Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SPECIALIZE IN YOUR OWN LIFE – 

Dec. 30, 2021 – Journaling as inspiration for change could help you consider a new way of doing and thinking about things. Perhaps it will show you what the pandemic has taught you about yourself, your loved ones, or the universe. Or, you may begin to view the people in your life in an entirely different way.

The silver lining of the pandemic is that even though many lives have been lost, and there are increasing numbers of COVID-19 diagnoses, we’re living in a time when we’re able to access the most up-to-date statistics and medical updates. Sometimes we become overloaded by this type of information, though, so that’s the time to pause and do something else. And that’s when journaling can really come to the rescue.

more@PsychologyToday

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

BOTTOM LINES KILL PEOPLE – 

Feb. 3, 2021 – McKinsey’s extensive work with Purdue included advising it to focus on selling lucrative high-dose pills, the records show, even after the drugmaker pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that it had misled doctors and regulators about OxyContin’s risks. The firm also told Purdue that it could “band together” with other opioid makers to head off “strict treatment” by the Food and Drug Administration. Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said the investigation of the firm involved reviewing “thousands and thousands of documents and emails” that, taken together, told “the story of McKinsey’s wrongdoing.”“Its always been about holding accountable those who created and profited off the opioid epidemic,” she said. Ms. Healey was the first state attorney general to investigate McKinsey’s business dealings with Purdue.

The consulting firm will not admit wrongdoing, according to the multistate settlement, but will agree to court-ordered restrictions on its work with some types of addictive narcotics. McKinsey will also retain emails for five years and disclose potential conflicts of interest when bidding for state contracts. And in a move similar to the tobacco industry settlements decades ago, it will put tens of thousands of pages of documents related to its opioid work onto a publicly available database.

more@NYTimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

IS ZOOM AA INFERIOR TO REAL AA MEETINGS? – 

Feb. 8, 2021 – In-person meetings also allow small acts of kindness – those mini-miracles that exemplify its members’ commitment to helping others – that don’t carry over to Zoom. For example, we’ve all seen a nervous newcomer fumble a freshly poured cup of coffee… only to have a half dozen regulars quickly assist with both comfort and clean-up.

All of this is lost over Zoom. This is why the best in-person meetings are inspiring and invigorating, while the best online meetings are a heaping pile of meh.

Another crucial difference is body language – those little non-verbal cues that, for example, let someone meandering through a rambling share know he should wrap it up. On a more positive note, the hoots, hollers and claps a newcomer receives for another day sober simply aren’t replicable online. Instead, we have a gridded screen of expressionless, often distracted faces.

This is a “takes one to help one” program whose effectiveness is severely diminished once physical togetherness is sacrificed. Even the glimmer gradually building in a newcomer’s eyes as he embraces the program – as he starts to “get it” – shines less brilliantly through a screen. 

more@AddictionRecoveryeBulletin

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

TWEET THIS – 

February 6, 2021 – “Addicts” who changed their lives through digital detox confess that social media was killing them. Imagine that you’re a typical middle school student having dinner with your family. Your mother takes your smartphone away and puts it in a lockbox that won’t open for an hour.

Would you: (a) go ahead and eat dinner with your family? (b) try to pry open the box? or (c) smash the box with a heavy tool when your family is sufficiently distracted? The health-care industry has capitalized on this digital detox trend, depicting extreme use as the norm. Scholars, too, debate ways to define and prevent addiction to digital media.  It’s a mistake, however, to equate frequent social media use with addiction. Just the label carries stigma — a personal failing or pathology that has significant negative outcomes to the user and their family, such as lost jobs and destroyed relationships.

As researchers who study habits and social media use, we have found that excessive social media use can be a very strong habit. But that doesn’t make it an addiction.

Unlike addiction, frequent social media users sometimes benefit and sometimes suffer. That’s why a more accurate description is “habit.”

Habits form naturally through repeated use. Use any site or app enough, and you’ll form associations in memory between cues, such as site alerts and your smartphone, and responses, such as logging on. Once habits have formed, perception of cues automatically makes you think of logging on.

more@WashingtonPost

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LOVE AND SOBRIETY – 

February 5, 2021 –  When he tried to cash the check, the bank teller knew something was wrong. But instead of calling the police, she called Clark’s father, who rushed to the bank before his son could disappear back onto the streets. Two days later, after hitting what Clark describes as rock bottom, he was in treatment. Fast-forward 10 years and Clark, who turned 37 the week of this interview, is one of the most notable reality stars to address his sobriety on television as the most recent winner of ABC’s “The Bachelorette.” He became engaged to “Bachelorette” Tayshia Adams in December on the 16th season of the dating show.  Ever since he got clean, he has dedicated his life to helping others. In 2017, he co-founded the Release Recovery center, a full-service organization in New York that has more than 40 employees, and that recently launched a nonprofit foundation to help individuals struggling with addiction in underserved communities. He also sits on the board of the rehab center where he was a patient less than a decade ago. “In addition to meeting Tayshia, the biggest gift coming out of this is we’ve already been able to help a lot of people that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” Clark says, sharing that his DMs are overflowing every day with messages from people caught in the trap of substance abuse or from family members seeking care for their loved ones. “In some weird way, if me writing back gives someone more hope just by me weirdly being on television, I’ll do that all day.”

more@Variety

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

RECOVERY ROAD – 

February 4, 2021 – (The book’s title comes from a phrase Beau and Hunter would say to each other after Beau was diagnosed.) Hunter Biden is publishing a memoir about his struggles with addiction and drug abuse — from his first sips of alcohol as a child, when he was dealing with the aftermath of family tragedy, to his crack-cocaine use.  The book, titled “Beautiful Things,” is scheduled to be published in the United States on April 6 by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It has already drawn praise from high-profile writers like Anne Lamott, Dave Eggers, Bill Clegg and Stephen King, who in a blurb called it “both heartbreaking and quite gorgeous.” “Beautiful Things,” which was written with the journalist Drew Jubera, will be more of a personal narrative about addiction and recovery rather than a political memoir, according to Jennifer Bergstrom, the senior vice president and publisher of Gallery Books.  In an email, Ms. Bergstrom called it “a heartfelt, highly personal book about being a father and being a son” and noted that the story “will remind all of us that sobriety is a fragile, living thing.”

more@NYTimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

CELEBRITIES, THEY’RE JUST LIKE US. – 

February 4, 2021 – From time to time, however, a celebrity will surprise the world and suddenly announce that they got sober. Us rounded up the public revelations and confessions from stars who bravely got sober in private, then shared the inspiring news with fans by coming clean on getting clean. Here are just a few. 

Florence Welch The Florence + The Machine frontwoman celebrated seven years of sobriety in February 2021. “I am 7 years sober today.”

Anthony Hopkins “Forty-five years ago today, I had a wake-up call. I was headed for disaster, I was drinking myself to death,” he recalled, noting that his “life has been amazing” ever since he gave up alcohol. Hopkins went on to share an encouraging message to people struggling with substance abuse, saying in part, “Hang in there. Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday. Young people, don’t give up. Just keep in there.”

Macklemore  The “Thrift Shop” rapper said in January 2021 that he “was about to die” at age 25 before his father, Bill Haggerty, paid more than $10,000 for him to go to a 30-day rehab. “I wouldn’t be here right now. That’s not to be f–king dramatic — that’s just what it is,”…

Jenna Jameson  The former adult film star announced in September 2019 that she was four years clean. “We do recover. We do overcome. We do rebuild,” she wrote via Instagram. “But we never forget. We still have scars. They fade. The sun begins to shine and close out the shadows. Trust returns.”

Colton Haynes The Teen Wolf alum announced in March 2019 that he is six months sober after quietly battling drug and alcohol addiction for a decade. Haynes revealed that he hit rock bottom when he locked himself in a hotel room during a seven-day bender and “ended up in [a] 5150 psych hold.” He completed a four-month treatment program soon after.

Brad Pitt   “I’m really happy it’s been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but I’ve got my feelings in my fingertips again. I think that’s part of the human challenge: You either deny them all of your life or you answer them and evolve,” said the actor.  Click on the link for more sober celebrities.

Leah McSweeney  The Real Housewives of New York City star showed off her three-month sobriety coin via Instagram in June 2020. 

more@USMagazine

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

IT’S NOT A TIME SHARE – 

Feb. 1, 2021 – The hard sell often happened before callers were screened to assess their need for treatment and determine if the program might be helpful. In fact, a third of callers were offered a spot in an addiction program before they even had a clinical evaluation.

“If a hospital was admitting anyone who walked into the emergency room regardless of how sick they are, giving them treatment that may or may not help them, we’d find that absurd,” said Dr. Michael Barnett, the study’s senior author. “But for some reason we tolerate it in this residential rehab community.”

Resident addiction treatment is big business. According to the study, a national survey found nearly one million admissions in 2018. And there are calls, even during the coronavirus pandemic, to create more beds for people who want to stop using drugs. This option may not be the most effective treatment for a substance use disorder. It is almost always more expensive than an outpatient program. Daily costs quoted to the callers ranged from $357 to $758. About 74% were told they’d have to pay up front, amounts as high as $17,434 at a for-profit treatment center. In addition, 14% of programs encouraged the callers to pay with a credit card, and 15% offered to create a loan plan, with interest. Barnett called that outrageous at such a vulnerable time in a patient’s life.

Of the rehab centers reached by the secret shoppers, 72% have national accreditation. But Barnett said these findings, combined with a prior assessment of evidence-based treatment programs, highlight the need for changes.

“We need stronger regulation of the type of care that’s provided by these facilities, and the screening of which patient is most appropriate,” said Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, “because the typical cost of a residential rehab stay would put the average American into enormous financial debt.”

more@WBUR

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

DO THE RIGHT THING – 

Jan. 26, 2021 – “The value of it is about $33,000 and it’s really there to extend the invitation for anybody to get services who needs it,” Sandoval said.

Within the past year, AspenRidge has given out $323,000 in other scholarship categories.

One of the recipients, 27-year-old Kayla Winter, credits a scholarship for the 90-day treatment program that saved her life.

“I was homeless, and I pretty much was just surrounded by this huge cloud of darkness that I did not know how to get out of,” she said.

Winter has battled an addiction to alcohol since she was 17 years old.

“With COVID-19, it was so hard to get into treatment and so I used my resources,” she said. “I had a recovery coach at that time who was able to get me a scholarship into AspenRidge.”

more@TheDenverChannel

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – TREATMENT WORKS –  

Jan. 25, 2021 – “I wasn’t considering my brother, his well-being; ultimately I didn’t care about my brother,” Gabe said.

It enabled their most destructive tendencies to surface.

“It was a daily battle, and it was something that I didn’t think I was ever going to be free from,” Zach said.

“We got in a situation where it just got really, really dark and like, hopeless,” Gabe said.

By 2016, the Millers say they’d found hope, love and God at St. Matthew’s House’s Justin’s Place, a yearlong addiction recovery program.

“We showed up and there were people that said ‘hey, you can do this and you’re going to,’ and ‘we are here for you if you need us and it’s OK to make mistakes,’” Zach said.

“The more I just kept going forward with it, the more I was realizing I’m doing this, I’m not … I’m not using, and I feel whole,” Gabe said.

Almost five years later, they’re both working to help others through St. Matthew’s House. And not only have they both beat addiction, they’ve repaired their relationship.

“We’ve seen each other at our worst and we just, we don’t want to see that again, we want to see each other at our best,” Zach said.

WINKNews

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