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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – THAT’S A RELIEF – 

March 18, 2021 – Carol Juergensen Sheets, a certified sexual addiction therapist,  said the proper classification for the behaviors they were accused of was “a disorder of power and control, not sex addiction.” Compulsive sexual behavior – commonly known as sex addiction – is an excessive preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges or behaviors that is difficult to control, causes distress or negatively affects one’s health, job or relationships.  Sex addiction is a progressive disorder that typically begins in the late teens to early 20s, she said. The vast majority of people struggling with sex addiction are men, but they include women, too.

The World Health Organization classified “compulsive sexual health disorder” as a mental health disorder in its International Classification of Diseases in 2018. Treatment can range from therapy sessions to stays at rehabilitation facilities to simpler 12-step programs. Sex addiction is a progressive disorder that typically begins in the late teens to early 20s, she said. The vast majority of people struggling with sex addiction are men, but they include women, too.

The World Health Organization classified “compulsive sexual health disorder” as a mental health disorder in its International Classification of Diseases in 2018. Treatment can range from therapy sessions to stays at rehabilitation facilities to simpler 12-step programs.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SEE WHERE ALL THE MILLIONS GO – 

March 10, 2021 – New York has a robust system of addiction care, and with better collaboration and coordination people in need will experience easier access to care, including medication for addiction treatment, as well as more successful transitions between residential and outpatient settings, and better integration of prevention and recovery supports. The funding awarded under this initiative supports efforts to find regional approaches to care, and is designed to help prevention, treatment, and recovery providers increase their collaborative efforts to address the entire continuum of addiction services. Providers who receive funding have identified specific needs in their region and proposed services to address the gaps in care.

Regional networks are made up of multiple providers, in most cases serving multiple counties, in a region. Award amounts are listed below along with the counties served by the network. n addition to the regional network awards listed above, funding will also support the following initiatives within the counties served by the networks.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SERIOUS BRUSH WITH THE LAW – 

March 13, 2021 – Lane said he cultivated and perfected his art by first creating miniature paintings that he would send from prison to his family.

“When you write letters, there’s not much to say after a while,” Lane said. “So I would just make these cards and I tell them ‘I love you’ or whatever.”

And then on Easter of 2007, Lane was baptized, which he says was the turning point in his life.

“The first seven years were just total awful,” Lane said. “Then I got saved and the last 10 years God got me ready for my work, I guess. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I got out. Life changed for me. I didn’t like it but I was able to deal with it and be content (in prison).”

He painted his first mural in prison and then was transferred to create murals at two other prisons once the wardens learned of Lane’s work.

Lane said those prison murals gave him experience and confidence to pursue as a business once he returned to society.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

STANDING IN HIS TRUTH – 

March 14, 2021 – You can sense the trepidation in Poyer’s message. He eventually says, “Can’t lie even writing this, Im embarrassed, it’s shameful but If I can overcome the struggle of alcohol, so can you.” “My first step was realizing I had a drinking problem. Cause I did. I couldn’t drink just to hang. When I drank I had to drink to get F’d up. I used alcohol to avoid all my issues in real life. My family, my job, my friends … when I drank I could forget all of my issues. I didn’t have to deal with them face on. After we lost to Houston in 2019, I felt I didn’t play the way I wanted to and we lost in such a bad way that for the next 5 weeks after that game I drank every damn day. Alcoholism is, of course, nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of, and Poyer’s message is courageous and important. My wife had seen it first hand and honestly if it wasn’t for her & the consistent support from my family and friends idk where I would be. I remember days she would cry because I just couldn’t put a beer down. I remember not being able to play with Aliyah cause I was too intoxicated. I remember feeling thoughts in my head; that would scare the hell out of sober me now. 

I finally decided to take a few trips to AA. My mom told me it helped her. Never spoke in them . Just took 3 trips and listened. I realized my issues were not even close to other’s life issues.”  Having Poyer speak out about a subject that is still frustratingly taboo is a vital step in helping more people understand the many forms of alcohol abuse. Poyer got broad support after posting his message, but if you look hard enough you’ll find some people who used it to create a discussion  full of misconceptions and stereotyping about alcohol addiction and the programs used to assist those suffering from it.I wrote earlier today about how sad it is to see Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon playing in the Fan Controlled Football league, as both of their careers were derailed by addiction. ESPN ran a story earlier this year about CC Sabathia’s — and writer Ryan Hockensmith’s — fight against addiction.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

NOT ALL FOR MAT? – 

March 16, 2021 – Though the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will have to more thoroughly detail the list of programs eligible to receive the funds, the legislation states that grants will be given to help control the spread of infectious diseases (like HIV and hepatitis C), distribute overdose reversal medications (like naloxone) and provide overdose education, among other uses.

“The money couldn’t come at a more critical time given what we know about the worsening overdose crisis during the pandemic and economic downturn,” Smith said. “Given what we know in terms of talking with providers around the country and hearing that they’ve lost revenue, lost staff during the pandemic and economic downturn. Many have seen cuts to their revenue sources.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the overdose crisis deadlier.Between June 2019 and May 2020, more than 81,000 people died from overdose, according to figures released in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People are using more, and in isolation—and in the absence of robust harm reduction services like syringe service programs, they’re more likely to reuse supplies like syringes and stems, elevating risk of transmitting HIVand hepatitis C. 

Weekly overdose visits to emergency departments also rose drastically in 2020. While the total number of ED visits dropped precipitously, weekly ED trips linked to overdose were as much as 45 percent higher than in 2019.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – THROWING OFF THE STRAITJACKET – 

March 17, 2021 – As I lurked on Facebook, chatting with various peer advocates in New York, I saw Issa Ibrahim’s paintings and heard bits of his story of having been hospitalized at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center for almost 20 years. Creedmoor. It’s a state psychiatric facility in Queens, which has long-term psychiatric units and also forensic units. I have worked with people who have lived on its campus, and I know it’s not a pretty place.

Yet during this time, Issa created purpose in his life by utilizing Creedmoor’s “Living Museum,” a massive art studio available for use by patients, residents and staff. He was featured in The Living Museum, an HBO documentary from 1998. This 10-minute segment shows many of his works: 

Living in a hospital is highly demotivating. There is little stimulation beyond meals, standing in line to get your medications, and group therapy sessions. To pass time, it’s easy to just lay in bed all day. For exercise, you walk up and down the hallways. You’re lucky if there’s a ping-pong table. You have no access to a cell phone, nor a computer with an internet connection. (Short-term units usually permit neither.) While the outside world continues at its pace, life on a unit makes time stand still.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

CAN SCIENCE CLEAN UP THE METH? – 

April 2021 – A decade ago I traveled on assignment to a Rocky Mountain rehab facility where the rich and famous go to dry out and confront their drug habits. It offered every imaginable therapy to its well-heeled clientele and claimed strong results. But I will never forget what the director of operations told me about the clinic’s biggest failure: “Our results with meth addicts are dismal,” he admitted. But this tragic picture at last may be changing. A recent study found that a regimen of two medications helped some users stay off the drug. 

The medication study used two substances that target withdrawal. Bupropion, an antidepressant also prescribed for smoking cessation, raises dopamine levels in the brain and thus may buffer the misery of steep drops that occur when people stop using meth. Naltrexone, the second medication, is an opioid blocker that “has an effect on the reward circuit, potentially relieving cravings,” explains the study’s lead author, Madhukar H. Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In a trial with 403 heavy users of meth, a regimen of the two medications helped 13.6 percent stay off the drug, testing meth-free at least three quarters of the time over a six-week period. Only 2.5 percent of those given placebos achieved that level of abstinence.In addition, a psychosocial intervention called contingency management (CM) has been shown to be especially effective and, while not widely available, is now the first-line therapy for people seeking treatment for meth or cocaine addiction within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health system. 

All addictions are tough to beat, but methamphetamine poses a particular challenge. A key way that researchers measure the addictive grip of a substance is to look at how much dopamine (a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure) floods into the brain’s major reward center during use, based on animal studies. “Methamphetamine is the drug that produces the largest release,” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “An animal will go crazy pressing a lever in order to get the drug,” she adds. Another metric involves real-world human experience: When you try a new substance, what is the likelihood of becoming addicted? “In this respect, methamphetamine ranks along with heroin among the top addictive drugs,” Volkow says.

Volkow hopes that meth users will ultimately have a variety of treatments, including some that combine medication with behavioral therapy. That, she says, is how diseases from depression to diabetes are treated. But “we stigmatize addiction,” Volkow says, “and insurance is willing to pay much less than for another condition. There’s a double standard.”

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

ROCK – POWDER – PRISON – HYPOCRISY – 

March 19, 2021 – (Though an Asbury Park Press study found that Black usage of crack was only slightly higher than white usage, crack has been stereotypically associated with Black people while powder cocaine is thought of as a richer, whiter drug.) The disparity has been diluted by Congress over the last decade — the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reformed the disparity to be 18 to 1 instead of 100 to 1, and the 2018 First Step Act made the reform retroactive, allowing people incarcerated for crack offenses to apply for resentencing under the new law.  Now, a small group of lawmakers — a bipartisan one in the House, and two Democrats in the Senate — wants to do away with the disparity altogether and provide the opportunity for retroactive sentence reduction.

“That’s something that you don’t see happen very often, is the government essentially admitting that they were wrong,” said Maritza Perez, the director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. “But this is one area where there is bipartisan support and where politicians say they messed up.”

The Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law (EQUAL) Act represents the original aim of the Fair Sentencing Act, before it was negotiated down to lessen instead of eliminate the disparity and leave out retroactivity in order to pass with bipartisan support, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), a cosponsor of the EQUAL Act and an original sponsor of the House version of the Fair Sentencing Act, told Vox.

While those earlier bills were enormously bipartisan, there’s no guarantee the EQUAL Act passes the evenly divided Senate, given this exact proposal was watered down in earlier attempts. Right now, no Republicans in the upper chamber have signed on board, let alone the 10 it would take to overcome the filibuster. But if it does pass, advocates are hoping the EQUAL Act can be the launching point for a host of legislation combating racism.  “Criminal justice reform can bring together the left and the right, progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, the NAACP and the Koch brothers, the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation and all points in between,” Jeffries said in a statement. “As I said when we passed the First Step Act three years ago, it was not the end. It was not even the beginning of the end.”

Rice-Minus said she expects more Republicans to sign on to the bill quickly in the House because Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) have already cosponsored it.  But in a statement to Vox, Bacon was less optimistic about the timeline, even as he said that eliminating the cocaine sentencing disparity is only one part of a broader justice reform push he wants to tackle.  “While I am optimistic it will be voted on in the House this Congress, I don’t have a projected timeline for the bill at this stage and hope to gain more bipartisan support as it makes its way through the legislative process,” he said.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

PROOF IT WORKS – 

March 12, 2021 – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose, which highlights the seriousness of the opioid epidemic and how critical it is for patients to receive comprehensive, meaningful care. The Blue Distinction Center for Substance Use Treatment and Recovery program requires designated facilities to deliver coordinated multidisciplinary care to patients and provide timely access to quality medical and psychosocial care in all phases of treatment. Designated facilities must also offer medication-assisted treatment—an approach to treating opioid addiction that includes both medications and evidence-based psychosocial therapies.

“We are extremely excited and grateful that the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association recognizes the importance of adding substance use disorder as the 11th disease category in its Blue Distinction Specialty Care program. This is huge in so many ways—a sign that addiction treatment has come of age within mainstream health care,” said Bob Poznanovich, vice president of business development at Hazelden Betty Ford.

“Regence’s leadership in vetting addiction treatment providers for quality, evidence-based care and promoting to consumers those with the best demonstrated outcomes will smash historical stigmas, incentivize quality, and protect consumers by providing them with in-network options they can trust,” Poznanovich added. “No one will benefit more from the centers-of-excellence strategy that is growing within health care than the millions of Americans who are facing addiction-related challenges at home or in the workplace. We are proud and thankful to be recognized by Regence and to be part of mainstreaming addiction care so that more individuals and families are able to get the help they need.”

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

A GOOD CAUSE – 

March 16, 2021 – The Fund, initiated by his life partner Jill Jordon, and administered by Caron, will provide financial assistance for access to addiction and recovery treatment, with an emphasis on those involved in the music business. In addition, music programs will be established at Caron’s residential sites in Florida and Pennsylvania, including the creation of music studios where those in recovery can create, perform and enjoy music during treatment.

A veteran record label and music publishing executive, Lasher was a certified alcoholism and substance-abuse counselor and worked closely with both Caron and MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charitable wing, which has provided millions in recovery assistance to music people over the years. Caron and MusiCares will hold a joint webinar on healing and recovery on April 6th at 8 p.m. ET:  Addiction and Creativity in the time of COVID-19. Click here for more information … In addition to Jill Jordon, the Founders Board of the Fund includes Jennifer Bandier, Judy Collins, Jody Gerson, Daniel Glass,  Evan Lamberg, Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, Elizabeth Kabler, Monte Lipman, Michael McDonald, Harold Owens, Juliana Terian, Todd Whitmer and Paul Williams.

For information on donating to The Neil Lasher Music Fund at Caron Treatment Centers, please visit:  https://www.caron.org/donate/neil-lasher-music-fund.

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