Thinking of Nathan Eaton and Tod Abrams

http://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-xanax-addiction-and-death

Tod Abrams’ last act, in a life that included a once-thriving career as a Hollywood film executive and fathering a son whom he said he adored, was to tie a pair of bathrobe cords together, loop them around his neck and fix a knot below his left ear. Then he hanged himself from a metal rod in a closet.

“The anguish, anxiety and nightmares were unbearable,” the 52-year-old Abrams had written in a note to his family. Police found it on a dresser in his room on Aug. 30 last year, after he had been dead for a few hours. It was only a month after he had sought help with his addiction to Xanax, a sedative used to treat anxiety, at a $60,000-a-month residential facility run by Caron Treatment Centers in an upscale oceanside neighborhood in Delray Beach.

“I haven’t slept in 4 days and I’m probably beginning to hallucinate,” his note went on. “The people here were very kind but the program was too rigorous, too difficult. I’m too fatigued to proceed on. I don’t have the strength.” …

http://www.marinij.com/article/NO/20160327/NEWS/160329827

The father of a man who died at a Center Point drug treatment center in San Rafael three years ago has sued Center Point, alleging the facility’s failure to follow state regulations led to his son’s death.

Nathan Eaton, 32, was found dead in his room at the Manor, Center Point’s facility at 603 D St., at 7:05 a.m. March 9, 2013, according to the county coroner’s report. Dr. Joseph Cohen, the county’s chief forensic pathologist, concluded Eaton died of “acute methadone intoxication.” …

There are 14 entities licensed by the state to operate drug treatment facilities in Marin County, operating out of 27 separate locations. Of the 200 licensed drug treatment beds in the county, all but 90 are licensed for detox services. Center Point operates 84 of those beds in centers not licensed for detox.

Adam Weintraub, a spokesman for the state Department of Health Care Services, said both licensed and unlicensed detox centers are not required to have medical personnel on the premises or on call…

Weintraub said the state does not keep track of how many overdose deaths occur at drug treatment facilities. He said coroners are not required to report overdose deaths to the Department of Health Care Services…

Harris said the Department of Health Care Services’ Licensing and Certification Division made inquires about Eaton’s death in April 2013. There is no indication, however, that any disciplinary action was taken…