The debate on this site is now closed. We have received over 800 comments from you.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:40:46 GMT
catherine, London
Before watching, I was ready to condemn 'Going Cold Turkey' as the worst kind of voyeuristic reality TV. How glad i am to be wrong. It is a humane and yet informative perspective on an issue that I knew nothing about. I hope you will be able to pass on my best wishes for a successful future for the 3 noble participants and their families.
Created: Tuesday 21-Feb-2006 23:49:55 GMT
Jon, Bath
Addicts are victims of a self-destructive illness. This program is helping to open people's minds to that fact. This understanding is long overdue.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:33:09 GMT
sophia, london
my husband is in detox now and has been on heroin and crack for the past 10 years with a year and a half gap where he got clean and I met him. We married in May 2005 and he was secretly using. I got pregnant and had my baby on new year's day this year and he was coming to visit me and my new born son wasted and I didn't realise. I watched my husband go from a lovely, caring, healthy man to a lying, cheating, dirty stranger with manic mood swings and paranoia amongst many other things. There was manic hysteria behind vacant eyes. He's now in detox and has been clean for 4 days. He says he can feel again and keeps crying. But his mind is trully screwed up at the moment. He's suffering with all sorts of mental health problems at the moment but I know it will get better. I live in hope that my husband comes back to me and stays with me. I want to be his one true love, not heroin or crack.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:39:07 GMT
ben, dublin
do the doctors think that it would be a good idea to tell the girl coming off methadone that her detox or withdrawal symptoms have hardly even started because i think that she thinks that she is going to be fine and maybe in for a shock in the next few days
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:38:23 GMT
Natalie, Liverpool
id just like to say how well they are all doing! well done it's helping me as i would like to work in nursing and is giving me more knowledge about heroin, i had heard about the drug but not known the side effects of it! keep up the good work!!
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:34:26 GMT
Helen, Plymouth
I suffer from trichotillomania. It is a compulsion and addiction to pull our your hair. Programmes like this one on heroin are so important. If only this level of care was available to all, because frankly it is not. I am contemplating seeing my doctor this week for help, but i know I will be treated like a crazy person, or someone who can't control themselves like the rest of us addicts. The fact is we have a long way to go before addictions are taken seriously.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:34:30 GMT
Natalie, glasgow
I think this programme is disgusting and i refuse to watch it.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:22:21 GMT
dawn, yorkshire
The detox 5 place fetured in the cold turkey place is a joke. The girl who can't get to sleep with masses of sedatives is because her benzo levels are too high. The detox that they give is similar to the five to eight day lofexadine one that you can get for free at treatment services. From my previous experience as a drugs worker, the clinic charge over £3k for the five day stay, but then write to the client's local health authority asking them to prescribe blockers for the next six months, blockers (naltrexone) is a relatively expensive drug, so why do the clinic not pay for six month's worth of this instead of the local health authority, who are not seeing any of the £3k price tag. Also the clinic expect tretment services to put their discharged clients at the top of their treatment list. As for the tratment, as the patients are just put to sleep for several days, they often end up back in the needle exchange of local treatment services within a week of coming out of the clinic.
Created: Tuesday 21-Feb-2006 23:18:17 GMT
robert, GOSPORT
please can you let us (the viewer) know exactly what medication they are giving your subjects it would be interesting to know. I have done a detox before but have always been given clonidene (not sure if that is spelled right) but I got no or very little withdrawls symptoms at all. they said on the program that they are trying to suppress the withdrawal but they just looked doped and are incapable of withdrawing properly.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:09:04 GMT
Ian, Manchester
a waste of everybody's time... and compromising the support the real victims should be receiving. hope the ratings are worth it :)
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 23:09:08 GMT
Jill, Brighton
I would like to say that i am appalled that channel 4 would put this program on the air. it is a shameless exploitation of people that are desperate. I have worked with heroin users in Australia, Ireland and the Uk and find it utterly despicable that this tv station would sink to such a level. Where will the support for these people be in 1 month, 6 months, a year. Where is the longer term work with their families? I have no issue with the treatment. although it is probably one of the least successful types of treatments it is worth having different options for people. There are other more effective ways of highlighting the issue of addicition without preying on vulnerable people. Shame on you channel 4.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 22:58:54 GMT
John, Birmingham
the show is good but makes it look a lot easier then it really is to people who can't aford or get access to this type of detox. I had to cold turkey with no pills to help. that's what you need to show cause that is one thing that will keep you off it. I have friends who took the easy route and they're still on it five years later and i am still clean. good luck
Created: Tuesday 21-Feb-2006 23:06:53 GMT
chazz, wolverhampton
i think your cold turkey program is just an excuse for voyeurism and you're basically exploiting human misery for ratings. well done on hitting a new low with reality television
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 22:37:10 GMT
paul, sheffield
I am watching your series this week "going cold turkey" with great interest. it is about time the issue was presented in an intelligent and informative way, revealing one of the great evils of modern uk society. I would like to ask one question, one of the poor souls who is undertaking this treatment said they had been in prison whilst being a heroin addict. does a heroin addict going into prison get the same sympathetic treatment as the people in this programme?
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 22:17:03 GMT
steve, ENGLAND
i think that the program is very unrealistic coz in real life u don't get heavily sedated. and i think that they shouldn't get all that help and i don't understand that they get all the help in the world. people have sympathy when they steal and cheat to get what they want. if anyone else steals they get a prison sentence but addicts get nothing. they might all say that it's bad enough with all the pains and feeling bad when they are quitting but it's their own fault for starting in the first place. if people get in debt and decide to steal then people don't say 'oh it's ok he's in debt we'll help him out by givin him some money.' instead he gets sent to jail, and people say it serves him right for getting in so much debt. but an addict steals he gets theropy which we all pay for except for most of them coz they're on the dole, again taking our money. well done to all the people that have stopped it must be really hard but it is obviously harder to say no coz otherwise u would never start in the first place!!!
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 22:02:39 GMT
Concerned, UK
I have just examined Detox 5 relapse stats. They quote that "Relapse is relatively rare". After 3 months 71% clean, after 12 months ONLY 51% remain clean of opiates. These figures are 6 years out of date and after 12 months almost half of patients have relapsed. This is not "relatively rare"! but a 50/50 chance of remaining abstinent after 12 months. Are Detox 5 misrepresenting themselves?
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 21:56:01 GMT
jodie, england
I cannot believe how many people out there are on hard serious drugs. Screw it's hard to get off it, stop being so weak. it was not so hard the first time they took the drug. If people would rather steal off their loved ones and be hated by them too than go through a detox then more fool them. people on smack choose to be on it by taking it in the first place and being too weak to say no. people who let the drug take control of their lives should stick to destroying their own lives instead of stealing and pulling others down around them. And yes i do have people around me on it. Why should we give sympathy and help to people who steal from us and would stab us in the back if we had some spare change without a second throught and no remorse.
Created: Tuesday, 21-Feb-2006 22:05:07 GMT
Jessica, Newbury
Detox for 5 days is not going to have any long term affect it is merely a beginning. What follow up will there be for this group and are you providing counselling and a back up system for them? Otherwise the programme I fear will just buy into everyone's negativity and say detox doesn't work see they are all useless.