Leslie Glass's Blog, page 278

Munchies: Does cannabis really increase desire for junk food?

From Medical News Today by Tim Newman A recent study shows that one of the stereotypical behaviors that people associate with consuming marijuana may have a firm basis in truth — legalizing cannabis produces a spike in junk food sales.

A recent study finds strong evidence for the ‘munchies’ phenomenon.

In the United States, marijuana laws have changed immeasurably over recent years.

These shifts are likely to have both positive and negative effects on the population at large. It is crucial for scientists to identify what these changes might be.

A recent study assesses one such influence. The authors set out to investigate the phenomenon of cannabis-induced “munchies.”

Smoking marijuana, so the popular narrative goes, drives people to binge on high-fat, high-sugar junk food items afterward.

There are some neuroscience-based theories that help support this well-known trope, but, as it stands, there is little causal evidence.

The closest thing to supporting evidence is a study that found a link between enforcing medical marijuana laws and a reduction in average body weight.

Purchasing data

Recently, two economists decided to look for patterns in purchasing activity that might provide clues as to the existence of the so-called munchies.

Michele Baggio, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Connecticut in Mansfield, and Alberto Chong, a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, carried out this work.

They published their findings in the journal Social Science Research Network.

Explaining why they embarked on the project, the authors say, “it is rather important to understand not only the direct impact of cannabis use but also any unintended behavioral spillover effects.”

Specifically, the researchers looked at the effect of recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) on food consumption. They looked at retail data from more than 2,000 U.S. counties across the 48 contiguous states from 2006–2016. The data came from grocery, convenience, drug, and mass distribution stores.

RMLs came into effect at different times, giving the researchers an opportunity to assess the impact on food sales both in legalizing states and in neighboring counties in unaffected states.

Using direct sales data makes the study’s findings robust. Previous research has relied on self-reported food intake, which underreporting can make incorrect.

The researchers focused on the purchase of ice cream, cookies, and chips in RML states and non-RML states before and after RMLs came into effect.

The munchie effect

As expected, there was a spike in the sales of high-calorie foods just after the introduction of RMLs.

Specifically, just after the legalization of recreational marijuana, the researchers saw a 3.1 percent increase in ice cream purchases, a 4.1 percent increase in cookie purchases, and a 5.3 percent increase in chip purchases.

Although ice cream and chip purchasing slowly declined over the following months, cookie purchases remained high. Overall, the authors conclude:

“[W]e find that legalizing recreational marijuana leads to an increase in sales of junk food.”

“These might seem like small numbers,” says Baggio, “but they’re statistically significant and economically significant as well.” The effect was the same across all three of the states in the study that had introduced RMLs.

The findings are interesting and will, no doubt, form the basis of future work. “I’m not an advocate for legalization or not,” Baggio says. “I’m just interested in whether there are unintended consequences to the policy.”

In a country that obesity is already having a substantial effect on, even small changes in dietary habits have the potential to make significant differences to general public health.

In the future, it will be useful to understand precisely why munchies occur and whether it is possible to control or minimize them. The debate surrounding cannabis laws and public health is likely to continue, and these results may now form part of the discussion.

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Living With Uncertainty When You’re Sober

Living with uncertainty is stressful. It literally goes against our fundamental human need to feel safe. If you’re someone who also suffers from anxiety, uncertainty can be paralyzing. The problem is, life is uncertain, so we must learn how to get comfortable with it in order to ride with the waves of life, not against them.

Living with Uncertainty is a part of life

I’ve been living with uncertainty since I was a kid because there was an addict in my life, so I was constantly confronted with the stress of having no control over what happened to them. That was hard as a young person and unfortunately, I turned to chemicals as well to manage my stress and anxiety in those days. 

When you’re sober you need new ways to cope and live with uncertainty

Since then there’s been uncertainty in a lot of other areas too. I’m not actually sure if I find it because I’m primed to, or if this is just the human experience. All people are going to have uncertain times with their personal relationships, family members, health, jobs, financial situations and anything else you can think of. Perhaps, due to my comfort with discomfort, I find a lot of uncertainty… But, whatever the cause, I can’t pick up a drink or take a pill to manage these feelings anymore.

Here are the things I’ve learned to do to manage myself during uncertain times




Tune into the body 

See where you might learn some tricks to make yourself feel more physically comfortable during uncertain times. For example, does your heart start to race while your temperature suddenly rises when you’re freaking out? That can be treated with meditation, mantra meditation, CBT (I had one doctor who had me draw a bubble around myself when I felt scared and had me repeat to myself that I was safe and nothing could burst that bubble). Today, all I need is a walk so there’s a reason why I live next to hiking trails.

Confront your fears!

Are you going to f*#k everything and run? Or, face everything and rise? Play out what’s the worst that can happen and see how you feel about that outcome. Maybe it isn’t so bad, or maybe there’s a good lesson to be learned. Either way, learn to lean into the wave and the ride will be much smoother.

Manage your expectations and prepare for different outcomes

After you’re done playing out the what’s the worst that can happen, play out the best. Prepare for both and don’t future trip before you know what’s going to happen. Put your grown-up self in charge and manage those expectations!

12-Stepper?

If you’re a 12-stepper, I’ve been told the thing to do is the work the program, not the problem. I’ve also heard that works. 

The post Living With Uncertainty When You’re Sober appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Top 10 Ways To Eliminate Stress Without Alcohol

From Psychology Today:

Stress at work or at home can cause us to drink more or use drugs to cope.

“Most illness is just stress from not living in harmony.“- Bruce H. Lipton

“Stress” is one of those words we hear thrown around on a daily basis. On one end of the stress spectrum, we have daily annoyances that cause our blood pressure to rise slightly like a traffic jam, the latest news headlines, or a particularly busy and cumbersome day at the office. On the other end of the spectrum sits the unexpected stress life sometimes offers up including loss of a loved one, being fired from a decades-long position or a frightening medical diagnosis. Regardless of which “stress” you’re under,  I think it’s safe to say that no one likes to stay stressed too long!

Today I want to shine a spotlight on stress in general and then share some ways of how you can manage it without the help of alcohol or drugs. Why? Because April is Stress Awareness Month,  which is an annual healthpromotion that helps increase public awareness surrounding the causes of and the anecdotes for stress.

Coincidentally, April is also Alcohol Awareness Month, which aims to increase the public understanding about alcohol addiction by reducing the stigma surrounding the term ‘alcoholic.’ 

So… I figured April was the perfect month to bring your attention to the negative impact stress has on your health, reveal the correlation between stress and alcohol, and show you how to manage stress without “self-medicating.”

What is stress and how is it harmful?

Stress can stem from many different situations from daily traffic to physical injury or exposure to an abusive relationship. On a physical level, stress challenges the body’s normal function balance, also known as homeostasis. The body tries to maintain a certain level of functioning, so it adapts to stress by mobilizing various physiological and behavioral changes through the endocrine (i.e., the release of hormones) and nervous (increased neuronal activity and neurotransmitter release in specific areas like the amygdala) systems to maintain homeostasis. 

To be clear, not ALL stress is bad. In many ways, stress can be good for us. It helps us stay alert and motivated, which is great for stress-inducing situations like sitting for an exam or having a job interview (although in both, too much stress can be debilitating). However, stress is mostly a physical response where the body switches to ‘flight or fight’ mode. We release various hormones and chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol to help the body prepare to act. This causes the blood to be diverted to the muscles and can shut down other bodily functions such as digestion. It’s also known as the caveman rush,  because historically, this is the response that propelled us to either flee danger (flight) or step up and fight.

These days, the flight or fight mode still serves us well as it helps us make snap decisions with little thought, such as jumping out of the way of a car who hasn’t seen a pedestrian crossing.

The problem occurs when our body begins to respond to stress by putting us into fight/flight mode in situations where it shouldn’t. This can affect our concentration and focus, our energy levels and our mood and health. When we feel stress over long periods of time, called chronic stress, it can be detrimental to our health. Longstanding high cortisol levels can lead to increased blood pressure and other health conditions. 

Anyone ever experience chronic stress like this?

Of course! It’s one of the sad realities of many modern lives with never-ending streams of information, requirements and demands.

In these cases, stress can be more harmful to the body than smoking!

Because the effects of stress are not immediate, but cumulative, continuously high levels of stress can lead to many different serious health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer. Bruce Lipton talks about the fact that when the body is in stress mode (fight or flight) it shuts down the cells’ ability to grow and divide, as the body’s energy resources are hindered in an attempt to provide it protection. While we can cope with brief periods of stress, chronic stress drains the body’s energy and interferes with the underlying processes that keep dysfunction and disease at bay. 

This is why it is important to address stress and employ the various tools you can use to manage it. And that’s the basis of Stress Awareness Month.

Not sure if you are stressed? Take this test. 

Stress and Alcohol

You may not realize it but you’re likely reaching for a drink when you feel stressed, after a long day, when going through an emotional time or when entering a stressful networking situation. Stress is known to contribute to alcohol dependence. If you have one of these professions you might tend to abuse more due to increased levels of stress: construction, arts and entertainment, mining, hospitality or trades. 

Some people think their work, family or lifestyle is causing them stress, and that if only they could create some change in those aspects of life than they would be fine.  Unfortunately, this is at best only part of the overall picture. 

Why?

Because it is often THE BELIEF (or perception) that something out there is causing you stress that is creating the stress response internally (on a side note- if there’s a bear chasing you, please give in to the stress and run as fast as possible!). Although changing the external circumstances certainly may help, invariably, no matter what you do, it is a change within your belief system and perception of yourself that will make the biggest difference. It is more our perception of the circumstances as being overwhelming; and our perception of our ability to cope, as when you feel stretched beyond what you perceive yourself to be capable of.

There are a few factors at play there – the circumstance or event that is taking place, our perception of the amount of effort it might take to address that challenge, our perception of the capacity we have to deal with stress and effort and the combined estimate of the likely end-result of our efforts.

Although we may not have control over our environment or the stressors we face, we do have control over how we react to them.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Here are 10 things you can do to manage stress (besides reaching for the bottle)

       •      Meditate – Meditation involves deliberately focusing your attention inwards either with or without specific guidance or the use of a mantra. It can give you a sense of calm and can help you gain a new perspective on a stressful situation. 

       •      Breathwork – Focusing on your breath and utilizing deep breathing techniques can help ease the elevated physiological changes you experience when stressed. When your body is calm, then you are more focused and able to think clearly. Different techniques can be used in different situations, but even the simplest 5-breath focus effort can yield incredible results.

       •      Mindfulness– This ties into the two techniques above, but I particularly like the 5…4…3…2…1 mindfulness technique which grounds you in the here and now by activating all of your sense. Here’s how: focus on 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3  things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste. Try it! This is just one version of mindfulness, which is thought of as paying attention to something, for a given period of time while removing as much judgment or expectation from the equation.

       •      Positive affirmations– Repeat a mantra or positive affirmation outside of a meditation practice such as “I am safe” or “I am worthy” to help shift your perception and belief patterns by reinforcing your strengths. For stress relief, try saying “My mind is at ease and I am capable of doing whatever is needed,” and “With every breath I am more relaxed and flowing through my day with ease.” 

       •      Get active– You don’t have to train for a marathon, but moving your body and light exercise is great for stress. It eases muscle tension and induces positive feelings. Try to go for a walk, run or stretch daily. Different forms of exercise provide different responses for different people, although Yoga has been shown to increase GABA activity and therefore help in calming anxiety. And the effects of exercise are cumulative, meaning they build up over time! I personally couldn’t imagine life without this stress relief form.

       •      Listen to music– Many people have their go-to songs for stress relief and zoning out. But this song is scientifically proven to lessen anxiety levels in just eight minutes. You may also find it relaxing to listen to melodic sounds such as the rainforest, birdcalls and falling rain. Music is recommended to be implemented for a minimum of 20 minutes per day, no matter what your musical interest. This is one of my go-to’s!

       •      Keep a gratitude journal– Taking a few minutes a day to think about the things in your life you are grateful for can change your perspective on life for the better. I personally use the 5-Minute Journal every morning to help me prepare for the day, especially because it helps bias my thinking towards gratitude (instead of resentments and anxiety).

       •      Be altruistic– See what you can do to help someone else. Research has shown that altruism improves mood and takes the focus off our own struggles. Participants in our IGNTD Hero program often report that, when they increase their contribution towards others, their own mood improves!

       •      Prioritize sleep – When we have a good night’s sleep our capacity to cope with stress is far better than when we’ve slept poorly. Incorporate good sleep hygiene habits into your evening routine for example: noise reduction, going to bed and waking at the same time daily, avoiding caffeine, nicotine and alcohol at night and daytime napping. 

       •      Get help– If you feel overwhelmed by stress and you’re self-medicating with alcohol and it’s affecting your everyday life, then reach out for help and get support to make healthier life choices. We live in a world that still judges those who need help to deal with their mental well-being, which is sad given just how much help we’re OK receiving in other areas (like sports training, academics, etc.).

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Built For Victory Or Getting Over Self-Sabotage

From Psychology Today:

Self-sabotage. In terms of survival, it’s one of the biggest issues we face as individuals. Self-sabotage is so insidious, we are often unaware we’re even doing it until it’s too late. That’s part of the unspoken consequences of any trauma, particularly abuse. Something like addiction is not always about self-sabotage, but it can still be related to trauma and abuse. And while there’s a genetic component to addiction, that’s not the case with self-sabotaging behaviors, like avoiding health check-ups or not paying the bills. Regardless of the impetus for self-destructive tendencies, the resulting behavior is for the same reason: control.

There’s nothing worse than feeling like your life is out of your hands. But the best way to reclaim agency after any trauma is to give yourself the acknowledgement and validation you need by expressing your experience. That’s where talk therapy comes into play. Yet, there is still a sense of social stigma attached to “seeing a therapist” (something I suspect was started by the abusers of this world).

Trauma happens when an unexpected occurrence interferes with the trajectory of an individual’s life—an unwelcome, unwanted, and unsolicited interruption, if you will. Circumstances beyond the individual’s control result in negative consequences that irreparably change or hurt the life of the person being victimized. What makes an event traumatic, however, is that the negative consequences are pushed back onto the victim. Essentially, social betrayal is at the root of trauma.

When the people around us fail to acknowledge (or respond appropriately) to any difficulty we may experience, we naturally feel betrayed. Not only was something terrible allowed to occur, but the person(s) responsible for creating the difficulty are never fully held accountable. Even when human justice intervenes, it rarely balances out the initial injustice. And when the people we love and respect fail to properly recognize a trauma, it manifests for the survivor as silent agreement with the offense.

How does one even begin to address family who could have intervened, but didn’t? The simple answer is, you can’t. Because, when you do finally choose to speak out as a survivor, those same “loving” relatives may look at you with suspicion rather than acceptance. Why? Frankly, it’s easier. Acknowledging a pattern of abuse would require admitting to either being too apathetic to notice or care, or in some cases, too concerned about keeping the peace to “rock the boat.” This only further isolates a survivor of abuse.

Trauma doesn’t always derive from abuse—perhaps it was a single event that was ignored, like a major car accident or a cancer diagnosis. Or losing a job. Perhaps it was getting separated or divorced. Any event that creates a scenario where an individual is suddenly responsible for consequences derived from the words, actions, and/or behavior of others is always going to register as traumatic. Families that include patterns of abuse are unlikely sources for healthy responses. That’s why maintaining social connections outside of family, as well as seeking talk therapy, are the best ways to build-in guaranteed support, regardless of what family does or doesn’t recognize.

Providing emotional support to people experiencing trauma is proven to bolster resilience (Charney, 2004). Kindness and compassion cost nothing; both are free and easy to give and can make all the difference to a person in need. If your leg is injured in a car accident, people are able to more easily recognize a need and send cards, flowers, make a call, or check in with a text—some small gesture to acknowledge the trauma. Acknowledgement of trauma helps an individual to feel supported and loved, allowing for healing in more ways than one. While trauma to our physical bodies is harder to ignore, psychological trauma is largely invisible—which means the support you need can be, too.

Trauma from abuse is a broad spectrum that is as varied as the seven-billion or so humans on the planet. People who may be unfamiliar with abuse often associate it with physical violations, like violence. While violence is absolutely part of abusive behavior, there are emotional and psychological components as well. For example, forcing a child to walk on a broken limb, delaying medical care by denying the limb is broken, shaming the child for expressing acute physical pain through name-calling, bullying a child in pain by threatening physical violence and acting on the threat, dismissing the child’s pleas for help by devaluing the child’s injury, calling the child “dramatic” instead of responding to the injury appropriately—all are abusive behaviors. Eventually, the child will receive treatment for the broken limb, but the broken limb is no longer the real trauma.

Now, imagine similar repeat offenses to that same child over time. Unlike the broken limb, no one can see the damage being done. Well-meaning people make it worse by quoting things like Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous line about no one being able to make you feel badly unless you allow it. That’s simply not true. People can and do make an individual feel worthless. It’s not always in childhood, either. It can be a spouse or a boss or anyone a person is vulnerable to or dependent on in some way.

If every psychological trauma was recognized as equivalent to a person being hit in the head by a baseball, we could better visualize the severity of pain that repeat injury (or trauma) may result in. And given that level of pain, it’s easy to understand how a traumatized individual may turn to self-medication through things like alcohol and drugs. Attempting to neutralize what is constant pain is reasonable behavior within such a context. Having a genetic predisposition to addiction only makes the impulse to dull the pain even more compelling (Makhija & Sher, 2007).

Compassion over judgment is desperately needed in our society if we hope to get a handle on the global mental health crisis apparent in 21st-century advents like mass shootings. Trauma and abuse are becoming more widespread than ever before. That’s why it’s more important than ever before to learn how to survive anything, yet still have the courage to live a life of joy rather than to indulge in the comfort and familiarity of pain.

Talk therapy can help you regain control after trauma and abuse, redirecting current neural pathways to healthier outlets. If you were openly bleeding, it would be clear to anyone that you needed help. But when our spirit is “bleeding,” well-meaning folks are less inclined to “interfere.” People suffering psychological injury from trauma and abuse often learn to be “high-functioning” as a result. You may not be fully in control, but you are self-aware enough to “hide” what’s really going on in your head. The problem is that hiding your trauma or injury is part of self-sabotage. You keep the abuse a secret to live a “normal” life, but if you are self-sabotaging, you are not living the life you think you are. Instead, you’re living a lie. That hurts on every level. And, it’s meant to. Lying to gain social acceptance means keeping a secret, thereby denying yourself acknowledgement, validation, and, ultimately, closure. Keeping the secret is a continuation of the abuse, even if the abuser is no longer in your life. It’s the same with any trauma. We are destined to relive it, to replay familial patterns, until one day, you wake up and realize your life is not where you want it to be. Don’t wait for that moment. Get help now, and get your life back.There are consequences to surviving “anything.” But the whole point of survival is to not just survive your life, but to thrive while living it. If you or someone you know is dealing with self-sabotage, it’s time to own your story. If you’ve been abused or lived through any kind of trauma, you deserve a win. But when you let self-sabotage take over, your abusers win instead. It’s not your fault when other people hurt you. But it is still your responsibility to live longer and stronger, despite the pain.

You can’t live your best life if you’re not your best self. Talk therapy is just one coping strategy to help deal with the stress that comes with the survival of any trauma, including abuse. Moving your body more often, maintaining social connections, getting out in nature, and eating well will help support your progress, while also allowing you to live longer, stronger, healthier, and wealthier.

Now, doesn’t that sound better than always wondering why you feel so stuck and sad?

To find a therapist in your area, please use the link below:

Think of the toxicity from trauma and abuse as a springboard that can (and will!) catapult you forward instead of holding you back. You can survive and thrive, despite any obstacle—even the ones you create for yourself. It may not always feel like it, but you are built for victory. And you will beat the odds. You have authority over your own life, no matter what (or who) tries to interrupt it.

How can I be so sure?

I was that child with the broken limb. Yet, I am not broken. Neither are you.

The post Built For Victory Or Getting Over Self-Sabotage appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Experimental Drug Shows Promise For Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms

From Science Daily:

While medicines are available to relieve withdrawal symptoms in people recovering from opioid addiction, they cause side effects and can maintain the brain changes that led to addiction in the first place, which can lead to relapse before treatment is completed. New research offers hope that a better solution may be on the horizon. Rapastinel, an experimental drug originally developed as an antidepressant, substantially reversed acute signs of opioid withdrawal in rats in just three days.

The findings suggest rapastinel could be useful to help manage withdrawal during the critical first days after someone has entered treatment and is trying to abstain from opioid use, according to researchers.

“We have found that rapastinel has potential as a new treatment for opioid dependence, as it is effective in reducing withdrawal signs and has not been shown to produce any negative side effects,” said Julia Ferrante, an undergraduate at Villanova University who conducted the research with Cynthia M. Kuhn, PhD, professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University. “By reducing withdrawal symptoms, the patient feels less discomfort during treatment, and we hypothesize this would lead to a decreased risk of relapse.”

Ferrante will present the research at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics annual meeting during the 2019 Experimental Biology meeting, held April 6-9 in Orlando, Fla.

“Our research suggests that new alternatives to standard treatments for opioid dependence have potential to be safer and more effective,” Ferrante added. “Rapastinel research for opioid dependency is currently only being done in rodents, but if the drug continues to have successful trials, it may enter clinical trials for use in humans.”

Buprenorphine and methadone, the most common drugs used to help people quit opioid abuse, are problematic because they are themselves opioids and can be addictive, have unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effects and often must be used for months to avoid relapse. Ketamine, which has been proposed as an alternative, non-opioid treatment for opioid withdrawal, also has the potential for abuse and can cause hallucinations and other negative side effects.

Rapastinel, developed as an antidepressant, binds to the same receptor as ketamine but at a different site, where it has a milder effect. While a clinical trial recently concluded rapastinel is not effective against depression, trials have shown it is well tolerated and has no serious side effects.

In the new study, Ferrante and Kuhn modeled opioid dependence in rats and then tracked signs of withdrawal in groups of rats given either rapastinel, ketamine or a saline solution. On the third day, rats given rapastinel showed significantly fewer signs of withdrawal than rats given either ketamine or saline, which showed roughly equal amounts of withdrawal signs.

To move toward clinical trials in humans, researchers will continue to investigate rapastinel’s effects on a molecular level and study whether the drug can reduce the likelihood of relapse. If approved for treating opioid dependence, rapastinel would likely be administered intravenously, possibly in an outpatient setting, Ferrante said. It is unknown how long patients would need to use rapastinel to ensure complete recovery from opioid dependence.

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5 Factors Predict Teen Addiction

Who get addicted and who doesn’t? Teen addiction is fact of life for 15% of high schoolers, and it’s important to take any teen use of alcohol and drugs very seriously. But not all experimentation ends in addiction. Many teens do not become addicted even if they have significantly experimented with chemical use. Here’s five risk factors that greatly influence addiction.

Teen Addiction Is Everywhere

Also, there is a pattern of use that may be seen in the teen/college years when teenagers may use fairly heavily but then “age out” of the use once he/she/they focus more on studies and adult behaviors such as relationships and a career. A significant number of teens will become addicted. NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) estimates that 15 percent of teens are already addicted in high school. The problem is you don’t know ahead of time whether your teen is one whose use will escalate, or one whose interest in getting high will fade. These five common factors influence addiction.

1. It’s In The Family

Biological influences including genetics can play a part in teens’ becoming addicted. For example, teenagers get addicted much quicker than adults.  Their hormones are still developing; they haven’t hit all of their biological developmental milestones. Women become addicted quicker than men also because of genetic differences. Having a family history of addiction can also significantly influence the chance of addiction. Further, if there is active and regular substance/marijuana/alcohol/tobacco use in the family, teens can mirror that behavior.

2. Social Learning Or Modeling

This influencing factor is especially seen within families where substance/alcohol use is normal. Social influences also include peers, sports groups, all kinds of social clubs, and social media that makes using seem exciting and fun and harmless. A very important negative modeling example is that of the glorifying of use through social media.If your child views using chemicals as normal or fun behavior, they think it’s okay to drink or drug. If parents use alcohol responsibility and don’t do other drugs, then young people can model healthy patterns even when they get outside messages that drinking is acceptable.

3. The Addictive Potential Of The Substance

We also need to understand the addictive potential of each drug itself. Two substances, nicotine and crack cocaine, have highly addictive properties. For example, how many social smokers (may smoke 1- 2 cigarettes and then not smoke again for weeks) do you know – exactly! There are few social smokers because of the addictiveness of the substance. This is the same for other highly addictive drugs and medication, including, marijuana, opiates, stimulants and alcohol (although alcohol dependences takes longer to develop).

4. Peer Pressure, Curiosity, Feeling “Grown Up”

As a parent, do not underestimate the influence of peer pressure as during the teen years, peers are exceptionally important. Most teens are curious about what drinking or drugging can do for them. Using can be a lot of fun especially when using with peers; consequences are irrelevant to the developing teenage brain. Also, many teens feel more “grown up” by using as this is an adult thing to do (especially with alcohol).

5. Life Stressors, Emotional Pain, Co-occurring Disorders, Trauma

This includes the very stress of just being a teenager, being a thrill seeker, along with other stressors such as anger, boredom, rebellion, low self-esteem, or loneliness and/or a co-occurring psychiatric illness such as:

Depression
Abuse/trauma history
Anxiety
Bipolar disorder

These conditions may also lead to using drugs and alcohol as a coping skill, self-soothing behavior, or self-medication. Some use the drugs or alcohol to help feel better because it numbs or distracts from the emotional pain. Others crave the instant gratification of good feelings and pleasure that some drugs deliver.

Make A Prevention Plan

While there can be other influences, these five indicators of vulnerability to teen addiction are some of the most problematic. The problem becomes worse if the teen uses for a variety of these reasons. Don’t be left behind. Continue to explore how these reasons may fit for your child and take precautions and discuss addictions with your child or teen. Be willing to look at your own behavior and see if there are negative behaviors that may influence your teen to use. What should you do if you think your kid is using. Finally, if you need help with your child, visit Recovery Guidance for a free and safe resource to find addiction and mental health professionals near you.

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Stress Busters For Not Having A Voice

Need some stress busters for not being heard, or not being able to tell the truth? I sure do. It’s stressful when you can’t talk, express yourself, or explore issues. This happens in every area of life with other humans. Well meaning, and not so well-meaning, people may shut you up or close you down or pretend to be nice while making sure you never get your way, or even your two cents in.

Keeping silent creates stress

If you’re like me and want to maintain a peaceful environment, you may end up swallowing, or repressing, your feelings and then risk internal explosions that hurt only you. This is the stress of having to be silent when you want to speak, or not being heard when you do speak. You need a stress buster to redirect your frustration.

Reasons when speaking up is impossible

There are a thousand ways and reasons that other people prevent us from telling the truth or expressing our feelings. The consequences can be: the boss may fire us, a loved one may become verbally abusive; a friend may be dismissive or disparaging; a fight might result that could end the relationship.

When you anticipate someone’s negative and hurtful reactions to everything you sayWhen the person(s) on the other side of an argument or issue doesn’t want to hear your opinion or side of the storyWhen a friend, co-worker, spouse, family member, partner never fails to ask you what you want but never lets you be the deciderWhen you want to participate at work or know something is wrong but aren’t permitted to speak or share



Stress Busters to use when you have no voice

When I find myself talking to myself instead of the person who’s bothering me, I know I have a stress problem related to being silent. Here is the short list of things to do ease the stress and create solutions:

When furious or hurt, change the scenery to enable you to begin redirecting your feelings and get grounded. Go outside. Take a walk. See a movie. Listen to music. Call a trusted friend. Use breathing techniques to calm down. Inhale for five counts, hold your breath for five counts, exhale for five counts. This breathing exercise slows your heart rate which in turn calms your anxiety or rage. Practical advice: Make a pro and con list of why you maintain a relationship in which you have no voice and consider what changes you can make to improve the situation. You can’t change anything if politics are driving you mad.Remind yourself that some things are out of your control. To be at peace, learn to let go of things you can’t control and work on things you can control. Redirecting to more positive feelings can also include meditation to help you find peace, refreshment and even answers on what to do next.

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Alcohol Use Disorder: Brain Damage May Progress Despite Sobriety

From Medical News Today:

A new study goes against the grain of previous research by suggesting that alcohol-induced brain damage does not stop when alcohol use ends. Instead, the harmful effects of alcohol may continue during abstinence. The findings have important implications for the process of recovery from alcohol dependence.

Most of us are familiar with the immediate effects that alcohol consumption has on the brain. Euphoria, depression, memory loss, blurred vision, slurred speech, and a general state of confusion are only some of these effects.

However, for those who consume excessive amounts of alcohol over extended periods, this repeated brain damage can have a long-lasting effect on neuronal and mental health.

Depression and anxiety are only some of the conditions that scientists have associated with long-term alcohol consumption. Consuming alcohol excessively may also cause Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a condition that causes “amnesia, extreme confusion, and visual disturbances.”

Do these damaging effects stop once the person stops drinking alcohol though? Until now, researchers believed that they did. New research, however, challenges this view.

Scientists from the Institute of Neuroscience CSIC-UMH in Alicante, Spain collaborated with others from the Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim in Germany to examine the structural brain changes in people with alcohol use disorder. They found that damage to the brain’s white matter persists in the first weeks of sobriety.

Silvia De Santis is the first author of the new study, which the journal JAMA Psychiatry has published.

Long-lasting effects of alcohol on the brain

De Santis and colleagues used neuroimaging techniques to examine 90 people with alcohol use disorder. The study participants had an average age of 46 years and had required hospitalization due to their addiction.

As a control group, the researchers recruited 36 men who were 41 years old on average and did not have alcohol use disorder.

Dr. Santiago Canals, study co-author and coordinator, explains the methods that the team used in the study, saying, “An important aspect of the work is that the group of patients participating in our research [is] hospitalized in a detoxification program, and their consumption of addictive substances is controlled, which guarantees that they are not drinking any alcohol. Therefore, the abstinence phase can be followed closely.”

In parallel with the human study, the researchers examined a model of rats with a preference for alcohol. Doing this allowed them “to monitor the transition from normal to alcohol dependence in the brain, a process that is not possible to see in humans,” explains De Santis.

The research revealed damage in the right hemisphere and the frontal region of the brain. Changes in white matter structure persisted for 6 weeks after the participants had stopped drinking.

The white matter of the brain contains the cells, axons, and myelin, which are key components that enable a “rapid and efficient information exchange” between neurons in different areas of the brain.

Study co-author Dr. Canals explains, “[T]here is a generalized change in the white matter, that is, in the set of fibers that communicate [with] different parts of the brain. The alterations are more intense in the corpus callosum and the fimbria.”

“The corpus callosum is related to the communication between both hemispheres,” he continues. “The fimbria contains the nerve fibers that [enable the communication between] the hippocampus, a fundamental structure for the formation of memories, the nucleus accumbens, and the prefrontal cortex.”

The nucleus accumbens is a vital part of the brain’s reward system, while the prefrontal cortex is important for complex thinking and planning, executive function, decision making, and appropriate social behavior.

The findings of the new study challenge preexisting beliefs that brain damage stops immediately with the cessation of alcohol consumption.

“Until now, nobody could believe that in the absence of alcohol, the damage in the brain would progress.”

Dr. Santiago Canals

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The Costs Of Perpetual Wrong Thinking About Addiction

From Psychology Today:

Politicians often make the same mistake responding to the latest drug scare—focusing on supposed drug characteristics rather than the conditions of drug use.

In preparation to run for President, the New York Times notes, you have to make your mea culpas.

Here was Joe Biden’s apology for the way he handled crack:

“It was a big mistake that was made [the 1994 crime bill Biden helped to write built around getting tough on drugs],” Mr. Biden said of the measure, which has been criticized as disproportionately affecting black Americans. “We were told by the experts that ‘crack, you never go back,’ that the two [crack and powder cocaine] were somehow fundamentally different. It’s not. But it’s trapped an entire generation.”

Let’s be clear about what Biden is apologizing for, and what he (and society) still fail to comprehend:

Getting legally tough on drugs penalizes poor people, putting millions in jail uselessly

This is what Biden doesn’t address:

The crack scare was one in a long history of drug scares/panics that demonize a particular drug
Focusing on supposedly bad drugs fails to address the sources of problematic drug use

I believe that Biden may not understand these points for two reasons. He seems to believe that drugs addict people, causing them to misbehave and ruin their lives. Although he now says he was wrong in saying crack did this, he still believes that opioids do this. Keep in mind that, in 2007, Biden introduced the “Recognizing Addiction As a Disease Act,” which made exactly the point for which he is apologizing about crack: opioids (e.g., heroin) make you lose control and turn over your life to a drug in a way that you can’t avoid.

In 2014, Biden was forced to acknowledge that the underlying drug in crack, cocaine, doesn’t overwhelm people because his son, Hunter, was caught using it, getting him booted from the U.S. Naval Reserve.

But Biden still believes this “bad-drug” profile holds for opioids (even though the overwhelming majority of opioid users have no problems with the drug), and so whatever he wanted done to crack users in 1994 he presumably would be willing to do to opioid users today (or illicit opioid users, or fentanyl users, or whomever) for the same mistaken offense (using an overwhelming addictive drug), however normally the person actually behaves (like Biden’s son).

Because opioids are addictive, bad, control people, and people can’t be allowed to use and must be punished for using them, as Biden claims: “lives, families, and communities have been destroyed by opioid addiction all across America. Opioid addiction is a crisis ripping the heart out of our country.”

Old ways of thinking die hard, no matter how mythical.

P.S. (Jan 23)

If addiction is a disease.

Submitted by Ravi on January 22, 2019 – 9:46pm

According to the DSM-5, addiction is a mental disease (Substance Use Disorder). Why are we putting anyone in jail for having a disease? If we want to be true to the medical standpoint on addiction, we should not put anyone in jail for using. Prison for drug users only perpetuates the situation. People that have a substance use disorder need treatment not prison. Treatment cost a quarter of what it costs to imprison a person.

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Severe Psychological Distress And Daily Cannabis Use: Implications For Mental Health?

Daily cannabis use increased significantly from 2008 to 2016 among those with and without past-month serious psychological distress (SPD) and use among those with SPD was persistently higher compared to those without SPD. Research shows that in 2016, past-month daily cannabis use was about three times higher for SPD (8%) compared to those without SPD (2.7%).

“Our research found that persons with SPD reported higher daily cannabis prevalence each study year,” said senior author Renee Goodwin, PhD, Department of Epidemiology. “Therefore, it is important to consider potential consequences of this increased use for those with mental health vulnerabilities.”

Data were drawn from adults age 18 and older in the 2008-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a sample of 356,413 and measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale.

Non-Hispanic Black respondents were the only demographic group where daily cannabis use did not significantly differ among persons with and without SPD.

“With the rapid legalization of medicinal and recreational use of cannabis in the U.S. and liberalization of social norms, more research is needed to understand the impact of these changes on vulnerable groups,” said Goodwin. “A better understanding of whether some subgroups need tailored clinical efforts to reduce (daily and/or heavy) cannabis use, especially among those with SPD, will also provide a clearer picture of what is needed next.”

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