The Maxim Furek Show: Prescription and OTC Drug Abuse

A little over a week ago, I had a chance to attend what I am now respectfully-referring-to as “The Maxim Furek Show”. The occasion was a lecture on the subject of Prescription and OTC Drug Abuse presented by Maxim at the Swartz Center for Spiritual Life on the campus of Marywood University.

If you are working in the recovery field or perhaps even, like myself, are simply interested in the subject matter, I would highly recommend attending one of Maxim’s talks. He is a very engaging speaker, and is able to convey all of the relevant survey and study data without overwhelming.  But most importantly, he knows his stuff.

Though in principal I loathe “litmus tests”, I still (of course) end-up utilizing them, and Maxim passed one of my big ones straight-away.

Namely the “Hillbilly Heroin” myth.  Hillbilly Heroin and Poor Man’s Heroin are some of the ill-applied media-monikers for the opioid analgesic OxyContin which came into use because some of the earliest reports of abuse of the drug had come from rural areas of Appalachia.

The use of this terminology has led some to believe (incorrectly) that OxyContin is cheaper than heroin, and it was interesting—if not a bit shocking—to see how many of those in attendance seemed not to have been aware of this (false) perception.

There were many other interesting revelations of course, and it was clear by the end that most everyone in attendance would be leaving not only armed with the hard stats, but also with a deeper understanding of the complex issues surrounding prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse.

Maxim is also author of the book The Death Proclamation of Generation X: A Self Fulfilling Prophesy of Goth, Grunge and Heroin. I happen to be a member of “America’s 13th Generation”, and I found the book to be incredibly insightful.

If you haven’t read the book yet, I highly recommend it. You can order a copy directly from Maxim’s Garden Walk Recovery website, or online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

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SWALLOW Flashback: My April ’08 riff on “Hillbilly Heroin”