Relapse and Recovery

How Business Can End the Addiction Epidemic by Leslie Glass

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

HONEST, OPENMINDED AND WORKING –

July 13, 2021 – The extraordinary effort to combat and end the COVID pandemic included a massive public information drive to educate and inform people about the disease and how to protect against it. That effort paid off, and the nation is opening up again. But there is another health crisis that continues to threaten business and the nation: alcohol and substance use disorders (AUD and SUD, the new official names for addiction). However you want to define it, the fact is that addiction in the workplace costs U.S. businesses and organizations $81 billion a year in lost profits.

Nearly all businesses are affected because addiction is everywhere. In addition to the purely financial costs, there’s also the devastating impact of addiction on the mental and emotional health of employees and family members. When family members and employees are dealing with addiction, whether alcohol or substance, they have difficulty focusing on work requirements. Absenteeism, working while impaired or hungover. or just working while worried about a loved one all can create work conflicts that employees simply can’t talk about. Many people feel hopeless about this disease, literally abandoned and alone. Only 10% of people who need treatment receive it. Addiction is a big, open secret that isn’t addressed as a matter of cultural importance or priority in American business.

The result is that addiction stigma in business and education, and even health care environments, has created a roadblock to developing solutions. Businesses have the power and influence to combat addiction just as they have worked to combat AIDs, fight for gay rights and defeat breast cancer, to cite just a few social and health issues. Many businesses over the years have put their muscle and advertising dollars toward positive messaging and support for worthy causes, and it’s made a difference.

more@Newsweek

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Former Incarcerated, Drug Addict and Dealer Shares Story of Sobriety and Success

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

“YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, ANTHONY BROWN” –

April 17, 2021 – Growing up in Ohio to a single mother who was an alcoholic and suffered from depression, Brown never met his father and was the victim of severe physical abuse. On many occasions, his mother used an extension cord, and he recalls his worst beating was after he had stolen money from her job. She stood on his neck and beat him so much, she needed to take a break. He ran to a friend’s house, where she followed him, beat him there and continued to beat him on the walk home. His abuse wasn’t only from his mother, but from his older sister and his teacher who spanked him, which caused him to drop out of school in the 8th grade. By the age of 7, he was stealing alcohol and by the age of 14, he was a full-blown drug addict, which he says was the only way he could cope. “I would do anything not to feel anymore. I couldn’t kill myself because if I wasn’t successful, I would get beat. I was so traumatized that I was borderline delusional, and nobody seemed to care that I was crazy.”

When he was 8 years old, he witnessed a man being shot near his home, and when he was 9 years old, his mother was shot in the head and survived. In order to escape the chaos of his environment, Brown ran away from home at the age of 14. He lived in abandoned houses and worked for a carnival, where he slept under the amusement park rides, until he was 18 years old. The first person to ask Brown if he wanted help was a police officer, to which he said, “Yes.” From there, he met Nancy who offered him a place at an alternative sentencing program. After detoxing in jail, a woman named Jill picked him up. His plan was to sell drugs in this residential program, but Jill asked him, “Do me a favor, if you’re going to leave, don’t jump the fence, walk out the front door,” Brown realized she was placing her trust in him and changed his mind. Brown was put in a furnished apartment where he learned how to deal with his anger, how to do chores and pay bills. He also had to attend 12-step meetings and find employment as a requirement of being there.

more@CaliforniaGlobe

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Zooming Through Recovery

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Group therapy helps build up the strength necessary for recovery through the essential process of validation. Coping with addiction is unbelievably challenging — doing so without peers who can relate often feels incredibly isolating. Even though the temptation to use is likely to linger for the foreseeable future, knowing that other people share the same struggles, accomplishments, and goals grounds one’s recovery in reality. If another individual can identify with our mental hardships, it makes the feelings somehow more real. Seeing those who have maintained long-term sobriety continue to prioritize their recovery with mature life decisions provides hope for the future.

As we face a global pandemic, regular group meetings have been forced to move to virtual formats. Now, group meetings take place over video conferencing programs such as Zoom and Skype. Shifting to a digital meeting platform creates unique challenges and opportunities for those who are managing their sobriety. Fortunately, there are more resources popping up for recovery in quarantine, making the virtual landscape more accessible to guiding addiction recovery than ever before.

WON’T VIRTUAL MEETINGS BE…AWKWARD?
As most folks have learned at some point in 2020, video calls are very different from in-person meetings. Namely, they can feel awkward to sit in on. Aside from assured technical difficulties, the pacing of conversations requires some getting used to. Most virtual meetings resemble a “talking stick” mode of communication, where the speaking individual is given the floor until they have said their piece, followed by a potentially awkward moment of silence as participants gather their thoughts to make a verbal response.

However, most recovery group meetings already tend to follow this “talking stick” format naturally. Each group member is given an opportunity to share their story of recovery uninterrupted, with a moderator organizing who gets the floor. In this regard, group meetings such as Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous fit the limitations of a Zoom or Google Hangouts meeting much better than other types of meetings or gatherings.

Furthermore, virtual meetings offer greater accessibility for attendance. As important as the experience can be for recovery, physically traveling to a meeting can be enough to deter people from attending if they’ve had a long day or just want to enjoy the comfort of their own shelter. Virtual meetings, while they cause an increase in screen time, make it easier than ever to attend a group meeting. For a mental disease such as alcohol and/or substance use disorder, showing up for your own recovery makes a world of difference.

TUNE IN TO PODCASTS
Podcasts present a healthy and entertaining way to supplement sobriety efforts. With the widespread availability of recovery-centric audio content on the internet, empowering yourself to fight the urge to use can be as simple as tuning in. Streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Soundcloud offer free libraries of podcasts geared towards developing healthy recovery strategies.

Podcasts allow those in recovery to transform life’s busy moments — washing the dishes, driving to or from work, working out — into opportunities to fortify independence from substance use. While it may feel like overkill, consider the alternative: allowing yourself to be distracted by negative thoughts during otherwise mindless tasks. While some prefer to keep these tasks devoid of external stimuli to stay present as a somewhat meditative exercise, others might find anxiety building during these times. It is worth it to consider how online resources can assist in additional efforts to commit to recovery.

PRIORITIZE YOUR RECOVERY
Expanding your habits is a great way to build upon pre-existing tactics that work for your recovery, in order to avoid growing tired of using these same tactics over and over. Online communities are also helpful for those seeking to share and connect with other recovering individuals. Forums within social media platforms offer a space to post during hardships and accomplishments, which can be particularly reassuring without the social aspects of meetings we enjoyed prior to COVID-19.

Although online resources may not provide the same catharsis as in-person interactions, they can bridge the gap to much-needed validation during social gathering restrictions — and this helps prioritize our recovery. Make weekly appointments to empower your recovery online or as an individual. Setting aside time to check-in reinforces the importance of the mindful practices required to stay available and open to leading a sober lifestyle.

Zooming Through Recovery first appeared on WisHope.org