Penn Medicine researchers found that when an “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery” protocol was employed–which optimizes patients’ surgical care before, during, and after surgery–the majority of patients did not need opioids for pain management at one, three, and six months after elective spinal and peripheral nerve surgery.
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute has been awarded a $4.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify new therapies for mental health disorders. The research will be headed by Layton Smith, Ph.D., and Michael Jackson, Ph.D., of the Institute’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. The funding supports the discovery of new classes of drugs that target “orphan” receptors to treat psychological conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and substance abuse.
Drug overdoses are psychologically traumatic events that can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a study focused on female sex workers in Baltimore City led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Addiction Recovery Bulletin
An anti-depressant? Zoloft? I had seen the commercials before and I even knew a couple of friends who took these drugs. I did not know what to feel, but a large part of me was excited about the possibility of relief.
“You can take these drugs for up to six months,” she added. “After six months, you can slowly come off and be back to normal. This medication should kick in soon! You’ll be back to your old self in no time!”’
In my vulnerability, I accepted her statement as an unwritten promise between us. She handed me a small sample pack of Zoloft (sertraline) and sent me on my way. Though I felt optimistic, I was also apprehensive about taking my first dose. My sea of optimism would soon come crashing down on me. To date, the worst mistake of my life was ever setting foot in that doctor’s office.
Later, I fumbled with my Zoloft pack and retrieved my first dose, a 25mg pill. I washed the pill down with some orange juice and walked over to my car. I knew that the medication would kick in soon and then I would feel better.
At first, I did not notice any change.
“This is fine,” I said to myself out loud. “The doctor said it may take up to a few weeks for the medication to have its full effect.”
I waited.
Day 7: I had continued to increase my dose of Zoloft as instructed by my doctor and was now taking 75 mg. When I showed up to my community service job, I was asked to make copies of a flyer, a trivial task that I had completed many times in the past. However, this time was different.
I asked my supervisor how to work the copy machine. She explained the process, but I could not comprehend what she was saying. I asked her twice more to repeat the instructions. As she spoke, I felt my brain shutting down inside my skull. I managed to nod my head after she finished speaking in an effort to appear normal.
Then I dashed to the women’s bathroom and opened up the first vacant stall in sight. Once inside, I moved the silver knob to the locked position and crumbled down onto the cold, bare tile.
“It’s finally happened,” I cried. “I have lost my mind.”
I went home that evening with a horrible zapping sensation in my head. I felt as though I could begin seizing at any moment. So, I called my doctor.
The post How 1 Panic Attack Led to 15 Years of Psychiatric Drugs appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.
In 2018 a scholar based his doctoral dissertation, “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in Alcoholics Anonymous”, on the book Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA,
published in 2015. Last month Brent completed his work and sent a copy to AA Agnostica.
What follows are excerpts from his dissertation, submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in partial fulfillment of his Doctor of Psychology Degree.
Introduction
AA Agnostica “attempts to be a helping hand for the alcoholic who reaches out to Alcoholics Anonymous for help and finds that she or he is disturbed by the religious content of many AA meetings”. In doing so, they post blogs, maintain a website, and publish literature. One of their publications, Do Tell! Stories by Atheists & Agnostics in AA, was analyzed… for the purpose of answering the following question: What are the experiences of Alcoholics Anonymous members who identify as atheist or agnostic?
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists & Agnostics in AA is a pre-existing compilation of AA members who identify as atheist or agnostic. The book is published independently by AA Agnostica and edited by Roger C., who reported that the 30 stories were selected from 50 original submissions. Subjects were not prompted with any specific definition of “atheist” or “agnostic” although they were all readers of AA Agnostica, which rejects the “Christian anthropomorphic and interventionist male deity” specified in the book Alcoholics Anonymous.
Permission to use the content for research purposes was granted by the publisher.
Positive Experiences in Recovery Through AA
Community Benefits of AA
A majority of the stories mention benefits from AA related to relationships and connection with other people. Codes encompassed in this theme included social acceptance, accountability, shared experience, fellowship, role models/sponsorship, or general support. Authors consistently noted participation in fellowship and connection with other AA members as a resiliency factor in their recovery. Author 5 [Russ H.] noted “they allowed me to talk. They listened as I revealed anger, fear and shame and they were neither shocked nor disapproving… The friendship and love from those people, and others in the years that have followed, changed my life.” [Do Tell! p. 34]
Other authors went so far as to identify community benefits as one of the reasons they did not feel the need to identify a higher power. For instance, Author 8 [Suzanne M.] stated that “it is the human fellowship of AA that keeps me sober. I can find no evidence, in my sobriety, of an interfering god who has played a part in it.” [Do Tell! p. 50]
Internal Benefits of AA
[This theme] included those stories that endorsed benefits of AA unique to the individual experience of the author, including personal and emotional growth. This theme included codes such as gratitude, happiness, relief from cravings, sustained sobriety, freedom, serenity, emotional maturity, wisdom, and hope. Another consistent theme born from the text was internal reactions and personal development identified as a benefit of AA affiliation.
Author 11 [Gabe S.] noted many of these benefits: “Through inventory, sharing, making amends, meditation, helping others and trying to do the right thing, let go and leave the rest up to nature, I have learned how to calm my emotions, to accept others and feel accepted by them, to feel connected to the world and the sentient, feeling beings in it, to feel worthy of my place in the universe. [Do Tell! p. 69]
Others noted feelings of gratitude, hope, and emotional maturity, summarized well by Author 19 [Neil F.]: “Today my life is far removed from that seemingly hopeless state I was in when I first came to AA.” [Do Tell! p. 113] Author 21 [Marnin M.] further contributed that “AA saved my life, and I am forever grateful for the opportunities it has provided me. Because of the AA program… I try to live as full and as emotionally satisfying a life as possible.” [Do Tell! p. 119]
Indirect Benefits of AA membership
Indirect benefits of AA membership included stories which indicated improvements in other facets of life as a result of involvement with 12-step recovery (e.g., regained employment, repaired relationships, fulfilled vocational or educational goals, developing good boundaries, or coping with difficult life experiences). Though less prevalent, indirect benefits gained from AA affiliation were nonetheless frequently noted. Many stories related regaining employment, going back to school, or developing and maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Author 18 [Ann M.] noted the most common indirect benefit, being able to cope with adversity that happens in life.
Navigating the Spiritual Component of AA
Doctrinal Differences
Author 1 [Nell Z.] concisely identified their experience as being a non-believer in an AA meeting: “The first time I came into an AA meeting I felt like I had to squeeze past God to get through the door” [Do Tell! p. 9]. Author 12 [Betsy M.] noted objections to the conference approved AA literature: “My first roadblock was the Big Book. I couldn’t stand it. It struck me as a self-help book for Christian men from my father’s generation.” [Do Tell! p. 71]
Author 8 [Suzanne M.] noted objections based on a reminder of their own negative experiences being raised in a religious tradition: “The references to ‘God,’ ‘He,’ and ‘Him’ felt like a strange throwback to the unthinking acceptance of Christian mythology of my childhood Sunday School days.” [Do Tell! p. 49] Author 23 [John C.] noted that this component likely kept them from approaching sobriety earlier: “If it weren’t for the overt religious aspects of AA, I might have been spared years of suffering.” [Do Tell! p. 135]
Negative Interactions With Other Members Based on Atheist or Agnostic Beliefs
Author 29 [Chuck K.] noted that “when I told some people I was an atheist, they assured me I’d drink again unless I changed my ways and got with God.” [Do Tell! p. 170] Author 23 [John C.] noted a similar experience: “I left that first meeting with AA members chasing after me, telling me they were positive there was a god and I needed to believe in him. I thought I would never return.” [Do Tell! p. 130]
Author 17 [life j.] indicated that their belief affected their ability to find a sponsor: “Finding a sponsor who wouldn’t harass me about finding a higher power was real difficult.” [Do Tell! p. 98] Author 19 [Neil F.] even indicated that coming out as atheist had an impact on relationships they had developed in AA: “My disclosure [of being an atheist] caused some pain, one person called me a few names, and one person fired me as his sponsor, some rolled their eyes when I spoke, but others realized that I hadn’t changed and still accepted me. [Do Tell! p. 113]
Spiritual Experiences
Author 1 [Nell Z.] connected their spiritual journey to humanistic connection: “The spiritual principles of AA, such as honesty, open-mindedness, willingness and brotherly love, can be practiced by anyone, God-believer or not… I equate my spirituality to my humanistic journey toward genuine human connection, service, love, and kindness.” [Do Tell! p. 12]
Other authors noted a reconnection with existing faith or cultural traditions that they had previously lost. Author 4 [Julie B.] captured this well. “I learned about indigenous beliefs of living in concert with nature, and how everything is interconnected. I learned about ceremony and resilience… it was the most spiritual experience of my life. I also know that it never would have happened if I hadn’t gotten sober.” [Do Tell! pp. 30, 31]
Coping and Adaptation
Rewriting, Substituting, or Omitting Personally Problematic Language
This… refers to those stories that included coping via reframing the 12 steps, substituting language that was contrary to their beliefs, or “taking what you want and leaving the rest” in terms of program literature. Participants noted many ways that they adapted existing program language or traditions to make the program work for them.
Several authors took action to rewrite or adapt the 12 steps into language more agreeable to them. Author 13 [Kit G.] noted “I began to put the steps… into my own words for myself… I found that the language of religion or the Big Book was insufficient to communicate the language of my heart.” [Do Tell! p. 77] Authors 5 [Russ H.], 19[Neil F.], and 20 [Hanje R.] included their adapted versions of the 12 steps in their stories.
Connecting With Likeminded People
This theme refers to those stories that mentioned reading materials of other [secular] individuals, attending existing agnostic or atheist meetings, or seeking counsel and relationships from members with similar beliefs or experiences to their own. Many individuals found relationships and group affiliation based on [an atheist or agnostic] status as beneficial.
Author 1 [Nell Z.] noted their experience: “One day, I discovered a group of like-minded individuals who also suffered from alcoholism and held an AA meeting in a non-prayer format. There, I finally found comfort and a sense of belonging. For the first time, I was home, and it was such a relief to be among people who shared similar views.” [Do Tell! p. 11]
Author 10 [Joan C.] noted that finding a [secular] meeting was what allowed them to return to AA: “I left AA because I am a non-believer and became more and more uncomfortable in the meetings with all the god talk and talk of leaving everything in god’s hands… I am back because we now have meetings – We Agnostics meetings – where I finally feel like I belong.” [Do Tell! p. 64]
While some authors noted resistance to the creation of atheist or agnostic groups, 23 identified that a major component that allowed them to find success in AA was being allowed to attend or start atheist or agnostic meetings – so long as their primary purpose is to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Considering that US citizens are increasingly identifying as “non-religious” and that addiction remains a public health crisis, it stands to reason that the ability to tailor groups to the needs of smaller enclaves will increase over time.
Conclusion
This study examined how individuals identifying as… atheist or agnostic navigate the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Research findings suggest that this population can successfully utilize AA as a resource for recovery from addiction with the use of adaptation and reliance on the more social and broadly spiritual components of the program.
You can read the entire dissertation here: Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in Alcoholics Anonymous. The above is a number of small portions of the essay, with excerpts from page 16 to 39.
For more information about the book itself, you can click here: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.
Also available is a PDF of the article: An Academic Analysis of Do Tell! A copy of this PDF will be sent to all of the officials, trustees, etc., at the AA General Service Office (GSO) in New York.
The post An Academic Analysis of Do Tell! first appeared on AA Agnostica.
The novel coronavirus is spreading like anything while there is still no conclusive research on it. The transmission of this virus has been a question from the beginning of the pandemic. As it seems like the only way to prevent coronavirus is to “avoid” it. The new study assumes mobile phones and smartwatches can predict coronavirus in a person using his basic data.
Duke University is trying to investigate this virus which is now global. The identification of its spread program “CovIdentify” has more than 4000 international members, all working to predict the virus’s progression.
Also read- Trump Says that Americans Hate Wearing a Mask to Prevent Coronavirus
This study highlights the role of common electronic devices like mobile phones and smartwatches to identify coronavirus in a user. By saying that these electronic devices are helpful min identifying means to know if the user of these devices has coronavirus.
Dr. Jessilyn Dunn, a researcher, and teacher from Duke University says that these devices can predict accurate data. Whenever a person gets into a healthcare facility, he knows some basic symptoms and information which is also achievable form his devices.
Instead of relying on self-reported cases, it is high time to find a more advanced system to predict coronavirus in a person. Testing everyone independently takes so much time, effort, and resources. Sometimes it reduces the chances of diagnosis for a person who is actually in need of a diagnosis. In the worst case, these vulnerable people can lose their lives while other people receive a negative coronavirus report.
Testing the entire population is only a preference when there is control over this virus. But testing people randomly which may or may not have coronavirus and leaving other, highly susceptible people without testing is not a wise thing. In this regard, a little help from technology seems like a new hope.
This study has initially used online participants only. These participants answered questions that were a part of the CovIdentify study. But now, the research team has developed the CovIdentify phone app which all enrolled people can download and use.
Also read- British Women delivers a baby in the Toilet, Completely Unaware of her Pregnancy
This study aims to find whether or not the phone and smartphone data can predict coronavirus or not. Even if it does, how much severe can it go for the individual user? All that it takes is to answer two questions every day for at least 12 months.
The researchers request everyone to open up and play a role in learning how to improve coronavirus testing and diagnosis. This is the only way to save people from extreme stages of coronavirus.
Anyone can sign up and be a part of this project. All that takes is to download the app on any electronic device i.e. phone, laptop, etc. The app asks two questions every day which needs accurate answers. Based on responses, the research team will soon come up with interesting results that could help to predict coronavirus in people.
The post Mobile Phones and Smartwatches can Predict Coronavirus appeared first on Spark Health MD.
By Sam Renwick
Originally posted on The Fix
Have you ever struggled to learn how to do something? I mean really struggled. It’s part of the nature of being human because, at our core, we are learning beings.
For some people, algebra, geometry, and calculus fall into this category. For others, learning to interact with the opposite sex has been the challenge… or navigating group dynamics. Still others, figuring out how to cope with those damn emotions in useful ways has been the struggle.
When we speak of recovery from an addiction, often the process looks and feels like struggle. After all, in recovery one is learning how to navigate life without the use of a substance, behavior, or relationship that was previously quite central to life. Often times, recovery feels like the English major struggling through calculus.
Watching people, especially children, go through the process of struggling to learn to finally “getting it” is truly amazing. The learning process involves toil in the small steps of progress offset by failures until it just “clicks”. When the light bulb of the click goes off, a big shift happens as what is learned gets embedded somehow in our neural circuitry and what once was a struggle is no longer. Humans go from crawling to walking to running, from babbling to talking to writing, from counting to multiplying to solving quadratic equations, etc. What once was difficult becomes easier and more automatic. This is our nature.
For many of us, our addictive behavior was what we learned to help us deal with life. Habit, emotion, attachment/relationships, pleasure, pain, trauma, experience wove together in a tapestry and we learned how to deal with this tapestry in the way that we did. For some of us, we were quite gifted at acting out in our addiction, perhaps not too dissimilar to the math whiz who gets abstract algebra with ease. For others of us, we really had to practice to get to where we were in our addictions. Whichever the case, our addictions clicked for us and that became part of the problem, especially when the consequences mounted.
When we step into recovery, or more simply, learning how to live our lives differently than we were before (sometimes I wish we’d relabel recovery to simply growth), we enter a process of struggle and learning as early on we try to navigate our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships through a new filter, a filter that does not include our problematic addictive behavior and one that attempts to get to the core of why we pursued the addictive behavior in the first place. Often times the automaticity of old learned thinking and behaving makes learning the new way to live difficult, especially early on. Failure, pain, and difficulty seem just as, if not more, prominent than success, joy, and hope. This is the struggle.
But let’s be honest, did you learn to walk the first time you tried? Were you able to snowboard or ski the first time you got on the mountain? Did you really nail talking to the opposite sex (or same-sex) the first time you really tried (in Jr. High)? Kudos if your answer was yes but for most of us the answer was a profound no. It takes effort, practice, adapting, and learning to figure these processes out often helped with mentors. Addiction recovery is not all that different.
What’s amazing to me is seeing the big shifts in people as they move through the recovery process, when they finally “get it” and the recovery process transforms from a struggle not to do something to a part of a person’s identity to go live the best life he or she can. This is the click.
For me, the click happened when I could finally see me as I see my children. They are beautiful, they are a part of me, and it’s amazing to see what they are becoming. When I could apply those very same attributes to me (and believe them), I experienced a big shift. To be clear, my kids make mistakes, they can be difficult, but they are learning and growing just as we all are. Me too. They are not their past poor choices and they certainly aren’t worthless. Me too.
This click that happened for me changed me from thinking too little or too much of me to actually just liking me. The click reoriented me from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. The click reframed my thinking about my addictive acting out from something inevitable to something I could grow through and recover from. The click reframed the way I looked at relationships and oriented me toward finding healthier ones. The click helped me to experience more joy and peace in my daily life.
The click did not remove all my previous memories nor did it eliminate the thoughts, impulses, and such that would go through my mind from time to time. What the click did do was help me change how I react to these memories, thoughts, and impulses. Now, I chuckle at some of the stuff that goes through my head and I get curious about where it came from. Then I move on my way…something I could not do well before the click. The click did not remove my occasional desire to use or act out. It did, however, give me the orientation around myself to explore what I really wanted to get out of my life, what my purpose is, and question whether acting out would really help.
Sometimes we have big clicks, sometimes we have small clicks and sometimes we have struggle. Life is a series of all of these. It’s the nature of growth and learning. In order to grow and learn, we have to be in the process of growth and learning (profound I know). So…
Stay in the process!
The post Click – Learning in Addiction Recovery first appeared on AA Agnostica.
Having a tough time recognizing people behind a face mask? Facial recognition algorithms are finding it difficult too. As politicians and doctors are struggling to convince people to take the smallest of precautions against the virus by wearing a face mask, the department of homeland security is concerned that face masks are breaking facial recognition algorithms of the police. A study published by an agency showed that even the best facial recognition systems have an error rate of 5% to 50% when identifying masked faces.
The continuous threat of the coronavirus and its rapid spread around the globe has created a barrier in facial recognition’s global expansion as everyone is covering their faces. Even before the pandemic in so-called ideal conditions facial recognition technologies struggled with their accuracy and have a miserable record when identifying faces that are other than male or white. It can be said that the pandemic has given the police a brand-new crisis.
This mask problem is the reason that Apple has made it easier by enabling its users to unlock their iPhones without using Face ID. The algorithms that facial companies use rely significantly on facial markers around the nose, mouth, and eyes. However, while wearing face masks the mouth, nose, and majority of the chin and cheek are covered which makes it difficult to identify any person. The companies are now trying to upgrade their algorithms so that they can solely focus on identifiable markers around the eyes.
The study conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) examined the algorithms which were created before the coronavirus pandemic and now the researchers are assessing ways in which the effectiveness of the algorithms in detecting masked individuals can be improved.
NIST conducted a test of various software by drawing masks on the photos of people from a trove of border crossing photos. These were uploaded into facial recognition technologies together with unmasked photos from the same source. The agency scanned nearly 6 million images of 1 million people by making use of around 89 algorithms supplied by academic labs and tech firms.
NIST’s study shows that if the conditions are ideal the rate of failure is around 0.3 percent for the best recognition systems. However, this figure varies on the basis of a person’s race, age, and gender, and with a mask the failure rate increases to 5%.
Even before this pandemic governments of some countries were pursuing the technology that is capable of recognizing people trying to conceal their faces behind a mask. Face masks become a trademark for the protestors in Hong Kong because of fears of being arrested if they were identified and also to protect themselves against tear gas. Due to this the government of Hong Kong imposed a ban last year on face masks at all the public gatherings and if the protestors refused to remove the mask on police’s orders, they would have faced a potential jail term of 6 months.
Privacy Activists are looking for creative ways to conceal their faces. In London, artists who were not in favor of high surveillance, in an attempt to fail face detection systems, painted their faces with geometric shapes. Then as the covid19 outbreak came the health experts around the globe started encouraging people to wear masks covering nose and mouse.
NIST’s study shows that the way in which people wear masks and what masks they wear has a big impact on facial recognition systems. The results are unsurprising as the more facial features covered the harder it is for the system to recognize.
The post Are Face Masks Breaking Facial Recognition? appeared first on Spark Health MD.
Addiction Recovery Bulletin
July 20, 2020 – Meanwhile, the South, as defined by the US Census standard, is faring better than the Midwest. Out of the 12 Midwestern states, all of them saw increases in overdose deaths except Michigan and Missouri, which each had rates of decrease below 10 percent.
The Midwest suffered the nation’s starkest rate increases. South Dakota experienced a 54.4 percent rate increase in overdose deaths, the most severe in the US, while North Dakota’s rate increase came in second place at 31 percent. Efforts there to stem harms that can result from drug use still largely consist of law enforcement interdiction, exclusionary, traditional rehab services, and tone-deaf ad campaigns, like the widely mocked “Meth. We’re On It” billboards.
In comparison, four out of 16 Southern states saw decreases in their overdose death rate from 2018 to 2019: Georgia, Maryland, Arkansas and Oklahoma. In the latter two, the rate decreases were in the double digits, with Arkansas seeing a significant 16.6 percent decrease. Only Vermont saw a greater drop in its overdose death rate, at 18.1 percent.
A 2019 story from Stateline, the state policy newswire from Pew Charitable Trusts, explains how policymakers and law enforcement in the Southern states have been slower to adapt to harm reduction than their counterparts in the Northeast, but are still making progress in recent years.
The post US Overdoses: Wide Regional Variations appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.
Critics of the universal hepatitis C screening argue that it’s wasteful to test pregnant women for a disease that can’t be immediately treated, but results of a small phase I clinical trial suggest otherwise: pregnancy could be an excellent time to diagnose and cure hepatitis C infection.
