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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Mind Blowing – 

Sep. 15, 2020 – Belief can be tricky. Either you wholeheartedly believe in your faith or you have niggling doubts that crop up at the most inopportune time. The narrator of our latest read finds herself trying to reconcile her religious upbringing with her scientific pursuits. 

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi In her brilliantly executed sophomore novel, Yaa Gyasi asks readers to follow the protagonist’s internal journey as Gifty struggles to reconcile her religious upbringing with her scientific research after her mother falls into a deep depression. Gifty is a talented scientist working on a Ph.D. in neuroscience as she studies the brain to try to understand if the brain can be trained to not want something it has grown addicted to. As Gifty tries to care for her mother who has been shipped from Alabama to Gifty’s small student apartment in California, she finds herself forced to think about her family and her childhood.

Gifty was raised by her Ghanaian immigrant parents and lived in the shadow of her talented and beloved older brother, Nana. With a distant father who abandoned her and Nana’s drug addiction, Gifty clung to her mother’s deep love of God to provide some stability in her life.

“Transcendent Kingdom” examines addiction, depression, immigration, racism, religion and science in a beautifully fluid manner that educates the reader while keeping them entranced in Gifty’s story. Readers will find themselves invested in Gifty’s scientific pursuits as she tries to determine whether she believes more in the corporeal practicalities of the mind or the spiritual nature of religion.

more@RidgefieldPress

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Everyone can quit –

Sep. 16, 2020 – As we get closer to the final few bachelorettes in line to win Locky Gilbert’s heart, it’s safe to say things can get pretty heated, pretty fast.

The Bachelor’s Juliette Herrera spoke to The Hit Network’s Xavier, Juelz & Pete about her dark history of her struggling with a major drug addiction and revealed how she finally was ‘set free’.

She also spilled the tea on what really happened with the ‘skank comment’ which was reportedly said off-camera in the bathroom with Roxi Kenny…

more@Hit

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Sure, anything is possible –

Sep. 18, 2020 – The state was awarded $16.7 million Friday to reduce drug-related deaths by funding drug prevention, treatment and recovery support services. 

The state Department of Health Services noted half of the money will be used for individual treatment costs and the remainder will be used for support prevention programs, overdose response efforts, an expansion of treatment options and recovery coaches.

This grant is part of the latest round of funding under the State Opioid Response Grant Program which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

The program’s main focus is reducing opioid use, but they also support services for stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine. The department noted that the pandemic has presented more stress, trauma and uncertainty which could lead to harmful substance abuse now more than ever.

more@NBC15

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Stick with the Winners!

September 17, 2020 – Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they) began her career as a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 2000-2003, primarily teaching English and music while freelancing with other projects. Jamie travels internationally teaching on topics related to trauma, EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness, and yoga, while maintaining a private practice in her home base of Warren, OH. Jamie is the author of seven books on trauma recovery and healing, with many more projects in the works. 

Marich is the founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness.  Her bibliography currently includes: EMDR Made Simple (2011), Trauma and the Twelve Steps (2012), Creative Mindfulness (2013), and Trauma Made Simple (2014), Dancing Mindfulness: A Creative Path to Healing and Transformation (2015), and EMDR Therapy & Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care (2018, with Dr. Stephen Dansiger), and Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery (2019). She has also written guest chapters and contributions for several other published collections. North Atlantic Books is publishing a second and expanded edition of Trauma and the 12 Steps, due for release in the Summer of 2020.

Q. If you are in recovery, what was your Drug of Choice? And when did you stop using?
A. Alcohol and pills (opiates) brought me to recovery, yet I also identify food and maladaptive attachments in relationships/love addiction as also being problem areas for me

Q. Do you think addiction is an illness, disease, a choice or a wicked twist of fate?
A. I do believe addiction can be viewed as a disease or an illness, IF we conceptualize it as one that primary forms in response to unhealed trauma. Of course there are exceptions out there, yet unhealed trauma seems to be the rule.

Q. Do you log on to ZOOM 12-step meetings? How often? Do you share?
A. Yes! My home group meets on Zoom once a week and I also take part in two non-12 Step holistic recovery meetings each week on Zoom. Yes, I share when I feel I can add something to it.

full profile@AddictionRecoveryeBulletin

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Maybe? Maybe not. – 

Sept. 14, 2020 – If addiction is a disease, then we should treat addicts the same way we treat diabetics. The goal in treating diabetics is not to cure diabetes but to limit its harm: Treatment helps prevent heart attacks, strokes, blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage, arterial blockages, etc. Similarly, addiction treatment is not aimed at “curing” addiction but at controlling damage: Treatment decreases mortality, criminal activity and transmission of hepatitis. Treated addicts often return to productive lives. Medicines used in opioid addiction have proven effective at controlling the damage from addiction. Understandably, many people bristle at the idea of treating opioid addiction with opioid medications, such as buprenorphine or methadone. It feels like we are merely feeding the addiction. The easiest explanation for this strategy is to compare it to the apparent paradox of fighting fire with fire. Forest fires are contained by deliberately burning a narrow strip of land ahead of the advancing fire, depleting the fuel needed to spread. Using buprenorphine or methadone is like fighting fire with fire!

more@IndianapolisRecorder

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

We can all help…

September 18, 2020 – Experts say it’s too soon to tell whether suicide rates are already spiking as a result of the pandemic. But they warn that the risks are significant. The authors of a recent study in the Lancet on suicide risk and prevention during the pandemic note that suicides went up during the 1918 Spanish flu and 2003 SARS outbreaks, as well as after the 2008 recession. The authors of the study say that suicide is “likely to become a more pressing concern as the pandemic spreads and has longer-term effects on the general population, the economy, and vulnerable groups. Preventing suicide therefore needs urgent consideration.”
Even before the pandemic began, the youth suicide rate in the United States was the highest in recorded history. According to an April 2020 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide rates have risen by 35 percent since the start of the 21^st century. And the rates among teens are of particular concern.
Studies examining depression and suicide among teens reveal the following troubling statistics.

• In 2017, the suicide rate for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 was 14.46 per 100,000—the highest recorded rate ever.
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States among ages 15–24.
• Current teen suicidal stats show that 17 percent of high school students have seriously considered suicide, and 8 percent have made failed suicide attempts.
• More than half of the teens who try to commit suicide have never been given a mental health diagnosis.

Risk Factors and Causes of Teen Suicide
Many factors can contribute to the risk of adolescent suicide. Risk factors do not cause teen suicide, but they may contribute to a teen’s likelihood of making a suicide attempt.The top reasons for teenage suicide include the following:

• Depression, anxiety, or other mental health disorders
• Family history of suicide
• A history of substance abuse
• Exposure to violence, abuse, or other trauma
• Social isolation or bullying
• Losing a family member through death or divorce
• Financial or job loss
• Conflict within relationships
• Starting or changing psychotropic medications
• Feeling stigmatized
• Lack of support.

more@NewportAcademy

@NewportAcademyResources

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Everything is Possible –

Sep. 15, 2020 – “At first, I thought, ‘I got this,’” says Hilliard. “Shortly after, I realized what I actually signed up for — a lifelong road of healing, patience, gentleness and acceptance.”

As one of the creators of Empath, a pop-up sober bar, one of Hilliard’s self-care routines was as social as it was personal.

As reported in NEXTPittsurgh, since its first gathering in April 2018, Empath has hosted dance nights, happy hours, yoga and sound bath events. Hilliard had noted the social challenges facing people in recovery and the many connections Empath was able to build in the community. Her hope? That Empath was helping to revolutionize Pittsburgh’s social scene. Invigorated by music and dancing or a wellness event followed by healthy mixed drinks, people at Empath events bond, laugh and develop new relationships, she says.

“When I began my recovery, I immersed myself in physical self-care — like taking long baths, going for nature walks, meditation, yoga, dancing, etc. All these activities are a form of self-care and so beautiful, but I was doing to bring my life into balance. I wasn’t living my life how I wanted and being truthful with myself,” says Hilliard.

more@NextPittsburgh

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – She’s Curious and Sober – 

Bryson started drinking at age 16 and was a self-professed party girl in her 20’s. Old scrapbooks contain memories of nights she’d rather forget.

Sep. 14, 2020 – “I just surrounded everything with beautiful cocktail stickers and pretty paper and tried to glamorize it and make it look good, but it really wasn’t,” Bryson said. “It may have been how the night would start but it was never how the night would end.”

She’s now been sober for more than a decade and while it isn’t always easy, she is certain of one thing: the party doesn’t have to stop just because the alcohol does.

“I got sober so I could live a great life, and I have figured out a way to do that and now I just want to share those tips with others,” she said.

She launched The Sober Curator – a first-of-its-kind website showcasing things to do, drink, see and experience for those living a dry lifestyle.

more@King5

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Innocent until proven greedy –

Sep. 17, 2020 – “Misrepresentation of opioids to consumers for profit is inexcusable,” Cuomo said in a statement. Johnson & Johnson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

New York said Johnson & Johnson manufactured opioid products in the state such as the fentanyl patch Duragesic and drug Nucynta, and said its “Norman Poppy” was once responsible for as much as 80 percent of the global supply for oxycodone raw materials. 

The New Brunswick, NJ-based company was charged with violating two New York insurance laws, with civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.

more@NYPost

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Paging Dr. Morte – 

Sep. 17, 2020 – Now the Scranton doctor accused of over-prescribing opioids in exchange for cash incentives from a drug manufacturer is facing federal charges for his allegedly illegal prescriptions. Now, more than two years later, the doctor faces a federal indictment accusing him of being part of an elaborate scheme to overprescribe an opioid called Subsys to 13 of his patients.

According to paperwork filed in federal court, two of Moran’s patients — a 35-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman — overdosed and died from the drugs he prescribed.

The indictment alleges the drug company paid Moran ‘kickbacks’ to prescribe the drug and disguised those payments as speaking fees.

It is alleged Moran was paid $140,000 over the course of two years to prescribe this drug.

more@PennLive

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