits, my son never felt worthy of the honors and accolades he received.  He also craved the love of support of his “absentee” father and often expressed anxiety about what he could do to make his dad want to spend time with him. Those feelings of inadequacy are what caused him to start smoking marijuana at age 15.  Very quickly, though, he moved on to cocaine, heroin and other drugs.  At age 18, just months before his high school graduation, Carlos suffered a grand mal seizure.  He had attended a “pharm party” the night before (where teens mix prescription drugs into a bowl and take turns ingesting them), and then took crystal meth the next morning.  I remember getting that heart-stopping call from the friend who dropped off my son at the entrance to the hospital ER and hearing the doctor tell me to contact our family so they could say goodbye to Carlos.  By the grace of God, Carlos miraculously recovered from that trauma, but he did sustain some short-term memory loss.  He vowed to stay clean and thought that he could do it on his own, without any program or support.  Within weeks however, he was quickly drawn back into the drug world.

Just before high school graduation, Carlos was arrested outside our home for carrying a quantity of marijuana that was just over the limit for a misdemeanor charge.  Since he was an adult, he received a felony conviction, which made him ineligible for a college scholarship at a prestigious university.  In Carlos’ mind, his dream to become an engineer died with the loss of that opportunity; he had been selected as one of a small group of freshman to enter the engineering program usually just open to college juniors.  So, Carlos went to his place of escape once again – drugs – this time, with a vengeance.

Hidden Dangers That I didn’t Know

My son was in and out of rehab facilities and intensive outpatient programs multiple times from age 16.  His most successful clean period was for 20 months, during which time he participated actively in AA/NA meetings and surrounded himself with those who were dedicated to addiction recovery.  He volunteered at a local rehab and facilitated recovery sessions for other young people who were fighting to stay clean like he was.  During this time, Carlos and I talked openly about his drug use.  It seems I had only known the tip of the iceberg.  I listened in horror as he told me about the types and quantities of drugs he had ingested and cried when he said that a dealer had held a gun to his chest when he didn’t have enough money to pay for the drugs he wanted to use.  He sold off almost everything that was dear to him during his periods of heavy use – his beloved guitars, computers, suitcases full of his clothes.  He lost friends who didn’t know how to deal with the significant changes in him.  He pulled away from family because he was ashamed about who he felt he had become.

When Carlos was clean and clear-headed, he would talk regretfully about the experiences that he had missed out on during his years of drug use.  For example, although he graduated from high school, he did not attend the actual ceremony and didn’t want a graduation party.  He also missed family events, such as birthday parties (he was often too high to attend or to care), an entire Christmas season spent in jail due to drug use, etc.  Carlos explained that these “voids” in his life made him very sad and depressed because he would never get that precious time back.  Although he didn’t acknowledge it for years while he was using, Carlos eventually started talking about what a major part marijuana had played in his teenage years and on the road to opioids and other mind and body-altering drugs.  He acknowledged that pot was indeed a gateway drug for him; after several months of initial use as a high school sophomore, he quickly moved to other drugs, searching for the “ultimate high.”

After relapsing again in winter 2015, my son got and stayed clean for the last 10 months of his life.  He seemed to be on a path to what he hoped to achieve and was working on his self-esteem and self-worth.   We will never know what caused him to use on December 23, 2016.  I will forever have the image of the police detective and officer who rang our doorbell that night, to inform us that Carlos had found dead in my car, from a drug overdose.  (We later learned that his drug of choice that afternoon was laced with fentanyl.)  No parent should ever have to endure the agony and heartbreak of losing a child.  Such a devastating loss crushes your soul and leaves you frozen in your tracks.  You don’t know whether you can go on without your precious loved one and it becomes an effort to do the most mundane of everyday tasks.  You spend hours and days casting your memory back to the day he was born, the day he learned how to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar, the last time he hugged you and you pray that you will be able to remember his voice.

The Gaping Hole in Those of us Left Behind

What about those of us whom Carlos left behind?  My husband Mike (his stepfather) and I, Carlos’ sisters and brothers, friends and co-workers?  How are we learning to cope when a piece of our lives is missing? The photo albums that we will create as a family going forward will not be filled with pictures of our beautiful son and brother as our wedding album is now.  We will never again hear his laughter, see him drumming, singing and playing the guitar or just goofing around with his cat, Simon.  My husband, Mike and I will miss having Carlos outlive us – nothing any parent should ever have to endure.  His friends have told me that they will miss his quirky sense of humor and his willingness to go out of their way to help him; in one instance, buying a Christmas tree for a family in need.  His siblings won’t be able to make new memories with a younger brother whom they adored.

How do we go on?  How do we survive without the son, brother, friend who we lost to this terrible disease?  For my husband and me, we have chosen to do what Carlos would have done had he lived.  We tell his journey – one of an amazing human who thought about others before he thought about himself.  Who dreamed of a future without drugs, a future with hope and life and success and love.  We share the story of who Carlos was and we preserve his memories by fighting against the disease of drug abuse when he cannot.  We want everyone to know that drug addiction is most definitely a primary, chronic disease that alters who you are.  It’s a disease that is often progressive and fatal.  No one chooses to be addicted to drugs.  Carlos recounted that he often asked people “Do you think I choose this life (of addiction), with all of its pain and loss?  I want to be healthy and happy just like anyone else and to help others.”

We share Carlos’ story and urge other parents to educate themselves about the signs and symptoms of addiction.  We encourage them to get help for their loved one and for themselves.  We fight to get laws enacted to help those who struggle with this disease so that they have full access to treatment and care.  Most of all, we rest in God’s embrace, knowing that Carlos is our angel and that we will be reunited with him one day when we climb the stairway to heaven.

Pam made a video on Mother’s Day and she asks others to take action:

 

I Can Stay Sober Amidst a Mountain of Marijuana

By Sherry     After smoking marijuana for 13 years I was able to quit, by the grace of God, on July 15, 1987 and have remained 100% sober since that day. When I got sober it wasn’t popular, because it seemed like everyone I knew, including my relatives, were getting high daily. They were nasty about it and asked me when I was going to stop going to “those stupid meetings.”

However, society, in general, was encouraging to people trying to get and stay sober. At least — back then — it was considered self-destructive to use drugs, smoke marijuana, drink alcohol and take pills. (Sherry wrote of the events leading up to the choice of sobriety in a testimony two years ago.)  Today we live in a different country that has fallen prey to the lobbying of Big Marijuana.

Aerial view shows how illegal pot growers clear areas and cut down trees in mountains of northern California. This view is in Lake County

Now I am surrounded, living in Northern California, by marijuana smokers. I can smell it on the streets, on the customers that walk in to my store, and even driving on the freeway! Who would have dreamed that we were going to end up living in a society in which marijuana would be king? Our business, a highly successful retail store, really took a hit during the Recession. We haven’t returned to the kind of sales we once enjoyed, but the marijuana growers are doing great. Regular farmers are now beginning to plant marijuana, rather than their traditional crops, and the marijuana advocates are jumping for joy. I can’t help but wonder what people would think (sober people, that is) to see workers drive in to my store from state, county, city, and utility jobs reeking of marijuana at 7 in the morning?

It was Tempting to Get into the Pot Business

My brother-in-law offered us $5,000 a year if we would get medical marijuana cards and allow him to grow pot on our property up in the mountains. This was back during the worst years of the Recession. His offer was tempting, since we couldn’t make money selling normal, productive products. But we turned him down. I told my husband, “Your mother would roll over in her grave if she knew you participated in this.” Although it was legal to get a medical marijuana card, legal to grow 6 plants a year, and legal to smoke it, it isn’t legal to batch it together and sell marijuana on the black market. We have relatives who are buying cars, motorcycles, property, having their homes remodeled – all from the proceeds of selling marijuana – while we struggle to make a legitimate living.

I have to keep my focus on what matters to me today: helping other women in their recovery from marijuana addiction and alcoholism. It is daunting, because so many women who are trying to get sober today end up going back out on marijuana, unable to stay 100% sober. They have been sold a bill of goods about how marijuana is harmless and, in fact, medicinal and good for us! Marijuana has become so ingrained in our society that people don’t even view it as a mind- altering drug.  So if they have some clean time from methamphetamine, heroin, alcohol, or pills, they will accept a marijuana joint if someone offers it to them. The next thing they know they are off to the races with their drug of choice, fueled by marijuana. It is terribly sad.

Here’s to Staying Sober and the Sober Life

Life is still difficult in sobriety, but there’s hope. Every day leading a sober life expands that hope.

The women’s recovery meeting I started in January is now thriving and the women in that group are feeling stronger, more capable of maintaining a continuous sobriety. It’s tenuous, since they are so surrounded by the big pot cloud hanging over California. But there is an answer. You CAN stop smoking it. There is a life out there to live outside of a haze. God helped me get and stay sober. It wasn’t me – it was Him. I did the footwork and God did the rest. He took my impossible situation and He guided me into recovery and through the last 30 years – all the credit goes to Him. Life is so much more beautiful when it is viewed through a lens of sobriety. I don’t miss getting loaded one bit.

It is nice to drive around in my car and never have to worry that I might get pulled over with marijuana roaches in my ashtray. It is nice to be able to have a full, rich relationship with my husband and not have our marriage ruled by the getting, growing, smoking, and the repetitive pattern of marijuana addiction.

It is REALLY, REALLY wonderful beyond description to have an adult daughter that I raised without marijuana and other mind-altering substances in her life. She turned out to be what we in the program call a “normie.” My infant granddaughter is being raised in a household with no substances and I don’t have to worry about her parents, because they are lucid, responsible and in love. I have the ups and downs of any life, but I am better able to handle it. Yes, a life lived in reality is a miracle and a beautiful thing – and I thank God for it. I raise my glass of spring water in a toast! “Here’s to another 30 years of sober life!”

Editor’s Note: You can read Sherry’s first testimony which describes the events leading up to her desire to get sober, and Part 2 which describes the sober life.

 

Marijuana Crack Weed Advertised on Instagram

By Patricia Silva-Duran, Texans Against Legalizing Marijuana

It’s so difficult to be happy when my 19-year-old daughter is succumbing to using illicit drugs; I pray and wish she’d stop using but with this new drug culture in our country.  This culture is trying to normalize recreational drugs such as marijuana which makes it difficult for her to stop.

This is a picture from a drug dealer on Instagram; they sell to people on social media; does this look natural to you? It’s today’s crack weed marijuana and THC levels are extreme.

I was able to snap this picture from my daughter’s Instagram of someone she follows. This is not natural.  I oppose ever legalizing marijuana because it’s causing mental illness and breaking apart families; that’s the real drug war.

“Dabs” and “wax” are considered the crack weed of today. There are websites which promote these products that can cause immediate psychosis. It’s not “natural.”

I feel like a failure as a parent; I couldn’t protect her from drugs because society is influencing her.   Please, other parents, please be warned about the drugs and drug dealers, and what they are doing to your kids.  Watch out for crack weed.

Follow Patricia Silva Duran in Facebook at Texans Against Legalizing Marijuana

Editor’s Note: Alternative names are “wax,” budder,” “rosin,” “earwax”  “710,” “shatter” and more.  Search for our other articles on dabbing for a better understanding.

Marijuana through the eyes of a doctor in Emergency Medicine

 Warnings from a Doctor

by Brad Roberts, MD:  I recently finished my residency in emergency medicine and began to practice in Pueblo, Colorado. I grew up there, and I was excited to return home. However, when I returned home, the Pueblo I once knew had drastically changed.  (Above photo is of people lining up at the opening of a pot dispensary in 2014.)

Where there were once hardware stores, animal feed shops, and homes along dotted farms, I now find marijuana shops—and lots of them. As of January 2016, there were 424 retail marijuana stores in Colorado compared with 202 McDonald’s restaurants.These stores are not selling the marijuana I had seen in high school.

Multiple different types of patients are coming into the emergency department with a variety of unexpected problems such as marijuana-induced psychosis, dependence, burn injuries, increased abuse of other drugs, increased homelessness and its associated problems, and self-medication with marijuana to treat their medical problems instead of seeking appropriate medical care.

I had expected to see more patients with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (and I have), but they were the least of my concern. Our local homeless shelter reported seeing 5,486 (unique) people between January and July 2016, while for the entire year of 2013 (before recreational marijuana) that number had been 2,444 people.2

Most disturbing, we weren’t seeing just homeless adults but entire families. It is a relatively common occurrence to have patients who just moved here for the marijuana show up to the emergency department with multiple medical problems, without any of their medications, often with poor or nonexistent housing, and with no plan for medical care other than to use marijuana.

They have often left established medical care and support to move here for marijuana and show up to the emergency department, often with suitcase in hand.

Increasingly Potent & Dangerous Drug

This new commercialized marijuana is near 20 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis), while the marijuana of the 1980s was less than 2 percent THC.

This tenfold increase in potency doesn’t include other formulations such as oils, “shatter” (highly concentrated solidified THC), or “dabbing” (heated shatter that is inhaled to get an even more potent form) that have up to 80 or 90 percent THC.3

The greatest concern that I have is the confusion between medical and recreational marijuana. Patients are being diagnosed and treated from the marijuana shops by those without any medical training. I have had patients bring in bottles with a recommended strain of cannabis and frequency of use for a stated medical problem given at the recommendation of a marijuana shop employee.

My colleagues report similar encounters, with one reporting seeing two separate patients with significantly altered sensorium and with bottles labeled 60 percent THC. They were taking this with opioids and benzodiazepines.

In some cases, places outside of medical clinics, like local marijuana shops, are being used to give screening examinations for medical marijuana cards.4 Reportedly, no records are available from these visits when requested by other medical providers. A large number of things treated with marijuana, often with no cited research at all or with severe misinterpretation of research, are advertised online.

These include statements that marijuana treats cancer (numerous types), cystic fibrosis, both diarrhea and constipation, hypoglycemia, nightmares, writer’s cramp, and numerous other conditions.5–7

Although there are likely some very effective ways to use the cannabinoid receptor (probably better termed the anandamide receptor), putting shops on every street corner and having nonmedical personnel giving medical advice is a very poor way to use this as a medicine.

Furthermore, to suggest that combustion (smoking) be the preferred route of medication delivery is harmful.3,8–10 I am also concerned that this is being widely distributed and utilized as a medicine prior to safety and efficacy studies having been completed; widely varying dosing regimens, concentrations, and formulations are being developed, sold, and utilized.

Patients are not being informed of the adverse effects associated with marijuana use, but instead, they are being told, “There are no adverse effects.” I am in favor of using the anandamide receptor for treatment purposes. However, we should do this safely and appropriately. What is occurring now is neither safe nor appropriate.

There are numerous adverse effects of marijuana that are significant. Marijuana use may lead to irreversible changes in the brain.3,9,11,12 Marijuana use correlates with adverse social outcomes.3

It is strongly associated with the development of schizophrenia.13–16 Dependence can lead to problem use.17,18 There are adverse effects on cardiovascular function, and smoking leads to poor respiratory outcomes.3,19,20 Traffic fatalities associated with marijuana have increased in Colorado.1

Pregnant women are using marijuana, which may lead to adverse effects on the fetus, and pediatric exposures are a much more common occurrence.21,22

This photo represents a few of the 270 Pueblo physicians who signed a petition last fall to opt out of marijuana for the city and county.

Different Approach Is Needed

We should approach mass marijuana production and distribution as we would any other large-scale public health problem. We should do what we can to limit exposure, and we should provide clear, unbiased education.

In the case of prevention efforts being unsuccessful, we need to provide immediate treatment and assistance in stopping use. If we are going to use this as a medication, then we should use it as we use other medications. It should have to undergo the same scrutiny, Food and Drug Administration approval, and regulation that any other medication does. Why are we allowing a pass on a medication that very likely would carry with it a black-box warning?

As emergency physicians, we are on the front lines. We treat affected patients; we need to be at the forefront of public policy recommendations at both state and national levels.

Originally published by ACEPNow,  a journal of Emergency Medicine.    We also published the testimony of another emergency doctor in Pueblo, Dr. Karen Randall.