Forget Cocaine And Heroin—Pills Are In

April 4, 2008 - PRLog -- (OAK RIDGE, NJ)—If Hollywood stars are any indication, the hottest drugs you can get right now come not from the dealer on the corner but straight from the doctor’s office.

“Celebrities still do the old stand-bys,” says Stephen Della Valle, author of the new addiction and recovery memoir Rising Above the Influence. “But these days, there’s also Percocet, OxyContin and Xanax to contend with—and those are much easier to get.”

Statistics show that in the last fifteen years, the number of teens and young adults abusing prescription painkillers has risen from 400,000 to two million. And in only one year, the amount of people taking tranquilizers for nonmedical reasons went up by an amazing fifty percent.

“The problem is,” notes Mr. Della Valle, “you can go to one doctor to get Xanax, another to get OxyContin, and yet another for Valium, and none of them will even be aware of what the others are doing. It’s an easy system to exploit.”

Prescription medication abuse is a hot news item today, but it’s a problem that’s been around for a long time. Generations of Hollywood legends have fallen victim to this tragedy, with casualties including:

·         Marilyn Monroe—died in her sleep at age thirty-six after overdosing on sleeping pills.

·         Anna Nicole Smith—dead at thirty-nine due to an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate and other prescription drugs.

·         Heath Ledger—only twenty-eight years old, his autopsy showed a mixture of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine in his system.

·         Judy Garland—at forty-seven, her death due to long-term ingestion of barbiturates was ruled accidental.

·         Elvis Presley—died of combined drug intoxication at forty-two, with fourteen different prescription medications found in his system.

“Some people see this as an ‘acceptable’ form of addiction because they’re not out scoring on the street, like a regular junkie,” says Mr. Della Valle. “But they have to open their eyes—prescription medications can be just as dangerous and deadly as any illegal narcotic out there.”

Stephen Della Valle is president of the board of directors at Turning Point rehabilitation center in Verona, New Jersey. Currently celebrating twenty years of sobriety, he lives in Oak Ridge, New Jersey, with his wife, Donna. He has three children.

Rising Above the Influence is available now (ISBN: 0-9801776-0-X; softcover; Oak Ridge Press) on Amazon.com, Borders.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and at fine bookstores everywhere.

Website: www.risingabovetheinfluence.net