My name is Linda.  I am a survivor of verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse in my marriage, and I struggle with multiple facets of co-dependency including pride, control, self-sufficiency, shame, and isolation. Jesus Christ is my Higher Power.

I was born in rural Alabama, the youngest of six children of Godly parents. My dad did sharecrop farming and later built houses.  My mom worked hard at home and picked and chopped cotton to buy my school supplies and clothes. We were extremely poor, but I never felt ashamed because it didn’t seem to matter.

By David Palmer

One in eight Arkansas adolescents has taken a prescription pain reliever medication illegally. One in 20 has done so in the past 30 days. And nearly seven percent admit to using an over-the- counter medication to get high, half of them within the past month.

Surveys also show that teenagers are more likely to have abused prescription and over-the-counter drugs than street drugs like ecstasy, cocaine, crack and methamphetamines.

Why is this important to know and deal with? Because prescription drugs can kill, maim and fuel other drug abuse.

The abuse of these potent drugs can damage evolving young brains, and they are sometimes deadly. From 2003 to 2007, 15 Arkansas children aged 12 to 17 died as a result of an overdose involving prescription drugs, seven of them from the pain relievers oxycodone and hydrocodone.