Californian pair's plight highlights importance of drug addiction rehabilitation

Categories

Addiction Treatment
Alcohol
Drugs
Gambling
In the papers
On TV

News Archive

Home » News » Drugs » Californian pair's plight highlights importance of drug addiction rehabilitation

by Change | 26 Apr 2010

Bookmark

E-mail

A couple whose addiction had placed them in grave danger have successfully undergone drug addiction rehabilitation.

A Californian couple in urgent need of drug addiction intervention agreed to share their story on television in order to raise awareness of the plight of drug abusers.

Annie Preece and Mike Lombardo agreed to appear on TLC reality show Addicted after cameras captured them injecting each other with 'speed balls', which are a combination of heroin and cocaine, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports.

Kristina Wandzilak, the programme's host, said the pair could have died within a month if they had not sought drug addiction help when they did.

"Mike and Annie are very progressed in their addiction," the newspaper reported her as saying at the beginning of the show.

"If they don't get help they're going to die."

Over a two month period, the pair received intensive drug addiction rehabilitation, which they have now both successfully completed.

Ms Preece is now based in Venice Beach and works as an artist, while Mr Lombardo lives in San Francisco where he works in a coffee shop and spends more time with his young son.

According to the California Alcohol and Other drug treatment Report, there were over 115,000 on any given day in the state receiving addiction treatment during 2007-08.

Bookmark this: