Belynda Moss uses her Facebook page to inform her family and friends how she has stayed clean.

Feedback from social networks can help fight drug addiction

EL PASO – After 27 years of using drugs, many blackout nights and a few overdoses, Belynda Moss, 42, is using Facebook to share updates on her continuing efforts to stay clean. “I started at age 14 as a pot smoker, graduated to alcohol and became a blackout drunk.  At 18-years-old I did my first shot of heroin and overdosed.” She’s off drugs now, even cigarettes, and has moved from El Paso to Fort Worth where she works as a bus driver.  She’s staying clean by attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and by using Facebook as a support. She knew it was time for a change or her life would soon end. She is one of the lucky few that managed to kick their alcohol or drug habit. According to SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 23.2 million people (9.4 percent of the U.S. population) aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use problem in 2007.