Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

FAKE IT ’TIL YOU MAKE IT – 

May 05, 2021 -When I tell people I have an anxiety disorder and ADHD, I still often wonder if they believe me. While society as a whole has taken some important first steps toward destigmatizing mental health disorders, a greater willingness to speak openly about neurodivergence has also opened the door for critics who speculate that these disorders are over-diagnosed or that some people are self-diagnosing as a way to pathologize normal feelings of insecurity, angst, or lack of focus. And some have been accused of falsely claiming anxiety or some other mood or behavioral disorder as an identity or for attention, minimizing the reality of the condition felt by those who really have it.  When you’ve been successful in your career, for example, you may question whether your ADHD diagnosis is legit, “because other people discount it or they don’t see it,” IngerShaye Colzie, MSW, LCSW, a coach and counselor focused on ADHD, says. “They don’t know all the stuff you’re doing behind the scenes in your head, running around or working twice as hard.”

She continues, “There’s so much misinformation about ADHD that most of the time people don’t know what it is. And so even if they get diagnosed, sometimes you question it because you are able to do things some of the time.” So one day you may be able to function perfectly and the next you can’t get out of bed, which, Colzie says, can make you feel off-kilter.   When you’ve been successful in your career, for example, you may question whether your ADHD diagnosis is legit, “because other people discount it or they don’t see it,” IngerShaye Colzie, MSW, LCSW, a coach and counselor focused on ADHD, says. “They don’t know all the stuff you’re doing behind the scenes in your head, running around or working twice as hard.”

“have i been diagnosed with anxiety for 9 years? yes. do i still think i’m faking it? yes.”

She continues, “There’s so much misinformation about ADHD that most of the time people don’t know what it is. And so even if they get diagnosed, sometimes you question it because you are able to do things some of the time.” So one day you may be able to function perfectly and the next you can’t get out of bed, which, Colzie says, can make you feel off-kilter. 

more@InStyle

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

GREED KILLS, GREED KILLED – 

May 6, 2021 – Before Richard Sackler—father of David Sackler, who’s married to Joss—became president of Purdue Pharma, he played a central role in the company’s launch of OxyContin in 1995. In 2019, New York attorney general Letitia James described the drug as the “taproot” of the health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 500,000 people have died from an overdose involving an opioid between 1999 and 2019. For years prior, beginning with Richard’s father, Raymond, and uncles Arthur and Mortimer, the Sacklers occupied a simultaneously prominent and mysterious position: their name had been plastered across museums and universities, but the nature of the fortune that paid for those placements remained far more private.  The Sacklers’ desire for public obscurity pulses through Empire of Pain.Keefe writes about how Richard’s brother, Jonathan Sackler, as an owner of Purdue, sought to keep the Sackler name out of reports about the opioid epidemic. Into his old age, Raymond asked about how to make the Times“less focused on OxyContin.” Jonathan’s daughter, the Emmy-winning filmmaker Madeleine Sackler, is known to brush off questions about the original source of her money, Keefe writes. Arthur, whose pioneering workin medical advertising set the table for Purdue’s later success, once said that privacy allowed him to “do things the way I want to do them.” But some opportunities became too tantalizing for him to remain out of view. In 1978, New York City mayor Ed Koch, a friend of his, toasted the opening of the Met’s new Sackler Wing.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SOBRIETY IS A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND – 

May 2, 2021-  But when she was 26 years old, a phone call with her father made her realize the “living hell” she had put her family through. That’s when she decided to reach out for help. 

Liller’s story is one in a widespread opioid crisis that has gripped the US since the late 1990s. Since 1999 the number of drug overdose deaths has quadrupled, with nearly 500,000 people dying from an overdose involving an opioid between 1999 and 2019, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An estimated 1.6 million people in the US ages 12 and older have an opioid use disorder, according to a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey on drug use and health from 2019, the most recent year for which data is available. 

An estimated 10.1 million people misused prescription opioids, 745,000 people have used heroin, and 70,630 people died of a drug overdose in 2019, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. 

Methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone are the most common drugs involved in prescription opioid overdose deaths, according to the CDC. “Anyone who takes prescription opioids can become addicted to them. In fact, as many as one in four patients receiving long-term opioid therapy in a primary care setting struggle with opioid addiction,” the CDC reported. 

CNN spoke to several adults who started using drugs as children but managed to turn their lives around. Here are some of their stories.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – MODERN DAY SOPRANOS – 

Watch on May 10 – Exploring the origins, extent, and fallout of one of the most devastating public health tragedies of our time, with half a million deaths from overdoses this century alone, the film reveals that America’s opioid epidemic is not a public health crisis that came out of nowhere.  

With the help of whistleblowers, newly leaked documents, exclusive interviews, sobering testimony from victims of opioid addiction, and access to behind-the-scenes investigations, Gibney’s exposé posits that drug companies are in fact largely responsible for manufacturing the very crisis they profit from, to the tune of billions of dollars — and thousands of lives.

The Crime of the Century is a Jigsaw Production in association with The Washington Post and Storied Media Group, written and directed by Alex Gibney; produced by Alex Gibney, Sarah Dowland, and Svetlana Zill; executive produced by Stacey Offman, Richard Perello, Todd Hoffman, and Aaron Fishman.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

by Ahbra Kaye

Yesterday, May 4th, the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin had the opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking, well, groundbreaking. 

The Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage begins construction of a $30 million addition that will add 66 beds and create a new Day Pavilion for IOP and family groups.  The construction will begin next week and is expected to take four years to complete.

The two-hour car drive from headquarters in Studio City to Rancho Mirage was especially poignant for AREB publisher/editor, Leonard Buschel an alumnus of Betty Ford. “The BFC campus provided me with an atmosphere where I could feel safe to change my life”, Leonard tearfully recollected.  “When I arrived there 26 years ago, I had not taken an unintoxicated breath in 26 years and suddenly freedom was at hand.”

The event was an opportunity to rub shoulders with the people who are continuing the work that First Lady Betty Ford started.  Susan Ford Bales gave a stirring speech about watching her mother fade and deteriorate under the lash of alcoholism and drug addiction. With the help of an intervention by her family and 30 days at Long Beach Naval Hospital for treatment, Mrs. Ford returned with a renewed vigor and began the journey towards changing the face of addiction treatment forever.

Outgoing CEO and President Mark Mishek was all smiles as he sat behind the dirt and shovels on the dais, but it must have been bittersweet as he is retiring this year. He leaves behind a long and illustrious legacy, as he was instrumental in the merging of Hazelden and the Betty Ford Center in 2014. Dr. Joseph Lee (normie) who is taking over for Mr. Mishek, was on hand.  Dr. Lee has been medical director of Hazelden/Betty Ford’s youth services for the past 11 years and is well qualified for his new title.

Speeches, shoveling and confetti blasts were followed by a delicious lunch and a lot of schmoozing amongst people who hadn’t seen each other for over a year, except on Zoom.  “I am honored and excited to be present for this momentous occasion,” mused Ahbra Kaye, associate editor of the AREB, “especially because I can finally meet William Moyers in the flesh and out of his Zoom square”.  Jerry Moe, renowned child and family expert and director of children’s programs at BFC also made an appearance.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the graceful, sober woman named Betty Ford for helping to found one of the most well respected addiction treatment centers in the world and to those who continue her legacy.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

CANADA DOES IT FOR FREE – 

April 29, 2021 – Naloxone is not a new drug. It was first patented in 1961 as a medication to reverse the common side effect of constipation in patients prescribed opioids, but was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for overdose reversal in 1971. The original patent expired long ago, so today the generic version only costs around $20. But new delivery systems—like the auto-injector and the nasal spray—have allowed for new patents, of which there are currently seven, with the auto-injector and nasal spray not due to expire until 2035. In effect, companies are now charging for the delivery system, not the drug itself.  There is no standard way of acquiring naloxone in the US. Across the country, different people and organizations do so in different ways.

In San Francisco, the National Harm Reduction Coalition’s DOPE Project (Drug Overdose Prevention and Education) provides free injectable and nasal spray naloxone to people who use drugs. For the former, it relies on a deal painstakingly arranged by unpaid harm reductionists working with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which owns Hospira, the makers of injectable naloxone hydrochloride. This “ensures access to injectable doses of Pfizer for a cost I can’t disclose,” said DOPE Project manager Kristen Marshall. “That is the way historically anything has to get done when you are representing people outside the mainstream.”

more@FilterMag

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

MEDIA: FILM REVIEW – 

April 28, 2021 – What sets “Four Good Days” apart from the many other films of its ilk are Close and Kunis, who sharpen and elevate its well-worn contours with vivid performances that are honest and grounded. These are characters you can connect to, on both sides of the equation. A new drug therapy — the “opioid antagonist” Naltrexone, which promises to block the effect of opiates with a monthly shot, taking away the high that feeds addiction — beckons. There’s only one catch: Molly can’t start taking it until her system is completely free of all the substances she’s been abusing. She’s got four more days to go.

What transpires is what you’d expect, made viscerally real by two strong actors. Close is at her best when Deb is struggling to feel normal — during a quick catch-up lunch at a diner, for instance, with her “good” daughter (Carla Gallo) — as Deb suddenly realizes that she’s forgotten her wallet at home. She can’t enjoy 15 minutes of downtime, we learn, because Molly could be looking for cash to buy a fix.

That tidal pull Deb feels — part love, part mistrust, part guilt — is palpable, as palpable as the hunger of the monkey on Molly’s back. And Kunis does her best to keep up with Close, in a performance that’s raw and unglamorous.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

STICK WITH THE WAFERS – 

April 28, 2021 – “Parents establish norms around drinking in childhood and adolescence and their attitudes and behaviour can influence their offspring’s use. What our study has shown is that parenting style – either warm or controlling – could be a far more important, and controllable factor, in people’s propensity for alcohol problems later in life than whether they allow their adolescent’s access to alcohol or whether they drink or not,” he says.

“Alcohol misuse is a preventable source of social physical and psychological harm that typically starts in adolescence. So this is a critical time in a person’s life and a time when, as we have found, a certain type of parenting style can lower risk.”

Professor Boden says the reason for the link between positive parenting and a lower risk of alcoholism is not explored in the study, but the parenting style has been shown in other research studies to be associated with a number of other positive outcomes for offspring.

He says it is not possible to ‘draw out individual cases’, such as those who become alcoholics despite an ideal childhood and adolescent home environment. “However, believe it or not, the ‘black’ sheep’ seems to be rarer than people might imagine,’’ Professor Boden says.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – AMERICAN DEATH MARCH – 

April 26, 2021 – “I really don’t see our workload going down significantly for 2021,” added Dr. Jim Caruso, the chief medical examiner in Denver. “The first couple of months of 2021 look just like 2020. The numbers are there. We’re still seeing these fentanyl-laced pills at the scenes.”

According to the CDC data, places like Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Washington D.C. have all seen their overdose numbers rise by more than 40 percent in 2020. The only state that has not seen its numbers rise over the course of the last year is South Dakota.

“All we know is what’s in the bloodstream, and I can tell you that we’re seeing a lot of mixed drug intoxications,” said Dr. Caruso.

The pandemic affected ways drugs were getting into the country, as cartels in Mexico started transporting fentanyl instead of heroin and other opiates because fentanyl is harder to detect. Its potency and danger likely contributed to more deaths, explained Dr. Caruso.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – SKETCH NOT SKETCHY – 

April 27, 2021 – The staff at the Walker Center said their focus this month is on spreading awareness and reducing the stigma associated with alcohol addiction. They offer outpatient treatment in Twin Falls and inpatient treatment in Gooding for drug and alcohol addiction. The center said they have seen an exponential increase in alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have our highest level that I can remember in being here in the last 6 and a half or 7 years being referred to a residential or hospitalization for their alcohol use,” said clinical supervisor Sarah Walling-Gifford. “Being an alcoholic myself,” said Arthur. “Hopefully show some people that there is some hope out there too. That if they are suffering or if someone, they love is suffering that recovery is an option, and they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives drinking themselves to death.”

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