ME

George Catlin, Founder and President of Withdrawal-Ease

In 2005 I was diagnosed with severe cervical spinal stenosis and consequently had to undergo a major surgery to implant a metal plate in my neck to stabilize my neck and take pressure off of my spinal cord. Needless to say, I got hooked on the pain medications and began to take more and more to get high. I was 100% addicted.

By the time I quit pain killers in late 2006, I was taking 25 Norcos a day in order to keep that high and also to keep myself from going into withdrawal.

The thing that I didn’t notice was that I was taking these pills to avoid real problems in my life…problems that needed to be fixed. I would start taking more and more of the Vicodin/Norco to keep the high but it truthfully never got better, the high just got shorter and less enjoyable. And when I wasn’t in that euphoric state, I was very depressed, moody, irritable and distant with everybody. I was letting everything in my life take a backseat to a 15-30 minute buzz. I finally said to myself “Enough is enough” I was committed to stop. But then my only chief concern was the withdrawals…I was terrified of the withdrawals!

I started to do research on opiate withdrawal and to my astonishment, there weren’t many options. There were the 30-day in-patient treatment programs designed for alcohol abuse and slightly tweaked to accommodate opiate abusers, there were some “quick detox” centers that put you under general anesthesia and finally, hospital detox centers that just put you in a bed and pumped you full of benzodiazepines and Advil. All of these treatments cost time and a LOT of money.

After getting off of the pills and suffering through an agonizing “cold turkey” withdrawal, I realized how much better I felt and how less depressed I was. So, I decided to look into creating a product for other people like me out there who are sick of being slaves to these pills but are afraid of the suffering of withdrawal and the high cost of getting help in treatment centers.

This site and the product called the Withdrawal-Ease Opiate Withdrawal Natural Supplement System® is the culmination of many, many months working with professionals in both the addiction and nutraceutical industries. I hope that the site, the product or both can help you take the first step to getting your life back from pain-killers.

-George

Austin, Texas 10/10/08

Dr. Earthman

Dr. Brian Earthman, MD Psychiatrist, Clinical Advisor To Withdrawal-Ease

Also - Psychiatric Services Director for The Spirit Lodge - An In-patient Drug Rehabilitation Facility in Austin, TX

Dr. Earthman joined us in February after I met with him in early January about Withdrawal-Ease and the product. Naturally, when you are providing information, advice and even a product for opiate withdrawal and addiction, it’s always great to seek the council of someone who is on the “front lines” of addiction. At first I was pretty nervous about presenting the product to him because there’s often a certain bias on the part of the clinical community about herbal and naturopathic supplements. To my surprise (and great relief) I wasn’t roughly shown the door. In fact, Dr. Earthman seemed more enthusiastic about the Withdrawal-Ease website and the product than I could have ever imagined!

You see, there was something that I had not known about Dr. Earthman prior to my visit with him. Dr. Earthman is not an academic although he has more experience with real patients and real people’s lives than any academic could ever hope to have. Dr. Earthman is a healer. If you read his blog entry, he goes into detail about his clinical philosophy and his approach to addiction and what personally strikes me is his true desire provide the most effective treatment options to his patients, even if they might not be “Standard of Care”. The fact that he did not dismiss me and Withdrawal-Ease is a testament to his desire to heal his patients by any means necessary.

There’s a big difference between healing and providing ongoing care. For Dr. Earthman, a good outcome is a patient lost at his practice or in his treatment center. He’s not interested in having a 15 year relationship with his patients just to make sure that his practice has a steady stream of income…I’m sorry to say but some doctors do this. His goal with every patient is to make sure that he actually HAS goals and that he and his patients can make actual progress and possibly even full recoveries. So when he saw my product, he saw an opportunity to add another tool to his arsenal that works. He also saw Withdrawal-Ease.com as an opportunity to reach a greater number of people that quite frankly could use his advice. He believes in the product itself and he believes in our approach to opiate withdrawal.

After our first meeting he reviewed the website more closely and agreed to help us because he said he appreciated the honesty of our claims and that we were not only talking about the product benefits but also were very clear about its limitations. We are truly fortunate to have him on board and I know that we all can learn a lot from him. Dr. Earthman will primarily be answering Withdrawal-Ease visitor questions, helping us with clinical issues related to our product and also guiding our efforts as we establish relationships with the drug rehabilitation community. Welcome Dr. Earthman!

-George

Austin, TX 2/15/09