Leslie Glass's Blog, page 297

In A Bad Mood? Exercise Can Help. Here’s The Best Way To Do It.

From The Washington Post:

Research suggests at least 20 minutes, outdoors, at an easy-to-moderate intensity.

Are you usually in a better or worse mood after you work out?

I start with this question whenever I give a talk about exercise and mental health. Like the trial attorney who asks only questions she already knows the answers to, I pose the query with certainty about the outcome. Research backs the near-universal observation that you almost always finish a workout in a better mood. Exercise leads to both types of good moods psychologists talk about: positive high activation (feeling alert, excited, happy) and positive low activation (feeling calm, content, relaxed).

So, if you want to lift your spirits with exercise, the most important thing about your workout is that it exists. Anything is better than nothing. That said, how you structure your workout — how long, how hard, etc. — can supercharge the post-exercise mood boost.

Endorphins and emotions

Understanding how to construct a mood-lifting workout starts with understanding why exercise leads to feeling better mentally.

You’ve probably heard of endorphins, which are among the body’s natural opioids and circulate in greater numbers during exercise. In addition to endorphins, the exercising brain enjoys higher levels of endocannabinoids (which act on the same receptors as the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana), neurotransmitters and other feel-good chemicals.

Another contributor to a calmer mood is the slight increase in core temperature that occurs during exercise, which reduces muscle tension. “After exercise, the nervous system is quieter, your muscles are more relaxed, and that feeds information into your brain that you interpret as a good feeling,” says J. Carson Smith, a kinesiology professor at the University of Maryland.

Your mood, however, is determined by more than what’s going on inside your body. Exercise is a regular opportunity to hone your self-efficacy, which is the belief that you can accomplish goals you set for yourself. Pushing through a workout makes you feel better about yourself and reinforces the knowledge that you can be successful in challenging situations. For some people, the harder the workout, the better their mood after. “The pleasure of that achievement overshadows any sense of displeasure that existed during the actual exercise,” says Panteleimon Ekkekakis, a professor of exercise psychology at Iowa State University.

With that background, here’s what research and experience suggest about workout variables.

Type

Aerobic exercise tends to trigger more release of the feel-good brain chemicals than anaerobic workouts, such as weightlifting. But, again, the best type of workout is one that you do. If you love spin class, go to it. If running is your thing, hit the road. If weightlifting is most appealing today and swimming calls tomorrow, heed those hints. Doing exercise you enjoy is the key to consistency.

Any form of purposeful exercise trumps incidental physical activity, according to a Heidelberg University study that asked subjects to record their moods after both working out and engaging in “nonexercise activity” such as climbing stairs or cleaning. Only the workouts boosted mood; in fact, the daily-life activities decreased feelings of calmness. So, make the effort to do some form of exercise. A short walk, a brief session of stretching or yoga, or a handful of body-weight exercises (planks, pushups, dips, etc.) all count.

Duration

Even a 10-minute walk around the block increases blood flow and gives you the chance to mentally regroup and improve your mood. A significant mood boost requires at least 20 minutes of exercise, according to most research.

Longer can be better, assuming you have the endurance and don’t get tighter or more sore as you keep exercising. Endorphin levels, for example, start to surge after about an hour of moderate aerobic exercise, and increase exponentially after. In part because of higher endorphin levels, many people find that longer workouts tend to produce the pleasant calm of the positive low activation mood mentioned earlier.

Intensity

In terms of better brain chemistry, easy- to moderate-intensity workouts are best. (If you train by heart rate, this effort level occurs between about 60 and 80 percent of your maximal heart rate.) For example, a University of Arizona study found the biggest boost in endocannabinoid levels when people ran at an easy or moderate pace for 30 minutes. When the people walked or ran very hard for 30 minutes, their endocannabinoid levels decreased. (The subjects were fit runners, so for them walking slowly was a much lighter intensity than their usual workout.)

Keep in mind, though, that psychology plays an important role. A University of Wisconsin study found that people were in a better mood when they picked their own intensity level instead of a prescribed moderate-effort workout, even though their endocannabinoid levels were higher after the latter. David Raichlen, the anthropology professor behind the University of Arizona research, says, “My biggest mood boosts are after tempo runs or intervals,” which are much more intense than a moderate-pace outing.

Higher-intensity workouts help you blow off steam during and bask in a paragon-of-virtue sensation after. Light-intensity workouts can be the best choice when you’re fatigued and feel you need to decompress. With experience, most people learn how to match their pre-exercise mood with the workout intensity that will produce the best post-exercise mood.

Setting

There’s a growing body of research in favor of “green” exercise, or working out in nature. Brain researcher Jeffrey Burns, of the University of Kansas, does much of his winter running on a treadmill. “I don’t feel like I get the same benefit from that as I do from being outdoors and letting my mind go free,” he says. If your schedule, the weather, the local geography and your preferred type of exercise allow it, make the effort to get outside to play.

You don’t have to go deep in the woods to get a nature boost. A Scottish study looked at people’s brain waves as they strolled through three sections of Edinburgh — a shopping area, an urban park and a busy commercial district. During the eight to 10 minutes the people were in the park, brain activity associated with frustration and long-term arousal fell, while activity associated with meditation and calmness rose.

Timing

If you’re on a conventional schedule, there’s much to be said for a morning workout that puts you in a better mood as you head into the day’s responsibilities. Of course, there’s also much to be said for a post-work exercise session that helps you reset emotionally.

Some research and lots of anecdotal evidence favor morning exercise for the simple reason that, with fewer claims on your time at sunrise, you’re more likely to do it. But remember: The best workout for a mood boost is one that happens. Midday or early evening exercise might mesh better with your schedule.

Whatever time you prefer, try to stay flexible. One survey found that people who habitually exercised at the same time of day didn’t work out if they missed their usual window, while those who weren’t tied to a specific time had greater overall exercise consistency. The takeaway: Anticipate challenges to your schedule, find a way to work out and reap the mental benefits.

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Samuel Jackson On His Recovery From Crack

From Helen Murphy @ People: Samuel L. Jackson is opening up about his past drug use in a new interview.

Jackson, 70, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter for its latest cover story, where he got candid about struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine in the 1980s and 1990s.

“The whole time I was using, sure, I had a good reputation,” he told THR. “I showed up on time, I did my lines. I was great. But there was something that was keeping me from getting to that next place.”

In the early ’90s, Jackson was an understudy for the lead role in The Piano Lesson on Broadway, which was being portrayed by actor Charles Dutton.

“I had to sit there every night on the steps behind the theater and listen to Charles Dutton do that part,” Jackson told THR. “I’d sit there and smoke crack while I listened to the play. It made me f—ing crazy. Because I’d be listening to him doing the lines and going, ‘That’s not right!’“

The actor noted that he used to see Jessica Lange across the street during that time period, taking a smoke break while appearing in A Streetcar Named Desire. A few years later, Jackson and Lange starred in the same movie, Losing Isaiah.

“We would smoke cigarettes together in the rain under this awning where we were shooting in Chicago,” Jackson said. “It was fun. But I never said, ‘Hey Jessica, I used to watch you while smoking crack’ or nothing.”

Jackson told THR that he went to rehab after his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and daughter found him unconscious in the kitchen.

“I’d been getting high since, s—, 15, 16 years old, and I was tired as f—,” he told THR about going to rehab.

In a twist of fate, the first role that he booked after leaving rehab was playing a drug addict, in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever.

“All the people in rehab were trying to talk me out of it. ‘You’re going to be messing around with crack pipes. All your triggers will be there. Blah, blah, blah,’ ” Jackson said. “I was like, ‘You know what? If for no other reason than I never want to see you motherf—ers again, I will never pick up another drug.’ ‘Cause I hated their as–s.”

Jackson also opened up about receiving the script for what would become one of his most memorable roles: Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction.

“I vividly remember getting to the end of it and being like, ‘Wow. Get the f— outta here,” the actor recalled. “Is this s— that good or am I just thinking, because he wrote it for me, I think it’s that good?’ So boom, I flipped it over and read it through again.”

Jackson added that the film’s legacy has endured in the decades since it was released.

“It’s the kind of movie that every year, I gain three, four million new fans because kids get old enough to see it for the first time. They think it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever f—ing seen in their lives.”

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What Is Kratom? Why Is It Being Used For Opiate Self-Detox?

From Adi Jaffe Ph.D.@ Psychology Today: Currently, traditional opioid treatments include a range of behavioral psychotherapies, medication-assisted treatment (MAT using methadone, buprenorphine and the likes) and a range of specialty care facilities that serve patients in outpatient or residential settings. If you’re looking for an alternative to these traditional options, you’d be hard pressed to find much, at least in the U.S.

But some plant-based medicines are helping people detox from opiates and kick their addiction. One of them is Ibogaine and another is Kratom.

At the end of 2018, Thailand, like many other countries around the world, legalized medical marijuana. But it’s the legalization of Kratom for medicinal purposes that has really got people talking.

Kratom is a plant-based drug from Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, and it’s typically brewed as a tea.

Though Thai people have been chewing Kratom leaves or sipping it in their tea for at least two hundred years, it was outlawed by the government during the Greater East Asia War in 1943. In the last ten years, Kratom has made its way to the United States, mostly sold in gas stations or tobacco shops (or head shops), and even at some juice bars.

Why? People have discovered the pain relief benefits of Kratom and how it can aid weaning off other, stronger, substances like Opiates. Still not entirely sure what Kratom is, or how on earth its leaves can help people overcome an addiction?

What Is Kratom?

Kratom (also known as mitragyna speciosa) is a tropical evergreen tree in the coffee species and is native to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea.

Leaves from the Kratom plant may be used to numb aches and pains, soothe fevers, treat diarrhea, manage diabetes, and alleviate addiction. They have also been applied as poultices to wounds or spread across the abdomen to drive out worms. It is a substance that has been used in traditional medicine practices since at least the nineteenth century.

Like coffee, Kratom works as a stimulant in small doses, giving you a slight buzz, like a caffeine hit. But larger doses of Kratom can be more sedating. Kratom leaves are made of two organic compounds, mitragynine (MG) and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-HMG), though hydroxymitragynine (7-HMG) has a high abuse potential, mitragynine (MG) does not, and may reduce intake of morphine. Sixty percent of the alkaloids in the plant leaves are MG (the less-addictive compound) and only two percent are 7-HMG (the addictive compound).

While these organic compounds are not true opioids, human and animal studies have demonstrated their effectiveness in pain relief.

A survey of 6,150 Kratom users, found that 51% reportedly used it for pain, 14% for anxiety, and 9% for opiate withdrawal. According to the American Kratom Association (AKA), a pro-Kratom lobbyist group, five million people use kratom regularly.

What Are The Positives Of Kratom Use?

How can Kratom help people in recovery from substance addictions? There are a number of reported benefits of Kratom use, particularly for people struggling with opiate addiction.

Kratom’s opioid-like compounds provide pain and anxiety relief.
Kratom use has been widely reported to ease opiate withdrawal and can help users wean off of street drugs like heroin.
Self-treatable pain and emotional or mental conditions.
Some researchers have also suggested Kratom could have therapeutic potential, including antidepressant effects.
One of the compounds in Kratom (mitragynine (MG) ) actually reduced self-administration of heroin in rats, and anecdotal evidence suggests the same might be true in humans.
There is evidence that Kratom has much less associated risks than opioids, including fatal overdose.
Kratom could also come to replace methadone in the treatment of heroin addiction—especially given its relative ease of production, making it ideal for poor and developing countries.
It could be a viable alternative to replace alcohol for some (although see negative elements of use below) as well since it promotes relaxation and sociability without the emotional/physical hangover and the short and long-term physiological effects of drinking.

“Fentanyls are killing tens of thousands of people. If Kratom is an alternative, it sure is one that is not, by anybody’s estimations, as deadly as the alternatives on the street.” – Jane Babin, a patent lawyer, and molecular biologist.

What Are The Negatives Of Kratom Use?

If Kratom is an organic, coffee-like substance that provides pain relief and a sense of relaxation, it can’t be all bad right? Unfortunately, like most substances, there are negatives to the use of Kratom too.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), we should take care using Kratom. FDA warns Kratom can be deadly, though almost all of the 47 deaths cited by the FDA involved the use of multiple drugs, meaning it’s not clear if they died from Kratom or another substance. The FDA doesn’t point to any clear correlation between a known property of the botanical and the manner a person died.

Other negative effects of Kratom use may include:

People can become addicted to Kratom (as they can to many rewarding behaviors and substances), though the withdrawal symptoms are not that severe and only last between 1 to 3 days. Pain and trouble sleeping are reported to be the most common symptoms.
Of particular concern are reports of seizures, which increased five-fold in Thailand between 2005 and 2011. Most Kratom-related seizures are attributed to adverse drug combinations, but they’re still a cause for concern.
Liver problems may also occur after as few as two to eight weeks of regular Kratom use. This could potentially be a significant problem for the notion of using Kratom daily as a replacement for other drugs.
Other physical symptoms of concern include nausea, itching, dark urine, abdominal pain, and jaundice. Heavy users might notice hyperpigmentation or darkening of the cheeks due to over-stimulation of melanocytes. Kratom might also be cardiotoxic; further research is definitely called for.

So What Should We Do About Kratom?

So do we put a ban on the substance, because of the potential risks? I think that the answer must be a clear NO. Because that would only make it harder for researchers to study its potential benefits and do NOTHING to reduce the problems associated with Kratom.

As we’ve seen in the past (many, many, many times), a legal ban will have two primary consequences: Firstly, it will send the drug underground where quality and purity can’t be controlled, and it will support violent and illegal organizations. This was the impact of prohibition, the impact of criminalizing cannabis and the impact of scheduling essentially every other drug that had entered the mainstream. Secondly, those who want to use it will either continue buying it through those illegal channels, meaning more people will get sick and hurt in the process while more criminal organizations will profit and fewer people will benefit, or they will find yet ANOTHER still-legal option and we will go through the whole process again.

This is how criminalizing marijuana leads to spice and K2 and it’s how controlling amphetamines created amphetamine-like “bath-salts.”

Instead of being able to study a class of drugs well so that we can create REAL strategies and tools around dosages and use patterns and outreach, we keep trying to play whack-a-mole with the entire concept of intoxication.

It’s A Losing War With Many Lost Battles

While there have been a number of human fatalities linked to Kratom and numerous negative side effects associated with its use, there isn’t a clear sense of the underlying cause. It’s clear that more research is needed! We shouldn’t shy away from alternative treatment options for substance addictions, as natural substances such as Ayahuasca can offer value to research into recovery.

Is Kratom Legal In The United States?

While Kratom isn’t federally controlled in the United States, it is listed as a “drug of concern.” Due to the rising popularity, Federal government regulators have made several unsuccessful attempts to ban it. Since 2015, the FDA has blocked foreign Kratom imports and in 2016 the Drug Enforcement Administration attempted to schedule Kratom in the same legal category as heroin or marijuana but stopped short in the face of unprecedented backlash from the public and congress members. – The Department of Health and Human Services also recommended a ban in October 2017.

Individual states including Indiana, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Vermont, Arkansas, and Alabama, have banned the plant in various forms, while others have legislation pending.

What’s The Verdict On Kratom?

Let’s be clear, Kratom is a substance that may be addictive and have some physiological dependence features. It may also have opioid-like effects at higher doses. But based on the currently available science, it does not seem like Kratom is anywhere near as dangerous as heroin. Though more human clinical studies need to be completed (something that would likely get harder if they were to ban it outright) to determine whether the risk lies in Kratom itself, or when used in conjunction with other substances.

If it helps chronic pain sufferers and those struggling with opiate addiction to reduce their dependence on opiates, reduce their risk of overdose and improve their quality of life, I am all for Kratom!

Word of caution: You ALWAYS need to consult with a physician (I am NOT one) when considering a new treatment option to ensure it is a good fit for you.

Finally, self-detoxing with Kratom may eliminate your withdrawal symptoms, but it will not address the reasons that drew you to use to begin with (such as trauma, environmental stressors, anxiety and more). Like with any medication-based treatment, it only treats the physiological symptoms. To get to the underlying issues that caused your addiction, you’ll need professional help for that.

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Beyond Romance: Empathy & Bonding

From Science Daily: Love can make us do crazy things. It often prompts us to behave in counterintuitive ways, like, for example, placing the wellbeing of our loved ones above our own.

But Why?

Such altruism has perplexed and intrigued scientists for centuries. A new study out of UC Santa Barbara explores how an individual’s genetics and brain activity correlate with altruistic behaviors directed toward romantic partners. The team found that pathways related to bonding in other animals showed up in humans, and may be involved in altruism more generally. The results appear in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.

Scientists currently think that altruism evolved in social species as a strategy for ensuring the survival of relatives. The idea is that genes that promote altruism will persist, perhaps not through an individual’s children but through those of their kin, who carry similar genetics. In this way, providing for your relatives ensures some of your own genes are passed down.

For humans, with our complex social systems, this basic premise takes on new dimensions. “It would make sense that people would be particularly invested in the wellbeing of their partners because they want to live long, happy, healthy lives together,” said Bianca Acevedo, a research scientist at UC Santa Barbara’s Neuroscience Research Institute, and the paper’s lead author. “And in the case of newlyweds, some of them will want to have children. So being selfless towards their partner is an investment in their offspring.”

Altruism is an important aspect of pair bonding, but according to Acevedo, it hasn’t been examined much — especially when compared to the bond between parents and their children, where altruism is critical. “Responding to a child in a selfless way is such an important piece of care-giving,” said Acevedo.

Phenomena as nuanced as love and altruism involve a lot of chemistry. Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that has taken hold in popular consciousness as the “cuddle hormone.” And while it’s involved in a variety of processes, it’s role in trust, empathy and bonding is well established. Less well known is the hormone vasopressin, which scientists have also connected with pair bond behaviors.

Acevedo’s team recruited newlywed couples to investigate how a person’s genetics and brain activity correlate with the empathy they show toward their romantic partner. The team tested each participant for two genetic variants, one involved in oxytocin sensitivity and another connected to vasopressin sensitivity. The researchers then had them respond to a standardized questionnaire asking about their feelings toward their partner and other individuals. This gave them a measurement of each person’s general levels of empathy and altruism toward their partner.

Then the participants entered a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. Though similar to the standard MRI machines doctors use to image soft tissue, fMRIs can track changes associated with blood flow. This allows researchers to see how different parts of the brain activate in response to different types of stimuli. In this case, participants were shown pictures of their romantic partners, friends and strangers with different facial expressions. The researchers explained what the person in the picture was feeling and why, in order to elicit an emotional response.

When participants felt a strong sense of empathy with the person in the picture, regions of the brain associated with emotion and emotional memory lit up. “It’s almost like the brain is responding in a way that signals, ‘this is important, pay attention,'” said Acevedo.

These areas of the brain — like the amygdala and ventral pallidum — have a particularly dense concentration of receptors for oxytocin and vasopressin, further implicating these neurotransmitters in empathy and altruism. What’s more, individuals with genetic variations that made them more sensitive to these hormones exhibited stronger emotional responses across the board.

The researchers also found that brain regions that activated specifically in response to a partner’s face were the same regions that are critical in other animals during studies of pair bonding and attachment. This suggests that our brains have pathways devoted specifically to attachment-related behaviors, pathways which may be quite old. However, some of these attachment pathways showed activity even when participants saw strangers’ faces, providing evidence of the intricate notions of empathy and altruism at play in humans.

Acevedo is continuing to investigate empathy, altruism and care-giving in different types of couples. She’s currently exploring how mind-body activities like yoga influence how individuals respond to partners struggling with memory problems.

“It’s important that we’re thinking about these systems and these behaviors beyond romance,” said Acevedo. “When people think about relationships, they tend to think of romantic love as being really important. But we’ve forgotten some of the other basic and important reasons that people are together, like to take care of each other.

“Beyond romantic love, we live long lives together. Many of us raise children together, or take care of each other into old age,” continued Acevedo. “And altruism is deeply rooted in our evolutionary, neural and genetic framework.”

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5 Tips To Manage Time

As technology improves, we place more demands on ourselves. We have to do more each day, even each minute. We’re in more places, buying more things, and checking more emails in more places. Even entering recovery can propel us to do more: more meetings, more check-ins with our sponsors, more workouts… Our to-do lists are often unmanageable, so here are 5 tips to help you manage your time.

1. Define It

Is time something you see as abundant or lacking? This is an important first step because it brings to your attention your view of life. Is your schedule packed or do you see lots of space?

2. Organize It

Write it down and get your schedule out of your head and onto an app or a hard copy calendar/organizer. There are a plethora of monthly, weekly and daily ‘minders’ to aid you. Choose the one that best fits your view.

3. Include Time To Nourish Yourself

Meals should take a minimum of 20 minutes to consume without multi-tasking through them. Shoot for between 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night.

4. Purchase An Alarm Clock

And strategically place it out of reach or across the room from your bed. Make an agreement with yourself that you will get up (and stay up!) when the alarm goes off. No snuggling deeper under the covers, no tossing of pillows, no habitually pressing the snooze, and no creating ingenious ways to silence the alarm!

5. Share Your Time Management Method With Your Mates

And respect their method by not judging it. The way that works for you is just the way that works for you. It’s not the right way. Be curious and open to revisiting your method often so that time continues to be something that you are managing and not something that is managing you.

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Recovery Gifts By Women For Women

It’s time to send a positive message of recovery to battle the onslaught of negative news we’re always hearing about the addiction epidemic. With 23 million people in recovery, and some 23 million struggling with addiction, it’s vital for those of us in recovery to show pride in our lives on the other side of addiction. No one should have to feel alone when taking the step to recovery.

A few years ago, an miracle occurred. I was secretary of a meeting when a cool-looking chick in red disco pants, a black leather jacket, and waist length black hair arrived. Now she has pink hair, FYI.

Marisa Ravel, who is a fashion designer and unmistakable with any hair color, and I became fast friends. Marisa wanted to do something for the addiction recovery and mental health movement because of her own recovery and experiences, and I’d been a recovery advocate on and off for almost a decade. Very quickly we came up with the idea for Angels N’ Roses and Marisa designed our first round of enamel pins now in the ROR Shop.

The Addiction Epidemic Needs Hope and Pride As Part Of The Solution

Addiction among young and old people has gotten worse, not better since my days out there. The feeling of hopelessness and helplessness is even more defeating for millions of suffering families. Absolutely no person who goes into recovery should feel alone. Marisa and I wanted to do something to help those in recovery to show their pride, celebrate the people they love in recovery, and look cool while doing it. We want to bring recovery to the mainstream.

“It’s important to us to show there are as many sober people, as there those still suffering. Some 23 million people are in some form of recovery.”

We designed a line of pins that represent our own experience in recovery. For example, our sober sisters pin sets honor our friendship because who else but your sober sisters always has your back? The pin reminds us that we always need to be paying attention to how we’re feeling. Pins like Stick With the Winners and The are also great reminders of how we live our life today and that we can feel our feelings and still survive.

Please join us and follow us on this new chapter of recovery. Marisa and I could not be more excited about bringing our message of friendship and support to everyone that is touched by an issue and needs to feel like they are not alone.

These gorgeous pins are available in our ROR Shop. To order pins for your entire group, call 941-366-0870. We’ll help a sister out with a group discount.

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Steven Tyler Opens Home For Abused Girls

Rock star Steven Tyler is know for being the frontman of Aerosmith, but he’s now focusing on a new, non-musical project: A home for girls who’ve been neglected or abused. Tyler opened “Janie’s House” just outside of Memphis on Monday. He attended a “scarf-cutting” dedication for the house which he helped renovate, CBS Memphis station WREG reports.

Janie’s House is located at Youth Villages in Bartlett, Tennessee. Youth Villages is an organization that provides support for families with emotional, mental and behavioral problems.

The house is named after Aerosmith’s 1989 hit song “Janie’s Got a Gun,” which is about a girl who sought revenge on her abusive father, Tyler said in a video for Youth Villages. Tyler contributed about $500,000 to the charity, which helped open the second Janie’s Home location, CBS Memphis reports.

“This does my heart and my soul good. This is real,” Tyler said at the ceremony on Monday.

Tyler and residents of Janie’s House spoke at the ceremony. WSPA

Janie’s House will be home to 14 girls at a time, a total of about 26 to 30 a year, and will provide support and therapy for abuse victims.

Tyler said he visited a treatment center and realized he wanted to do something to help the abused girls he was meeting. “All the girls I met had been abused either physically, mentally, verbally, you know. At least 90 percent of them all,” Tyler said, according to LocalMemphis.com.

Girls now staying at Janie’s House were also at the ceremony. “The reason that I am at Janie’s House is because I experienced sexual abuse at the age of 3,” said one of the girls, now 14.

She said Janie’s House has changed her life. “Through Janie’s House, I can learn a lot about my past and learn I was not the only one that had been through the same problems,” she said.

Janie’s Fund, which helps raise money for these homes, has raised about $4 million. Tyler opened the first Janie’s House in Atlanta in 2017.

“I’m gonna bring this Janie’s Fund with me wherever I go. It’s like a dream come true,” Tyler said.

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Single? Celebrate Galentines Day!

From Hannah Smothers @ Cosmopolitan: Considering it was created less than 10 years ago, Galentine’s Day is probably not going to pop up as an official holiday on your iCal. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth celebrating! Truly, if you’re going to pick one fake holiday to get pumped about, it shouldn’t be National Pizza Day, Star Wars Day, or whatever else…it should be Galentine’s Day. Why? Because it’s a whole day dedicated to smothering your female friends with even more love than you usually do.

Okay, What The Heck Is This?

According to Urban Dictionary, Galentine’s Day is celebrated on February 13, the day before that other made-up holiday (ahem, Valentine’s Day). It’s a day for celebrating the love you have for your lady friends, whether they’re single or not. Basically, it’s a day dedicated to showering your closest friends with love and attention…more than you do every other day.

Who invented it?

Excellent question! The best thing about Galentine’s Day is that it was created by a fictional character: Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation. In 2010, the second season of Parks and Rec included an episode called “Galentine’s Day,” in which Leslie gathers a group of her closest gal pals for a brunch of waffles and love. “Every February 13, my ladyfriends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style,” Leslie says in the episode. “Ladies celebrating ladies.” And thus, Galentine’s Day was unofficially added to everyone’s calendar. No, seriously: According to the Atlantic, it’s such a widely recognized fake holiday that some companies now run Galentine’s Day promotions. What could be more real than that?

I’m Stressed. How Do I Celebrate?

OMG! Don’t be stressed. First off, just like Valentine’s Day, you are free to skip Galentine’s Day. But considering it’s all about showering your friends with affection, why would you want to?

There’s no wrong way to celebrate. You could pay tribute to Leslie Knope, the foremother of Galentine’s Day, by hosting a waffle brunch. Or you could gather your pals for a wine-and-cheese happy hour, make a reservation at a fancy restaurant, make a group mani-pedi appointment, or pop champagne and celebrate how great it is to be in a room without men for a few hours. It’s your Galentine’s Day and you can celebrate however you want.

Is Galentine’s Only For Ladies?

Nah. Anyone and everyone can celebrate Galentine’s Day. At its gooey heart, Galentine’s Day is a celebration of friendship and the people who stick by your side as romantic relationships come and go. Like the holiday it precedes, it’s a day dedicated to showing the most important people in your life how much you care about them. It’s corny. It’s cheesy. And that’s what makes it great.

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Is “Drunkorexia” a Real Thing?

From Renee Engeln Ph.D. @ Psychology Today: Imagine a 21 year-old college student. We’ll call her E. E. has plans to go out drinking with her friends on Saturday night. She knows she’ll probably drink a lot, and she knows that alcohol can be highly caloric. The last thing E. wants is to gain a bunch of beer weight, so she eats nothing all day Saturday except for some celery sticks. E. figures that in addition to offsetting any possible weight gain from the alcohol she’s going to drink, fasting all day will also let her get drunk even faster.

Does E. have an alcohol use disorder? An eating disorder? Neither? Both?

A little over ten years ago, the term “drunkorexia” entered pop culture parlance, possibly via this New York Times article, or possibly through stories of fashion models who starve themselves yet don’t seem to regulate their alcohol intake. Though drunkorexia is far from being an official medical diagnosis, health professionals and researchers are starting to take the idea seriously.

Definitions of drunkorexia vary slightly from one research study to another, but all include engaging in unhealthy compensatory behaviors (e.g., extreme caloric restriction, over-exercise, or purging) to offset the calories ingested through alcoholic beverages or to increase how quickly one becomes intoxicated. Some researchers also include drinking excessively in order to make oneself vomit (and thus purge food one consumed earlier, along with some of the alcohol) as a component of drunkorexia.

Drunkorexia appears to be relatively common among young people in several cultures. A study of Italian adolescents (ages 16-21) found that 12% indicated they had “restricted food or calories before drinking an alcoholic beverage” in the past 30 days. Those who reported this behavior were also more likely to engage in fasting, binge eating, and use of laxatives. A similar survey of female Australian college students found that over half reported engaging in drunkorexia-type behaviors. A recent cross-cultural study found that over half of both French and American college students show signs of drunkorexia.

In addition to the prevalence of drunkorexia, there are other reasons to take this new “diagnosis” seriously. To begin, some researchers have argued that drunkorexia can help explain a long-standing pattern of somewhat counterintuitive research findings. Scientists regularly find evidence of what some have called the “incongruous alcohol-activity association.” Though we might stereotype binge drinkers as being all-around unhealthy, a number of studies have shown that drinkers exercise more than age-matched peers who don’t drink alcohol. This pattern might be explained by people trying to “undo” the negative health effects of problematic alcohol use with physical activity. In other words, you know that night of boozing was bad for your health, but you think you might be able to make up for it with spin class the next day. One recent study of over 25,000 students across 40 U.S. campuses found that binge drinkers were more likely to engage in regular, vigorous exercise. They were also more likely to engage in a wide variety of eating disordered behaviors. (College students are a population of interest when it comes to this topic because, on average, they drink more, work out more, and have higher rates of some eating disorders compared to others in their age group.)

Binge drinking can be dangerous no matter what. It’s associated with depression, suicidality, legal troubles, and violence. Among college students, it’s further linked with missed classes and poor grades. But all of these negative outcomes risk being intensified when people restrict their food intake prior to drinking. A 2009 study found that college students who restricted calories before drinking were much more likely to get drunk. Women who restricted prior to drinking reported more drinking-related memory loss, were more likely to engage in unprotected sex, and were at greater risk for being injured or sexually assaulted. Men who restricted engaged in more physical aggression.

In a 2018 article out of the University of South Florida, researchers argued that we should take the concept of drunkorexia seriously, and that one way to do that is to give it a more appropriate name: Food and Alcohol Disturbance (FAD). This new name would indicate that drunkorexia is more than just the co-occurrence of an alcohol use disorder and an eating disorder, because the motivations for both sets of problematic behaviors can’t be easily disentangled. Whether you want to call it FAD or drunkorexia, evidence is piling up that researchers and health practitioners can no longer ignore this particularly toxic mix of disordered eating and dangerous drinking.

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Hope For Addicted Women

In the spring of 1978, First Lady Betty Ford publicly announced her recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. It was a stunning moment for those who had long worked to destigmatize addiction. For over 100 years, addicted women had been fighting to get treatment in silent shame.

Early Treatment For Addicted Women Cloaked In Lies

In the late 1800s, a woman seeking discrete treatment at the Keeley Institute in Dwight, Illinois, was often admitted under a false name. Even her physicians were unaware of her true identity. On the other hand, “Keeley Men” proudly strolled the city streets. They posed for pictures of their triumph over “King Alcohol.” Meanwhile, women were sequestered in the “Ladies Home.” They were isolated from male patients and exposure to local citizens. They never appeared in Keeley photographs.

In 1888, Dr. Lucy Hall, Physician in Charge of the Reformatory Prison in Sherburne, Massachusetts, profiled 204 addicted, incarcerated women. Most began drinking as teenagers. They usually drank with other young women, and progressed from alcohol-laced tonics to beer and spirits.

More than one-third of the women had been battered by their husbands.

In The 1900s Women Start To Speak Out

Several heroic women helped shape the history of alcoholism treatment during the 1940s and 1950s. Marty Mann was the first woman to achieve prolonged sobriety within A.A. In 1944, she founded the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism. Because her public testimony of recovery was repeated, innumerable women entered recovery. In 1956, actress Lillian Roth announced her treatment for alcoholism and detailed her recovery in I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1954).

Addicted Women Still Face Treatment Obstacles

Everything we study in the addiction arena reveal significant gender differences including:

Etiologies
Patterns
Obstacles
Engagement strategies
Treatment techniques
Styles and structures of recovery

Yet women still face these common obstacles:

Both licit and illicit drug industries target women.
The long history of stigma results in invisibility and voicelessness of addicted and recovering women.
Treatment providers try to change women’s lives with programs created by and for men .

Overcoming The Obstacles

We owe much to our modern pioneers:

Jean Kirkpatrick
Marian Sandmaier
Edith Gomberg
Sharon Wilsnack
LeClaire Bissell
Sheila Blume
Linda Beckman
Charlotte Davis Kasl
Stephanie Covington

These women, with many others, pushed these findings from the laboratory to the community. They widened the doorways of recovery. They helped create intervention and recovery models designed for women.

Likewise, Betty Ford’s courage and candor boosted the women-focused research and treatment agendas of NIDA and NIAAA. Her struggle sparked many local communities to examine the special needs of addicted women. Since then, research and treatment advances have forced a dramatic re-evaluation of the sources and solutions to alcohol- and other drug-related problems among women.

However, it’s not enough that a few premier, gender-specific programs existed for brief periods in American history, let alone today.  It’s time to put all we have learned about the treatment of addicted women into treatment programs throughout the country.

For more than 150 years, women have dreamed of finding an addiction treatment program anywhere in the country. Women envision a treatment program specifically designed for them. It is time for that vision to be fulfilled.

To read this entire original article or find similar groundbreaking articles, visit the William L. White papers.

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