The Turning Point-it's about choices
By KATHLEEN MCKEVITT

Turning Point Center Manager, Kimberly Cole (left), and LPN Tammy Lynn Miller.

The Turning Point, Inc. center in Blairsville is dedicated to treating people addicted to opiates. Opiates include heroin, morphine, codeine, hydromorphone (dilaudid), meperidine (demerol) propoxyphene (darvon), hydrocodone (lorcet) and oxycodone (oxycontin), most of which are prescription drugs.

People taking opiate-class drugs steadily for six weeks or less become physically, and chemically addicted. Ninety percent are prescription addictions to oxycontin. To get more, they need a prescription filled, or have to find a way to purchase them illegally. The physical cravings are so pronounced that crime is often involved in obtaining any amount that will restore the euphoria, and end the physical desire for more, which lasts for around 10-24 hours.

Methodone is a long-acting synthetic narcotic medication that is administered daily in a constant dose after patients are stabilized and has a three-fold benefit to someone who is opiate addicted: it stops the withdrawal symptoms, ends the physical cravings, and blocks the euphoria if the patient continues to take an opiate. Methodone is both safe and cost-effective, according to research literature, and center personnel.

Turning Point offers treatment options for opiate abusers that includes structured counseling, outpatient treatment, and medicinal treatment. The center opened on June 30, 2004 with 13 patients, and today, they are treating 110. How many need to be treated in the local area? According to Kimberly Cole, founder of the center, "I'd guess at least over 500 in this area of North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee that are unreported."

The Turning Point philosophy is to be patient, honoring, and family-oriented. Confidentiality is insured. Their goal is to assist opiate abusers in becoming drug free, help provide basic needs, like clothing, help with educational programs, and assistance in main-streaming back into the community as a healthy contributor.

A person must be 21 years old or have two parents consent to treatment, and must have two years of documented addiction. People treated at the center range from 22-60-plus years of age, and have transferred into this center from as far away as Wyoming, and Florida.

Cole calls the Turning Point " the last stop," meaning, when there's nowhere else to go.

As with most addiction treatments, total success rates are not the 100 percent everyone would like them to be, but the Methodone treatment has a 12 percent success of people who now live stable, employed and free of addiction for five years or more.

How is the Turning Point supported? Privately, with no state or federal funding. Patients pay $70.00 a week, and the program is run on a cash-only basis. Whatever income there is pays the staff of four, including Kimberly Cole and the L.P.N. Tammy Lynn Miller, both pictured here.

Cole says, "opiates or any addiction is a knee-jerk response to what makes you feel bad." While most drug addictions have some basis in individual biology, most of the problem, according to Cole, is making bad choices. "There are not bad people, just bad choices and choices can be made to start thinking differently, changing life patterns, gaining self-respect, through this program and programs like this, which helps get people off drugs and keeps them from relapsing."

With a small dose (40 mg) of Methadone, a person can completely withdraw from a 20 year addiction to heroin.

Turning Point's work greatly benefits from financial donations, grants, and private support. If you are inclined to support this work, or know more about it, call 706-781-6987, or e-mail turningpointcorp@alltel.net. Their Community Education Kit says, "Anybody can be addicted to opiates...college students, fashion models, stockbrokers, your next door neighbor, your own child...it's everybody's business."