Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LISTEN – WHEN WILL IT END? – 

Jan. 29, 2021 – “Our country is facing many simultaneous crises and President Biden understands that,” an administration official wrote in an email. “The President has laid out key plans to address the urgent opioid crisis and he will execute on these plans throughout his administration.”

Officials pointed to its $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal, which includes a request that Congress allocate an additional $4 billion to fund mental health and substance use disorder programs.  The new administration has also appointed California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to head the Health and Human Services Department.   Becerra, who hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate, has been active in the past on opioid issues. Earlier this month, he joined a coalition of state attorneys general demanding immediate action by the FDA on the addiction crisis.  “The COVID-19 pandemic has hit us all and further exacerbated the opioid crisis — people need support now more than ever,” Becerra said in a Jan. 11 statement. Drug use appears to have increased amid the isolation and fear wrought by the pandemic, while treatment options have become limited because of coronavirus precautions.  But since taking office, Biden hasn’t yet used executive orders or other policy announcements to focus attention on overdose deaths the way he has done with issues such as energy, climate, immigration and abortion.

more@NPR

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW – 

Jan. 29, 2021 – “You know what, I had one of those mamas, too, that used to tell me I was fat and ugly from the time I could remember,” Nichols admits in her own clip.  “And then as I got older, I quit listening to that heifer!” Women around the world have been struggling with body image during the coronavirus pandemic, many taking to social media to share their worries.  Facing criticism from dates, friends and strangers online is one thing, but many young women have revealed they even feel body-shamed by their own mothers.  One such woman, named Monique, took to TikTok with a video sharing her own experience after showing her mum a new dress she bought.  The clip shows her looking crestfallen with the caption: “Y’all ever get a dress then get excited to show your mum and she basically says you’re too fat for it.”  It’s an experience too many women have had to face, but an unlikely saviour came to Monique’s aid with a video of her own. “I don’t know who told you’re not beautiful, but I think you are, and I think you look lovely in your dress,” Nichols continued.”You wear that dress however you want to. Don’t worry about what that lady says. Everybody else thinks you’re beautiful. I do !”Her heart-warming message has since racked up millions of views, and it’s not the first time Nichols has used her platform to share love and positivity.  With over 640,000 followers, Nichols – who goes by @shoelover99 – may not be the typical TikTok teen star, but she’s definitely making waves.  Whenever she comes across a video of people struggling with rejection, body image issues, or other personal battles, she does her best to share some advice and cheer them up.It’s not what most people are used to on social media, which can often be full of hate and trolls, but Nichols says positivity is more important now than ever.  “The more and more I used the app, the more I saw just how many individuals were hurting and needed a little kindness to get them through,” she told In The Know.

more@HoneyNine

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

THE RECOVERY SHOW – 

Jan. 29,2021 – Though the Grammy Award-winner recalled years of shame, he reminded fans that there is always hope and self-growth in the road to recovery.

“You work these 12 steps and you get better,” he explained. “You figure out your character defects. You say you’re sorry to some people. You have a spiritual awakening and you go out and you carry that message to someone else.

The most meaningful step to healing is paying it forward, he says, which inspired him to start his own podcast, “The Recovery Show.”

“We have to destigmatize this whole (expletive). We have to talk about it. There’s a conversation around mental health right now and destigmatizing that,” he said. “Addiction and mental health go (expletive) hand-in-hand, and we need to make sure that people note that there’s resources, more funding to get people treatment that they need.”

He added if he hadn’t gotten professional help, he “wouldn’t be here right now”: “I was lucky enough to go to a facility for 30 days. People don’t know that it’s OK to go to treatment.”

In a 2015 cover story for Complex, Macklemore spoke about relapsing the previous year but revealed that the catalyst for his recovery was his now wife, Tricia Davis, who was pregnant.

“The sobriety was the wake-up call that I needed. And, as it always works, the minute that I start actively seeking recovery—not just sobriety, but recovery—music is there.”

more@USAToday

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

KEEP COMING BACK –  

Jan. 25, 2021 – This January, I would have been 15 years sober. In 2006, after 24 years of drinking addictively, I crawled — metaphorically — into a meeting of recovering alcoholics, got with the abstinence-based recovery programme, and never looked back.

As the days and weeks turned into months and years, life turned from isolated black and white to connected full colour, so that the idea of ever drinking again seemed preposterous.

I loved my sober life and all of its rewards, from a profound peace of mind and sense of useful purpose to deep and lasting recovery friendships. Learning to trust myself and others. Watching my kids thrive. Reconnecting with old friends. Being trusted as a godparent. Getting a book published. Becoming a grown-up. Becoming content.

more@Independent

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME – 

Jan. 25, 2021 – Department officials said earlier this month that they were completing an internal review of draft regulations and planned to send them to the Attorney General’s Office by the end of January but couldn’t commit to a timeline for when licensing and oversight would begin.

“I’m saddened by that because the longer it takes to set that up, the more individuals could pass away in these unstructured recovery homes,” said Amber Longhitano, a former council member in Bristol Township, Bucks County, who pushed state lawmakers to create oversight for recovery homes. Beyond the delay, there’s a more fundamental problem with the oversight effort: It’s voluntary, though there are incentives.

Homes that receive or want to receive state or federal money, as well as those seeking referrals from state agencies and state-funded facilities, will have to follow the licensing rules. And judges will have to first consider a licensed home when approving housing for people under court supervision.

more@Inquirer

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

ONE ROTTEN APPLE? – 

Jan. 25, 2021 – According to the Boulder Police Department, detectives began investigating Yepes earlier this month after a female client reported he “repeatedly contacted her and initiated contacts that were sexual in nature.”A spokesperson with Mental Health Partners, Kristina Shaw, told CBS4 that Yepes worked full-time as a member of support staff in a group area and was not a licensed therapist. She said Yepes was terminated Dec. 1st, shortly after the initial complaint was received. Yepes had been hired Oct. 19th.  Yepes was advised of the charges in court Monday afternoon. His bond was set at $25,000. He is scheduled to return for formal filing of charges on Jan. 27th. An online search of Colorado criminal records reveals he has no prior arrests or convictions. Boulder PD did not provide specific details that suggest why detectives believe Yepes may have other victims. 

more@CBSDenver      

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SUGGESTIONS TO GO BUY –  

Jan. 27, 2021 – While there’s no one-size-fits-all treatment strategy to address problematic drinking, many people turn to 12-step programs for peer support—most notably, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). For Whitaker, the program, which was developed in 1935 and requires participants to admit a powerlessness over alcohol, has never resonated.

When Whitaker began exploring sobriety at age 32, she didn’t identify with the core concepts of the sobriety programs she encountered. So when she set out to design her own recovery program, she knew it had to address four major issues she perceived as problematic with programs like AA: the requirement to identify oneself as “an alcoholic,” the lack of integrated, holistic therapies, the mandated anonymity, and the lack of opportunity to develop agency or self-trust. “Even though I had brought myself to the point of being able to look at my addiction, I would then have to listen to other people because they knew better about what path I should take than I knew myself,” she says. “The impetus for building Tempest was because of the binary nature of [traditional treatment]. We blame certain people who can’t handle alcohol versus looking objectively at alcohol culture which has been exacerbated since the 1930s in response to prohibition, American capitalism, and the world we live in.”

more@Vogue

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WHEN IS IT TOO TOUGH? – 

January 12, 2021 – The years leading up to my being taken and the eventual break out is now a blur of misanthropy. I was reckless, taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class, distrusting authority figures like the high school principal and local municipal authorities sent to curb my behavior, to put me back on a path more, how should we say, normal.  In the nearly 12 months I’d spend between the experiential wilderness therapy program (twice), a therapeutic boarding school in Massachusetts and a residential treatment center on a ranch in Utah, I lived up to the designation of a troubled teen. The programs were what the media called part of a tough love movement, which flourished in the early aughts but still exists today. My parents were no longer trustworthy. They were part of the growing number of my adversaries working to keep me from personal liberties. At the program I was restricted access to food. I was allowed only communication with my parents, not my friends back home. If I chose not to respond to my parents, I would also be cut off from my peers in the programs. Either way, I’d lose. Meanwhile, I had broken a number of rules at the school — “cheeking” medication, drinking hand sanitizer, fraternizing with girls. I was certain then, by the fourth month at the program, that I was doomed for another “transport.” Then one night they came.

more@NYTimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SUFFER THE CHILDREN, AND TEENS, TOO –  

Jan 12, 2021 – KRISSY WILLIAMS, 15, had attempted suicide before, but never with pills.The teen was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 9. People with this chronic mental health condition perceive reality differently and often experience hallucinations and delusions. She learned to manage these symptoms with a variety of services offered at home and at school. But the pandemic upended those lifelines. She lost much of the support offered at school. She also lost regular contact with her peers. Her mother lost access to respite care — which allowed her to take a break. On a Thursday in October, the isolation and sadness came to a head. As Krissy’s mother, Patricia Williams, called a mental crisis hotline for help, she said, Krissy stood on the deck of their Maryland home with a bottle of pain medication in one hand and water in the other.

“We’re all social beings, but they’re [teenagers] at the point in their development where their peers are their reality,” said Terrie Andrews, a psychologist and administrator of behavioral health at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Florida. “Their peers are their grounding mechanism.”

Children’s hospitals in New York, Colorado, and Missouri all reported an uptick in the number of patients who thought about or attempted suicide. Clinicians also mentioned spikes in children with severe depression and those with autism who are acting out.

The number of overdose attempts among children has caught the attention of clinicians at two facilities. Andrews from Wolfson Children’s said the facility gives out lockboxes for weapons and medication to the public — including parents who come in after children attempted to take their life using medication.

Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., also has experienced an uptick, said Dr. Colby Tyson, associate director of inpatient psychiatry. She’s seen children’s mental health deteriorate due to a likely increase in family conflict — often a consequence of the chaos caused by the pandemic. Without school, connections with peers, or employment, families don’t have the opportunity to spend time away from one another and regroup, which can add stress to an already tense situation. “That break is gone,” she said.

more@Undark

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

YOU’RE CHECKING YOUR PHONE RIGHT NOW

APRIL, 2020 – “He knew it the way an alcoholic just knows this will be his last drink of the night. So he went in with everything he had and then some (compliments of his margin account), and sat back to watch the exchange rate swing in his favor. And swing it did; only in the wrong direction.

more@USNEWSU

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