Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LOVE MAKES THE WORLD GO ‘ROUND – 

July 23, 2021) Restricting the drug supply: One reason people get addicted to drugs is that they have access to them in the first place, via prescription (OxyContin and other painkillers) or on the streets (also prescription drugs, but heroin or fentanyl too).

So one part of the solution could be efforts to reduce access to drugs, including reductions in opioid prescriptions, law enforcement efforts to break up and take down drug markets, trade policy, border control measures, and international cooperation.

This is not enough to vanquish drugs forever. But a study on Australia’s 2001 heroin drought, when police efforts massively restrained heroin supply, found it led to a reduction in drug-related problems.

2) More and better addiction treatment:There are great treatments for opioid addiction. Decades of evidence show medications like methadone and buprenorphine reduce mortality rates among patients by half or more and keep people in treatment longer.

But treatment remains inaccessible to many. There may not be a provider in your area. What does exist can be extremely expensive. And the treatment on offer may not be evidence-based at all.

more@Vox

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

FALLING OUT OF LINE AND INTO THE DRINK – 

July 21, 2021 – “He said that there was a suicide attempt involved in that blackout,” Kreitz said on the podcasts. “I had no memory of it, which is really what scared me. Almost losing my life was a big wake-up call for me.”

He had suicidal thoughts in the past only when he drank, but never acted on them before that moment. Kreitz said his struggle with alcohol isn’t tied to a traumatic event in combat. His first sip of alcohol was when he was 16, and he blacked out. Throughout college, he said, alcohol always seemed to be around and he thought it was part of the college experience. He continued to drink at family events and thought drinking was a part of normal life, even as he joined the Army in 2001.Kreitz said his alcoholism stemmed more from a behavioral health aspect. He was a perfectionist and struggled with self-doubt. He strived for personal perfection, but by 2012, he said he was routinely drinking to the point of blacking out.

more@Stripes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

BECAUSE THEIR MOUTH IS FULL? –   

July 21, 2021 – It’s long been debated in science whether or not food falls under the category of addiction. 

While food addiction is not formally in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition: DSM-5), researchers say it does fall under the category of a substance abuse disorder & behavioral addiction. 

This is different from a craving, which can be defined as an intense desire for something. But in a study by researchers in the department of psychology at the University of Michigan, scientists say there is such a thing as a food addiction and it’s not something to be taken lightly. 

To find out if you struggle with food addiction, take this scientifically validated quiz and then score the results.

To find an overeater’s anonymous support group…

more@WishTV

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

NOW YOU CAN PLAY WITH NEEDLES ON THE BOARDWALK –   

July 22, 2021 – Tibbitt has been so incensed about this supposed syringe “litter”—which the closure of Oasis would, of course, only increase—that he took state officials on a trip to collect his haul earlier in the week. It has been a disappointing and stressful summer for harm reductionists in the Garden State. In early June, Harney, the SJAA lead, was surprised to discover that City Council members were considering repealing the ordinance that allows Atlantic City’s SSP to legally operate. 

She then thought that she had uncovered a solution for everybody involved, including her detractors: Oasis would move to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission. It would be a bit of a trek from the beach, where critics were complaining about discarded syringes, but still centrally located enough that many who visit, most of whom walk, could still do so. The Casino Reinvestment Authority, a state governmental agency, had also said that it would pay for renovations to Oasis’s new building, which the AC Rescue Mission ran. (SJAA would pay the rescue mission rent.) In Harney’s mind, it would be an updated social services hub, with a shelter, a drug treatment center and a harm reduction agency in the same spot. It would no longer be in the tourism district.

more@FilterMag

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – SCREAMING FOR SOBRIETY – 

July 29, 2021 – While in conversation with AARP The Magazine, the Freaky Friday actor spoke about her journey towards sobriety which took her 22 years to reach.

“I’ve been sober 22 years, off of an alcohol and pain pill addiction,” she said, adding that the “process of being a sober person puts you in the one day at a time mentality.”

“Try to stay out of the future and try to forget the past, because it’s over and you can’t do anything about it anyway. Try to live a present life,” she said. 

Lee Curtis had earlier spoken about the affective of addiction during a chat with ET back in 2002. 

“It kills people. It killed my brother. It kills young people, old people, it ruins families. It’s ruinous,” she added. 

more@TheNews

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WHO GOT TO WHOM? – 

July 27, 2021 – The deficiencies cited in the inspections of the state’s roughly 800 licensed treatment centers actually are violations of state regulations. They come in a wide variety of areas that include “client rights” and “confidentiality” and “fire safety.” Comparing numbers of code violations center-to-center could be vitally important, as the state struggles with a surging drug crisis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said overdose deaths in Pennsylvania jumped to 5,172 last year from 4,444 in 2019, an increase of 16%.

Many families have spent tens of thousands of dollars on treatment. In some cases, loved one have relapsed or died afterwards.

Nancy Howe of Coopersburg, who lost a daughter to a heroin overdose and has facilitated a group of similarly grieving parents who sometimes have other addicted children in treatment, also scrutinized the comparison tool.

If she were seeking help, she said, “It would be completely useless. I wouldn’t have confidence in it at all.”

more@Mcall

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

HUNGER AND A COLD DEATH – 

July 28, 2021 – “During the pandemic, they wouldn’t let us leave the house, you couldn’t go see your family — you couldn’t do anything, really,” he said. “I’m on methadone, and they took me to my clinic and back. Couldn’t go to [Narcotics Anonymous] meetings — that’s a good support system.”

Still, he said, life on the street had become even more unbearable than those challenges. “All those problems you face being homeless — not knowing where your next meal is going to be, whether you’ll be sick or well. There’s worse things in life than being isolated.”Kenya Edwards, the program director at Safe Haven, said it has been a rough year for clients and employees. Some treatment centers shut down or dramatically reduced intakes. Case managers who usually showed up to work with clients dropped off. The staff had to find ways to improvise life skills group meetings and other support systems for people who could be together because they lived in the same recovery house.

“Part of recovery, for some people, is building a routine,” said Michael Hinson, SELF Inc.’s CEO. “When you don’t have that routine, you begin to question what you should do. And not only did they not have the routine, they also didn’t have the support system. It really put people in a tailspin.”

more@Inquirer

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

I WILL GO TO REHAB, YES YES YES –   

July 26, 2021 – “A lot of my addiction was very isolated and on my own, so it’s been nice to be around women who are also in the same position as me and we really do come together and support each other.”

The house has communal spaces where women take part in music, yoga and art therapy and daily check-ins where they can share their thoughts on how recovery is going.

It also has a number of self-contained flats with their own cooking and living spaces so that the women can live independently – but know where help is when it’s needed. Hannah has been working as a manager at Amy’s Place since it opened five years ago. 

She’s helped shape the recovery programmes that are now a regular part of treatment at the recovery house.

“We went around rehabs and asked women what they wanted from a recovery supported accommodation service,” she says.

“They wanted a key worker to help them with practical support like benefits advice, housing options and referring to counsellors, so we’ve basically developed the service on all those support needs.

more@BBC

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – ONE SWING AT A TIME –   

July 29, 2021 – Orton organizes weekly play for the group. They often golf at River Oaks in Sandy as well as other courses in Salt Lake, Davis, and Utah counties.

“We’ve got more people participating this year than we ever have,” Orton said.

Each week, Orton mixes up the groups so golfers get a chance to meet new people in all stages of sobriety, find mentors, and establish a support system. “I think the key to long term recovery, long term success and recovery, is all about community,” said Dylan Doty, who has participated in Good Time Golf ever since he came to Utah.

Doty was used to drinking while golfing–a common activity in the sport. After he got sober, he was scared to get back in the game.

“I didn’t think it would be the same,” he said.

But when he started playing with Good Time Golf, he found a network of friends in recovery who also loved the game.

“It just made me feel so comfortable to walk into that environment and learn golf all over again,” said Doty. Weekly play takes place on Wednesdays, and about 30-40 golfers show up to play. But they send out about 300 invites to people every week.

“It’s kind of exciting to see how many people want to get out here to play,” Orton said.

And each time they come, golfers are learning just how much the game mirrors life in recovery…

more@KJZZ

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

A PARALLEL UNIVERSE? – 

July 28, 2021 – Ten years ago, or even five, an athlete of Simone Biles’s stature might have been reluctant to say that she struggled with pressure, much less to have withdrawn in the middle of an Olympiccompetition.

“People might have labeled an athlete mentally weak,” Hillary Cauthen, a clinical sports psychologist in Austin, Texas, said on Tuesday, hours after Biles, the greatest gymnast in history, hadbowed out of the women’s team event at the Tokyo Games, and one day before she said she would also skip the all-around individual competition. But a shift in cultural acceptance began to take place in 2015-16, when the N.C.A.A. created a mental health initiative, Cauthen said. Just before the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, the swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian ever, began to discuss wrestling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Since then, the N.B.A. players DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Loveand the figure skater Gracie Gold, among other athletes, have gone public to say they grapple with anxiety and depression.

more@NYTimes

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