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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Celebrities … they’re just like us –  

December 11, 2020 – Lizzo came forth reflecting on her journey of struggling with body image issues.

In a Tuesday TikTok video, the American singer revealed she has struggled with anxiety because of self-image in the past and still has phases that make her doubt her confidence. “Like, you know, ‘What’s wrong with me? Maybe everything, [and] all the mean things people say about me are true.’ And, you know, ‘Why am I so disgusting?’ And [I was] hating my body.””I think these are normal [thoughts and feelings] and they happen to everybody, they happen to the best of us.”

Lizzo explained she knew this is just a phase and tomorrow would definitely be better, but at that moment, the pain was immense. “I can only hope that it changes for the better,” she said. “I know I’m beautiful, I just don’t feel it. But, I know I’m gonna get through it.”  She continued, “We are the best of us, and I just have to know that tomorrow how I feel in here,” pointing to her head, “is gonna change. And I can only hope that it changes for the better. But I know I’m beautiful, I just don’t feel it. But I know I’m gonna get through it.” The next day, Lizzo reported that she “woke up feeling better — not 100 percent but I’m getting there,” she wrote. “Gave the parts of me I hated last night a rub & a hug. Issss a new day.”

Right before this, Lizzo was celebrating how far the body positive movement has come. She said she was “proud of the big girls who gave it wings. My body is changing but I’m gonna keep appreciating it from every angle.”  Lizzo has long been praised for her plus-size body positivity and self-confidence — and received support from followers for her candid post. Earlier this year, she adopted a vegan diet and shared that with her followers, but made it clear that she is “happy both ways” —whether she’s eating a plant-based diet or a meat diet — but “right now, this is what’s bringing me joy.”

more@Yahoo

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

This is your brain on resentment – 

December 12, 2020 –  To be clear, the retaliation doesn’t need to be physically violent—an unkind word, or tweet, can also be very gratifying. Scientists have found that in substance addiction, environmental cues such as being in a place where drugs are taken or meeting another person who takes drugs cause sharp surges of dopamine in crucial reward and habit regions of the brain, specifically, the nucleus accumbens and dorsal striatum. This triggers cravings in anticipation of experiencing pleasure and relief through intoxication. Although these are new findings and the research in this area is not yet settled, what this suggests is that similar to the way people become addicted to drugs or gambling, people may also become addicted to seeking retribution against their enemies—revenge addiction. This may help explain why some people just can’t let go of their grievances long after others feel they should have moved on—and why some people resort to violence.  Like substance addiction, revenge addiction appears to spread from person to person. For instance, inner-city gun violence spreads in neighborhoods like a social contagion, with one person’s grievances infecting others with a desire to seek vengeance. Because of his unique position and use of the media and social networks, Trump is able to spread his grievances to thousands or millions of others through Twitter, TV and rallies. His demand for retribution becomes their demand, causing his supporters to crave retaliation—and, in a vicious cycle, this in turn causes Trump’s targets and their supporters to feel aggrieved and want to retaliate, too.

 People suffering from addiction tend to experience relationship problems and conflicts, display periods of euphoria followed by depression and restlessness, and fail to meet their responsibilities or fulfill their professional obligations. They spend long periods of time obsessing over and planning ways to gratify their cravings, and engage in the addictive behavior despite the physical or psychological harm it causes. 

more@Politico

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Too little too late –  

December 9, 2020 – In one internal email sent in July 2018, a McKinsey executive appears to acknowledge the growing legal risk faced by Purdue Pharma over its opioid business.

“It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything other that [sic] eliminating all our documents and emails,” McKinsey senior partner Martin Elling wrote in an email sent to another executive at the company. “As things get tougher here someone might turn to us.”

The documents, released as part of a tsunami of civil lawsuits hitting Purdue Pharma, have sparked growing criticism of McKinsey, which also has large contracts with the federal government.  “McKinsey’s abhorrent conduct also demands that Congress consider broader action,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in a letter to the company last week. “No firm that proposes paying kickbacks for overdose deaths should receive a single cent from U.S. taxpayers.”

Hawley also wrote that the 2018 email exchange about “eliminating” documents “raises the prospect that McKinsey may also have engaged in obstruction of justice.”

In a statement posted Sunday on its website, McKinsey said its work with Purdue Pharma was “designed to support the legal prescription and use of opioids for patients with legitimate medical needs.”

But the firm added that its decision-making “fell short” of the company’s ethical standards and failed to “take into account the broader context and implication” of its work to boost Purdue’s opioid sales.

more@WAMU

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

A dream deferred is a dream denied – 

December 11, 2020 – The shutdown of society worsened my disordered thoughts around food and body image and the aggressive advertising I’ve received for “home workouts” and “tips on staying thin in lockdown” have not helped. I’m not happy where I’m living and I’m desperately trying to find another place to live that won’t compromise me financially.

I’m 21 now and in my fourth year of studying Law and Global Studies. I want to make material changes in women’s lives while also advocating for a radical restructuring of our world and society’s perception of gender. Fortunately, I’ve witnessed, even in my short lifetime, a shift in how we discuss gender and sexuality. The relentless work of the women before me is paying off. And now it’s my turn. I’m still unsure of how I’ll make my mark. Maybe I’ll be a lawyer working for survivors of gender-based violence, a grassroots organizer or an author. Idealistically, I believe I can be all three. One day I hope I can be the woman that bold young girls can look up to and feel a sense of belonging; the kind of woman that gave me comfort and inspiration when I was a young girl, isolated in my Melbourne home with my Turkish parents who did not know how to raise a girl who was opinionated and bold.

I’ve done my rounds interning at (disturbingly underfunded) women’s rights organizations. In fact, I’ve just completed my sixth unpaid internship and I’m wondering if I’ll ever be economically independent enough to be inspiring to anyone. Cumulatively, I’ve done over a year’s worth of work for free. I’ve been told that this is what I must do if I hope to ever get a paid job. But if that logic checks out then the gap between the classes is sure to exacerbate, with only wealthier students being able to obtain well-paying jobs. After all, to do an unpaid internship you need to have the financial security to engage in it without becoming economically compromised. I guess this is why we’re all so anti-capitalist now.  Overall, this has been a very disheartening start to both my 20s and the 2020s. I hope the next few months bring some hope.

Relying on endlessly fluctuating government payments is paralysing as it’s impossible to predict when they’ll be reduced or cut and when my gigs will return. Constantly asking for parental assistance feels infantilising and undignified, particularly when your parents have also lost their jobs. Although, most young people are much worse off than me; I recently found out that my friend didn’t turn his heater on all winter because he couldn’t afford it.

more@TheGuardian

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Medically Assisted Telephone – 

December 10,  2020 – New Yorkers who are using drugs alone, and who would like someone to stay on the phone with them and call emergency services if they become unresponsive, can now call the state’s new Never Use Alone hotline at 1-800-997-2280. The line operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The New York hotline is a collaboration between Truth Pharm, a Binghamton-based harm reduction nonprofit, and the national Never Use Alone hotline. The operators are all volunteers, although anyone who’s also a Certified Recovery Peer Advocates can have their hours volunteered for the hotline count toward their required CRPA service hours. So far, 25 volunteers across New York State have been trained to take calls and another 20 have signed up.  Operators can chat with the callers as much or as little as the caller is up for, but their primary function is to check in every two to three minutes to make sure they’re still responsive and contact the caller’s local emergency services number if they are not. The New York line had not received any calls by publication time, but—as with hotlines launched in other states—it will likely take several weeks for word of the new service to spread.  Pleus added that whether or not operators establish a rapport with callers, the grounding in harm reduction means there will be no judgment and no pushing for callers to enter treatment. “It’s just, ‘I’m here to hang out with you til you’re done doing your business and make sure you’re still alive and sitting upright when you’re done.’ We were taught as operators to stay on the line as lone as the person wants us there. When the person feels safe, we can end the call.”

more@FilterMag

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Not another statistic –  

December 11th, 2020 – After getting clean, she started working there and helped other women in recovery keep tabs on their medications and appointments.

She had found her purpose helping other women who were getting the same help she had sought. She called them “my girls.” At home, she was building a better life for her two young children. But when a challenging time left her hurting, she tried to self-medicate again, her mother said. She bought a pill and took it sitting in her car in a parking lot on Calhoun Road. “She didn’t stand a chance when she took that,” said Norma McCutcheon, her mother. “She didn’t stand a chance.”  Nikki’s body was found the next morning, still in the driver’s seat and holding her cellphone. The pill she took contained fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate used in anesthesia. The drug can be fatal even in small doses, and when administered incorrectly, it will slow the body’s functions down so much the heart and lungs stop working.  Nikki was found dead Nov. 7, 2017, one of 16 people who died that year of an accidental drug overdose.  “Nikki is not just another statistic,” Norma said. “There are so many other ‘Nikkis’ out there that deserve a second chance for a better future.”  There were people in Nikki’s life, Norma said, who enabled her to further use alcohol and marijuana to deal with stressors. Eventually, this escalated to taking pills recreationally. Norma tried to intervene, going with her daughter to rehab and supporting her in efforts to quit.

“I did everything I could think of,” Norma said. “She came to me one day and said ‘Mama, I know I’m going to have to make a change. I’m really embarrassed that I’ve been through rehab and it didn’t automatically fix this.’ I told her when you’ve reached that point, you’re ready to make a change.”

more@IndexJournal

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Talking the talk… – 

Dec. 11, 2020 – “Dancing with the Stars comes lots of attention, all of a sudden, and something that I was never comfortable with and still am not 100% comfortable with. But I used alcohol to basically numb.” Cheryl said. 

In their new podcast “Pretty Messed Up” on iHeart Radio, they discuss why they turned to alcohol or drugs and how they were able to overcome the addiction. 

“When I came back home reeking of alcohol, my youngest daughter said that I didn’t smell like her daddy. And that was the downfall for me. That was my rock bottom. I mean, after that moment, I said I was done and I couldn’t have been more serious,” AJ said. 

“My real dad passed away two years ago and he was an alcoholic. And so I in the back of my mind, I was thinking either I was going to crash and burn or check myself into rehab or I was gonna go the complete opposite,” Cheryl said.

more@KTNV

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Psychedelics For Addicts? – 

Dec. 9, 2020 – A chemically tweaked version of the psychedelic drug ibogaine appears to relieve depression and addiction symptoms without producing hallucinations or other dangerous side effects.

The results of a study in rodents suggest it may be possible to make psychedelic drugs safe enough to become mainstream treatments for psychiatric disorders, the authors report Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“What we need is a medicine that is so safe that you can take it home and put it in your medicine cabinet just like you would aspirin,” says David Olson, the paper’s senior author and an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. “And that’s really what we were trying to achieve.”

The success with ibogaine is “a promising first step,” says Gabriela Manzano, a postdoctoral fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York and a co-author of a commentary on the study. “This provides a road map on how we could start tweaking these chemical compounds to make them very useful in the clinic,” she says. “Keep the good parts, get rid of the bad parts.”

more@NPR

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Imagine – 

12/8/2020 – October 9, 1940, Liverpool – December 8, 1980, New York City

more@YouTube

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Issues always come up… –  

Dec. 1, 2020 – “I had my first therapy session… That’s the first time I ever went, ‘Hey, I need to separate these two people’, which is Machine Gun Kelly and (my real name) Colson Baker. The dichotomy is too intense for me.”

He also spoke of his hopes that undergoing therapy will have a positive impact on his own family.

“The tools that I’ve been given to start with seem helpful, I think,” he said. I’m still kind of ripping my hair out: ‘Why am I not changing overnight? How am I supposed to meditate for 10 minutes when I can’t even sit in my own brain for two minutes without distracting myself by doing something?’ That’s really hard. But the commitment to change is inspiring, and I think will reverberate through the universe and definitely through my family.”

When asked who inspired the change, MGK said that Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker played a major part after they met on the set of the movie Midnight In The Switchgrass.

more@NME

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