Love and support will help your spouse seek the proper treatment for addiction. (AVNphotolab/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 16, 2017, 11:07 PM Dear Alicia, I am in desperate need of help. My husband has been suffering from an addiction to prescription pain medicine. This has been going on for longer than I care to admit. I was blind to it because he never had any issues with addiction before. He had a small business that was growing and a beautiful, healthy baby boy and another on the way. We had a great marriage and it seemed we had won life! Parents need to be brave, act on early stages of kid’s addiction All of a sudden, my husband lost a great deal of weight (he was already in good shape, so the weight loss was quite obvious). Everyone would ask him about it, but we [...]

It is critical for parents who have children battling any kind of drug addiction to learn how to recognize red flags such as negative behavior or rapidly changing grades. (serdjophoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, August 9, 2017, 12:39 AM Dear Alicia, Liz was a bright, sweet, athletic kid who actually seemed innocent in her freshman and sophomore year of high school. Things changed as she began to hang out with a different crowd and started to drink and smoke pot. I remember being devastated to learn that she smoked cigarettes! Little did I know how bad things would get. I trusted for as long as I could until I found drugs in her car and room. A confrontation followed, along with day treatment programs and, ultimately, numerous inpatient programs. Woman struggles to fight sister's addiction, keep family together Nothing seemed to work. I remember being so [...]

Sometimes getting tough is what it takes to get the addict better — and their loved ones, too. (FotoMaximum/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, August 3, 2017, 9:12 PM Dear Alicia, I’ve been living with addiction as long as I can remember not my own but my sister’s. She’s been battling addiction since she was 20 years old. She’s 53 now. After decades of using heroin and going into every rehab my parents could afford, she finally found a solution in Suboxone, which is used to make withdrawal easier. But that has turned into just a substitute drug. We’ve been trying desperately to get her off it. She has lost her life and her will, and her relapses are worse every time. Our parents tried everything they could think of, but my father passed away after a heart attack, and my mother is struggling to do something [...]

Addicts in recovery could benefit from an adviser to talk to whenever in need of help or advice. (John Moore/Getty Images) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, August 1, 2017, 5:30 AM Dear Ms. Palermo-Reddy, I am the mother of a 35-year-old man who is currently recovering from every oral opiate known to man. He has had one near-death experience and two other episodes in an in-patient rehab setting. He says he’s currently drug-free, but my concern is that I’m having trouble communicating with him regarding his addiction. So many subjects are taboo that I feel that I’m constantly walking on ice. I try not to get into it, but I can’t ignore his past and the ramifications that his behavior have had on his young family or ours. I want to be there for him in a loving and supportive way, but I know he’s less than truthful, [...]

Addiction reaches every corner of American society. It's not just a problem of the undereducated and underprivileged. (FabrikaCr/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, July 25, 2017, 12:00 AM Dear Alicia, I have a familiar story. In 2005, I was prescribed Vicodin after a wrist injury and saw immediate answers to many of the emotional problems I faced. I suddenly felt comfortable in my own skin — just what I had been looking for. The progression of the disease of addiction lasted for about 10 years. It started out on the weekends with a few pills here and there, and by the end I was spending every dollar I made, plus anything I could get my hands on, to cover a $1,000-a-day habit. Mom's life turns into hell when husband, son become addicts I was working at a major financial services company, and during bathroom breaks I’d go [...]

Vicki's husband went through years of addiction before becoming clean. Years later, after their son became an addict, the dad was back to using drugs. (Burlingham/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, July 17, 2017, 11:54 PM Vicky had been through a lot by the time she told me her story. Her son Tom was addicted to heroin. His father, Walt, was an addict, too. Vicky and Walt had been together since high school — long enough that, when he started taking drugs, she stuck with him, which meant living through a yearslong cycle of addiction, crisis, detox and rehab. She got him clean, and he stayed that way for years. He was clean when they had Tom — a sweet, funny, smart kid who made it to his junior year in high school before weekend flings with prescription opioids became an addiction to heroin, which turned her [...]

Alicia Palermo-Reddy has helped hundreds of families dealing with opioid addiction. (FabrikaCr/Getty Images/iStockphoto) Alicia Palermo-Reddy, a Staten Island nurse, is known as the "addiction angel" for helping hundreds of families dealing with opioid addiction. These are stories of two of the people she's encountered. 'Erin' It was two years ago when I got the first call from Nicole. She was worried about her 15-year-old sister, who was using drugs and behaving strangely. Her parents were at a loss, and I asked Nicole to have them call me. When they didn't, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised either when I heard from Nicole a second time. Her sister Erin, now 17, had overdosed on heroin and was found unconscious on the bathroom floor. First responders saved her life, and Nicole convinced her parents they had to call me. They had to act before it was too late. I worked with them [...]