Leslie Glass's Blog, page 303

Meth Is Alive And Well In America

From Adi Jaffe Ph.D. @ Psychology Today: When I was immersed deeply in the world of drugs in the early 2000s, heroin was rarely spoken of in the media, but according to local and national media, cocaine and methamphetamine (“meth”) were huge problems. Everywhere, you’d hear stories of police busting huge meth (also known as speed or crystal meth) operations and the terrible problem the drug was creating in our country. Because meth labs were seemingly blowing up everywhere, the fear that meth was taking over was perpetuated.

Though fewer and fewer people were making the stuff locally, more and more gangs from Central America (primarily Mexico) were stepping in to cover the gaps. But, as police and the DEA continued closing in, it seemed that meth gradually disappeared from our consciousness, if not necessarily from the streets. The next thing you knew, the opioid epidemic seemed to be the only thing anyone could talk about.

But has it overshadowed the growing meth problem in the United States? Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot of media coverage surrounding the opioid crisis. According to a new report on preventable deaths from the National Safety Council, Americans have a 1 in 96 chance of dying from an opioid overdose. To put it in perspective, the probability of dying in a motor vehicle crash is 1 in 103.

But have we been too hyper-focused on this single drug?

The History Of Methamphetamines In The United States

There has been a long standing history of use of amphetamines in the U.S. since the 1930s and 40s. And methamphetamines (particularly the illicit drug methamphetamines hydrochloride) was popular in the 1990s and 2000s but began to decline in the mid-2000’s when stricter laws were passed and enforced. One of the key ingredients in meth is ‘pseudoephedrine’ which could be acquired from a common cold medicine—Sudafed—but the new law required pharmacies to retain records of all pseudoephedrine purchases. States such as Mississippi and Oregon required a prescription for purchase. I knew groups of meth “cooks” and dealers who would send out dozens of people (they literally called them smurfs) to go to hundreds of pharmacies around the state and obtain the large quantities of Sudafed that was needed. It took a lot of work and dedication (and a lot of meth to keep them going!). But the hard work got to everyone, and fewer and fewer labs could operate, so meth lab explosions became a thing of the past, and everyone seemingly forgot about meth.

Nowadays there may be fewer household meth labs, but there is actually more meth being smuggled in from Mexico. Sourcing the ingredients within the United States made it nearly impossible to produce on our home turf so Mexican cartels took this opportunity to produce purer, cheaper meth. And they became very good at it, creating Mexican superlabs that produced hundreds of pounds a day. The best meth I ever bought came from these “Breaking Bad” style labs…

If you don’t use meth or know anyone that does, you may be thinking “it’s not my problem.” But, if you’re a taxpayer (or a normal human being with emotions) it most certainly is your problem. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the cost of amphetamine-related hospitalizations had increased from $436 million in 2003 to close to $2.2 billion by 2015. That’s a nearly 5-fold increased! Now, wouldn’t that money be better spent on mental health for anyone who needed it so people wouldn’t have to self-medicate?

Current Meth Use In The U.S.

“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t see someone acutely intoxicated on methamphetamine.”- Dr. Tarak Trivedi

According to the JAMA study, Amphetamine-related hospitalizations increased by 245 percent from 2008 to 2015. The federal government estimates that more than 10,000 people died of meth-related drug overdoses last year.

Deaths from meth overdose generally result from multiple organ failure or heart attacks and strokes, caused by increased heart rates and extremely high blood pressure.

A few states, such as Texas and Colorado, have seen more overdoses from meth than opioid heroin.

The Dangers Of Meth

We’ve seen on television how meth users end up in the Emergency Departments in a ‘rage,’ high on the stimulant drug and behaving erratically. But meth is associated with a number of other short-term and long-term effects, many of which you may not have even heard of.

Short-term Effects Of Meth Use

Individuals who use methamphetamines will likely experience the following symptoms:

Increased wakefulness and motor activity
Decreased appetite
Faster breathing
Rapid and/or irregular heartbeat
Increased blood pressure and body temperature
Increased energy and motivation
Increased repetitive/compulsive (stereotypic) behavior

Long-term Effects Of Meth Use

When an individual uses methamphetamines over a longer period of time she or he will likely experience:

Extreme weight loss
Severe dental problems (“meth mouth”)
Intense itching, leading to skin sores from scratching
Anxiety
Confusion
Insomnia
Violent behavior
Paranoia
Hallucinations

How Can People Get Treatment For Methamphetamine Addiction?

Amphetamine use is now the fourth most common reason to seek drug treatment in the United States, after alcohol, opioid, and marijuana use.

The most effective interventions are behavioral therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, which helps patients recognize, avoid, and cope with the situations in which they are most likely to use drugs. There is also contingency management using motivational incentives, vouchers or small cash rewards to encourage patients to remain drug-free and engage in treatment. Unfortunately, most programs still rely on outdated language that stigmatizes and disempowers those struggling.

Programs which aim to support, rather than punish, people with an addiction can help individuals make gains in recovery. The Women in Recovery program in Tulsa County offers an intensive program for women serving lengthy drug offense sentences. Most of these women have been battling addiction for up to fifteen years and this takes a huge toll on their health and their family. It may come as no surprise, that a majority of these women have also experienced traumatic events, from childhood abuse to sexual assaults and domestic violence and live in unhealthy environmental. It just goes to show that addiction can happen to anyone, and is usually connected to much deeper issue (obvious, I know, but too rarely addressed).

Using a range of treatments, training, and education, the program gives women who would be spending time behind bars a second chance at a productive and fulfilling life. But recovery is possible!!

There are fewer tools to combat meth than to combat opioids: There is no medication like Naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, or methadone, which can stem opioid cravings available for meth (although some studies with modafinil have provided some potential medication support). Not to mention the withdrawals from meth are troubling and include severe and long-lasting depression, incredible lack of energy and substantial weight gain! Many people struggle with quitting meth because they know that the withdrawal will leave them incapacitated for up to a week and they cannot afford to lose their jobs or are too ashamed to admit to their loved ones that they’re using.

An Integrative Approach To Treating Meth Addictions

It’s clear that methamphetamine use is an emerging public health issue; pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapies that effectively treat amphetamine use disorder are desperately needed.

Unlike opioid addiction, meth addiction cannot be treated with medication. Rather, people addicted to the drug must attend counseling through outpatient and residential treatment centers. My IGNTD Hero recovery program is often sought after by meth addicts who feel misunderstood in other settings and are eager to get to the underlying issues of their struggle. It doesn’t just address the addiction but the driving force that led you to start using in the first place.

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My Adderall Addiction & Recovery

From Crystal Hampton @ Medical News Today: I had what appeared to be the perfect life. Then my life spiralled into substance abuse and depression. This is the story of my addiction and my recovery.

Growing up, I had the picture-perfect family. I lived in a beautiful home in the suburbs of Detroit with my parents and younger brother. I had every opportunity in the world, attended private schools, and even made it onto the honor roll. I was involved in dance, theater, and many of the school sports teams. Beneath the surface, however, I always felt a lot of pressure to be perfect.

I was the first of 12 grandchildren, and this led to me feeling that I had to be the best at everything I did, which gave me terrible anxiety from the early age of 5.

When I was 15, the perfect little world I thought I was living in was shattered into a million pieces; my mom informed me that she and my dad had decided to get divorced.

A court order meant that we all lived under the same roof for the next year, until the divorce was finalized.

During my junior year of high school, I switched to a public school for the first time. I had no idea where I belonged and felt lost, as though I had no control over anything around me.

The only thing I could control in my life was food. I began restricting my eating and later realized that this was the beginning of my battle with an eating disorder.

I’d always stayed away from using recreational drugs and drinking alcohol for fear that it would interfere with school and extracurricular activities. Even though my friends all drank, I was adamant that it wasn’t for me.

Everything changed one New Year’s Eve, when I finally had my first drink. I do not remember much from that night except being violently sick through the night and into the next morning.

I absolutely hated the way alcohol tasted, but it took me out of myself and the chaos around me in that moment. I started to drink more frequently and, as a result, my grades began to plummet.

I was skipping school and getting into trouble at home. My mom had no idea what to do with me.

Toward the end of the year, my final paper for my English class was due, and I was struggling to finish it on time. A girl in my class offered me one of her Adderall pills and told me that it would help.

‘I Was Starting To Look Sick’

I had no idea what Adderall was or what it was used for; I just knew that I needed to finish my paper or I would not pass the class — so I took it. Little did I know at the time how big an impact that decision would have on my life.

I stayed up all night writing that paper and went into school the next day having not slept. I was still fuelled by the Adderall that I had taken and felt completely out of my mind. I was talking too fast and too much, I couldn’t sit still, my anxiety was through the roof, and my entire body hurt.

When I woke up the next morning, I was exhausted and very depressed. So I asked my friend for another Adderall.

This quickly became my daily routine, and within just a couple of weeks, I was buying them from other students as I realized just how many of my classmates were also abusing the “study pills.”

Buying them was becoming too expensive at the rate I was taking them, so I knew I had to find another source.

In time, I managed to convince a doctor that I had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and they prescribed me Adderall. I had even told myself that because this was a prescription medication, it was fine. How wrong I was.

At first, I thought it had solved all of my problems in life — but that quickly changed. I would take so many that I would be up for days at a time trying to make everything “just perfect,” only to completely crash for days after, falling into a deep depression. This cycle continued for months. It became clear to everybody around me that I had a problem.

I was not sleeping or eating. I was 5 feet 7 inches and had dropped down to just 95 pounds. I was starting to look sick. My brain was completely fried due to the lack of sleep, and because my assignments no longer made any sense, my grades plummeted.

My life was a shambles, and I was on the verge of not being able to graduate high school. I knew that I needed help, but I didn’t know how to ask for it. I had lost all of my friends and pushed my entire family away.

My anxiety and depression were unbearable, and I just didn’t want to go on. I was in complete despair, lost in the world, and lost in my addiction

‘Be Kind To Yourself’

When I was 17, I attempted to take my own life; I couldn’t see any other way out. I thank God every day that I survived and got a new lease of life. I entered an outpatient dual diagnosis treatment center;that summer, where I learned about addiction and began to heal.

Through the support of AA and everyone around me, I could start to put my life back together as a young person in sobriety. I could not have done this without the strong women of AA who took me in and loved me until I could love myself.

I began working with a sponsor, who took me through the 12 steps of the program. Through prayer and meditation, I found that I was able to move forward.

In time, my addiction — and the anxiety and depression that I had been fighting my entire life — was lifted. I finally felt happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit for the first time in my life.”

That following school year, I was able to finish my senior year of high school and was accepted into college. I went on to earn my bachelors in Elementary Education and have been teaching first grade for 6 years now, all in sobriety.

I do not want to say that any of it was easy, especially getting sober at such a young age, but it was all so worth it.

My passion in life now is to help others — especially teenagers struggling with addiction issues — and to show them that there is another way. Self-love and -acceptance have been key for me; I learned to stop putting so much pressure on myself and comparing myself with others.

It is so important to be kind to ourselves, and although we all fall short sometimes, being able to pick ourselves up and move forward is what defines who we are and ultimately what makes us stronger.

The only thing you need to strive for is to be a better you each day.

The post My Adderall Addiction & Recovery appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Daddy’s Home: Life After Prison

From Jon Schuppe @ NBC: Edward Douglas is among the first prisoners freed by the First Step Act, rescued from a life sentence for crack cocaine and now navigating a changed world.

Hours before a federal jury was to decide his fate on a crack cocaine charge, Edward Douglas saw five of his nine children off to school outside Chicago. He gave one money for a field trip and told them all he loved them.

“I’ll see you later,” Douglas said.

He made that promise on Feb. 27, 2003, the day the jury convicted him. He repeated the promise four months later after he was sentenced to life in prison, even though it seemed futile.

Earlier this month, after nearly 16 years behind bars, he finally fulfilled it.

On Jan. 10, a federal judge ordered Douglas released from prison. He’s one of the first inmates freed under a new federal law that eases drug sentences for federal inmates, including many, like Douglas, serving decades for selling small amounts of crack.

His two sisters picked him up at the federal penitentiary in Pekin, Illinois, that afternoon, after dark. He stepped through the prison doors in a shirt, sweatpants and gym shoes. His sisters saw him from their car and began running to him. He hurried them back. “We can do all the hugging and kissing in the car,” he told them. “Let’s get off this property.”

They drove three hours to his mother’s home on Chicago’s South Side, stopping once, for chicken at Popeyes. After receiving word, several of his children, including some he’d last seen on the morning he was convicted, drove to the house together. They burst inside and swarmed him.

“They all came in at the same time, kids, grandkids, and they couldn’t all hug me at the same time so they took their time, crying,” Douglas, 55, recalled. “It was an experience I will take to my grave.”

‘I Knew I Couldn’t Do Life’

Douglas is leading the way for thousands of federal inmates who in the coming weeks and months are expected to petition for early release under the landmark law, called the First Step Act.

The measure, passed in December, is the result of a rare bipartisan effort by Congress to change the federal government’s harsh drug sentencing statutes. It eases mandatory-minimum prison sentences for drug offenders and gives well-behaved inmates incentives to earn “good time” credits toward early release.

That provision makes about 2,660 federal inmates who were sentenced for crack-related crimes before 2010 eligible for early release, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent federal agency. A small segment, perhaps a few dozen, are like Douglas, given life terms for selling small amounts of crack because they fell under the federal “three strikes” law for repeat offenders.

Douglas, then a maintenance worker for the Chicago Transit Authority, was arrested in 2001 for selling 140 grams of crack to a federal informant in central Illinois. He had never been to prison, but he did have two prior convictions for possessing small amounts of drugs. When Douglas refused to plead guilty to the crack charge, prosecutors sought a life sentence under the “three strikes” statute. Believing he would beat the charge, Douglas went to trial and was convicted.

For as long as he could, Douglas kept the full truth of his punishment from his children. He never revealed his life sentence, instead telling them he’d be home soon, while leaving the timeline vague. They didn’t press him. Eventually, the kids moved with family members from Chicago to Mississippi, keeping in touch in phone calls, birthday notes, Christmas cards. He ended them all by saying he’d see them later.

“I couldn’t do no life sentence,” he recalled thinking. “I had kids, a mother. I didn’t know how long I was going to be in there, but I knew I couldn’t do life.”

Then he told himself: “I need to go to the library to figure out my way out of here.”

‘My Daddy’s Home’

Douglas filed multiple appeals and applied for clemency from President Barack Obama, failing each time. He had few options left when MiAngel Cody, a founder of The Decarceration Collective, a Chicago-based legal firm that works to undo America’s reliance on mass imprisonment, came across his file in 2017. Cody was reading stacks of court cases looking for compelling stories and was taken by the seeming unfairness of Douglas’s sentence.

Cody was also drawn to the letters she found from his mother, Vera Douglas, begging in vain for the judge to reconsider the sentence and set her son free.

“I know there is some bad in all of us but your Honor, there is not enough bad for my son to do life in prison,” she wrote in 2006.

Vera Douglas served as her son’s steadiest connection to his life before prison. They rarely went more than a couple of days without speaking by phone, and she made the three-hour drive from Chicago to Pekin several times a year until health problems forced her to stop in 2017.

After Cody found Edward Douglas’ case, she called Vera, who put her in touch with her son. Cody offered to represent him for free.

The Decarceration Collective also put his story on its website as part of a larger campaign to advocate for the release of people serving life sentences in federal prison. As the First Step Act gained momentum in Congress in 2018, the lawyers hoped Douglas’ story would be noticed by lawmakers considering whether to support the bill.

Congress passed the First Step Act on Dec. 20, and President Trump signed it the next day. On Jan. 7, Douglas’ lawyers filed a motion for his release. Prosecutors said they wouldn’t fight it, and a judge ordered him released three days later.

Douglas’ children — who ranged from toddlers to teenagers when he was sent away — are now 17 to 30. Over time, they gradually realized the full truth of their father’s life sentence, though they never confronted him about it. Now the father they’d known mainly through phone calls and letters has finally showed up in person.

“I was in that child’s mindset: ‘My daddy’s home,’” one of his daughters, Shanice Douglas, 24, recalled of the reunion this month. “Nothing else really mattered.”

Another daughter, Shanitha Douglas, 29, said her family’s faith sustained their belief that Douglas would one day come home.

“God says every man will be free, and he felt he was one of those men,” Shanitha said.

Vera Douglas, a Christian minister, said that when her son walked into her home, she “jumped into his arms and lay my head on his shoulder and cried like a baby.” For days afterward, the joy would suddenly rush over her.

“I just sit up and think about it and I just cry,” she said.

‘Other Guys Are Waiting’

The homecoming, while ecstatic, also marked the start of another difficult journey.

Douglas left prison with nothing but the clothes he was wearing. His family helped him get a cellphone and showed him how to make a call. Then Douglas set about navigating a familiar but changed city. Returning to the South Side, he saw that towering housing projects had been leveled and replaced by townhouses. And he saw construction of the Obama Presidential Center, named for the black president who’d come and gone from office while Douglas was imprisoned.

He immediately began collecting the tools needed to rebuild his life: birth certificate, social security card and state identification card; underwear, socks and a winter coat; street clothes in any color but prison gray and tan. He checked in with a probation officer. He planned trips to courthouses to pay off old traffic fines, the first step toward getting a driver’s license. He ventured onto a city bus, where he struggled to use electronic passes issued by the Chicago Transit Authority. (He hopes to eventually return to work there.) At one point, unable to figure out his cellphone, he asked a transit worker for the nearest pay phone, which didn’t exist.

“I don’t know, I’m just coming home from the penitentiary,” he explained.

He carries the emotional scars of prison, uneasy in crowds, nervous about who is behind him in a restaurant. He remains angry about how long he spent locked up, time missed with his children.

But He Knows He Is Fortunate

He thinks of the inmates he left behind, men who cheered his release and asked him not to forget them. Some are also petitioning for release under the First Step Act.

“This is not just about me,” Douglas said. “I was one of the first ones to get it, but other guys are waiting to get it. It’s the fact that people took the time to fight for this. And I’m not going to mess that up.”

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Anne Hathaway Vows To Stay Sober For Next 18 Years

From Hannah Yasharoff @ USA Today: Anne Hathaway just announced a major goal: She’s planning on staying sober for the next 18 years.

In an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” airing Tuesday, the actress revealed she quit drinking in October. Right before then, she had been touring rum bars while visiting Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar, with her “Serenity” co-star Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves.

“Wow, and how was that?” DeGeneres asked.

“I don’t remember,” Hathaway replied, laughing. “I have no idea.”

She continued: “They’re both cool, and I just can’t drink as much as them. We drank the night away, and then I had to go to a meeting with Steven Knight, our director, the next day, and I was just kinda – have you guys ever had to do a meeting hungover? I was just kinda stumbling in with one eye open and I was trying to convince him about certain things about my character.”

At the end of the meeting, Hathaway confessed she was hungover.

“He just goes, ‘oh, really? I couldn’t tell,’ ” she recalled. “And then two days later we had another meeting and I showed up and he said ‘oh, now I can.’ ”

Since then, Hathaway has decided she’ll stay sober at least until her 2-year-old son, Jonathan, turns 18. She estimated she will stay sober for “18 years.”

“I’m going to stop drinking while my son is in my house just because I don’t totally love the way I do it and he’s getting to an age where he really does need me all the time in the mornings,” Hathaway continued. “I did one school run one day where I dropped him off at school, I wasn’t driving, but I was hungover and that was enough for me. I didn’t love that one.”

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Five Affordable Wellness Vacations

From Amy Tara Koch @ The Washington Post: Detox vacations, the fancy kind with greens-infused menus, structured fitness programming and extravagant spa treatments, can set you back thousands of dollars. Happily, you don’t need to visit a luxury resort to purify the body and recharge the spirit. You can arrange a DIY wellness getaway by booking a reasonably priced hotel in a mild-weather location with outdoor recreation, healthy eateries and quality day spas for a similar feel-good outcome. Here is a set of destinations that can have you feeling Canyon-Ranch-style refreshed at a fraction of the cost.

Los Angeles

It may not be tropical, but “winter” in L.A. still delivers a sun-dappled backdrop for a get-fit holiday. The Kimpton Everly Hotel (starting rate, $299) is tucked into the Hollywood Hills with easy access to two popular areas for hikes — Runyon Canyon and Griffith Park (where a couple of treks take you close to the Hollywood Sign). Also challenging are the Santa Monica Steps, a beachfront hot spot where hard-bodied locals sprint up and down two sets of stairs, one wooden, one concrete. For hot yoga, join chiseled Angelenos at sleek, cedar paneled Sweatheory in Hollywood, where, after class, guests imbibe CBD-infused tea (there are also probiotic shots and IV drips) and then hop into the space’s infrared sauna. L.A.’s results-driven spa services are renown. Two to try: the Moroccan Earth Body Cocktail, a lemony sugar scrub and rose clay wrap, at Ole Henricksen in West Hollywood; and the Green Coffee Body Sculpting treatment, a circulation-boosting skin brushing with chili and coffee-laced oil, followed by massage, at the Organic Pharmacy in Beverly Hills.

Plant-based, locavore-leaning eating is SoCal’s lifeblood. Urth Caffe (multiple locations) is the go-to salad spot, while Cafe Gratitude (multiple locations), with its amusing menu of cliched Cali jargon (an “evolved” bibimbap bowl, the “vivid” acai superfood bowl), hits all of clean eating’s high notes. If ever a restaurant could be categorized as sexy vegan, it’s Crossroads Kitchen, the hipster-filled West Hollywood spot by Chef Tal Ronnen (who famously prepared meals for Oprah’s 21-Day Cleanse), where small plates such as “crab cakes” of hearts of palm and horseradish aioli underscore how innovative meatless meals can be.

Honolulu

Balmy Hono­lulu is a detox paradise. Stay at Surfjack (rates start at $187), a vintage-feeling boutique hotel (perk: complimentary bikes). It’s just a 10-minute walk from Waikiki Beach, where you can rent SUPs and sign up for surf classes.

Scenic hiking abounds. Diamond Head Crater is biking distance from the hotel and offers a steep trek of just under a mile from the inside of the crater to the rim. A bit farther away is the Koko Crater Railway Trail, which requires climbing more than 1,000 steps made of timeworn wooden railway ties. The reward in both cases: panoramic views. Avoid the crowds and the heat and go early. Less strenuous is the Makiki Valley Loop Trail under a canopy of trees with exotic birds and lush foliage. For a traditional Hawaiian healing treatment, skip the strip mall spas and head to Kailua, a pristine oceanfront stretch in eastern Oahu, where lomi lomi massage is expertly administered (owner Eri Virden has been massaging the Obamas for over a decade) from Lomi Lomi Hana Lima, a tiny wooden bungalow oozing with local charm.

For vegan fare with flair, head to the Mccully–Moiliili neighborhood of Honolulu for Peace Cafe’s global take on roots and grains, which is ideal for lunch. Vegan Hills in Kaimuki serves up sophisticated plant-based pates, “sushi” with carrot-like salmon and tempura “cauli-wings” in an all-white room. Straight-from-the Pacific poke is omnipresent. Try Fresh Catch in Kaimuki or Maguro Brothers in Chinatown for budget friendly bowls.

Napa Valley, California

Sure, Napa is a mecca for wine aficionados. But, its rolling hills and farm-to-table bounty make it a prime setting to recharge. The Mayacamas and Vaca Mountain ranges are ringed with hiking trails, such as those in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park, where you walk beneath towering redwood and firs; in Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, where you can hike five miles to the summit of 4,343-foot Mount Saint Helena; and in Skyline Wilderness Park, with 25 miles of trails through mossy oak forests.

For biking as well as walking, there is a 47-mile, car-free system called the Napa Valley Vine Trail. Mud baths and hot springs are another draw. Thanks to prehistoric volcanic activity, geothermally heated water percolates throughout the lost-in-time town of Calistoga. Sign on for “The Works” at old-school Dr. Wilkinson’s Hot Springs Resort and enjoy a mud bath, facial and massage. With the purchase of a mud bath at Calistoga Spa Hot Springs, guests can relax all day at the property’s outdoor geothermal pools.

Napa’s celebration of local growers and seasonality is on display at Oxbow Public Market, a 22-vendor downtown marketplace with full-service restaurants and casual dining options (artisan pizza, sushi, gluten-free enchiladas) for picnics or eating on site.

Charleston, S.C.

With its ubiquitous shrimp and grits, Charleston is probably not top of mind when considering a wellness-focused getaway. But this coastal city has an alter ego that’s both sporty and health conscious. The pedestrian-friendly, palm-tree-fringed historic district is the place to stay, specifically in one of the restored 19th-century residences turned hotels. The 16-room Zero George (starting rate, $269) is close to all the downtown highlights. Its three revamped Federal style buildings — boasting verandas and a shared lush interior courtyard — delivers a modern iteration of Lowcountry charm. From here, you can visit shops and cafes while admiring the antebellum homes.

There may not be mountains, but biking to and from beaches, over bridges and through Spanish-moss-lacquered parks will get your blood pumping. Hampton Park is a 60-acre, gazebo-speckled oasis with a fitness trail popular with cyclists. To bike to the sea, cycle over the cable-stayed Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge to Sullivans Island, a windswept barrier island with an expansive beach. Other ways to experience South Carolina’s charms while working out: kayaking through the salt marches with Charleston Outdoor Adventures and on-the-water SUP Yoga classes and eco paddleboard tours with Be Ocean Fit on the Isle of Palms. To decompress, sign on for a lymphatic massage at Earthling Day Spa downtown.

For food, minus the ham hocks, stop into Butcher & Bee in the stylish “NoMo” district of Charleston for Mediterranean style salads and toasts, Basic Kitchen downtown for veggie studded rice bowls and Beech, also downtown, for heaping acai and poke bowls.

Montego Bay, Jamaica

If floating in the Caribbean Sea is part of your detox dream, easy-to-get-to Jamaica fits the bill. The elegant 400-acre Half Moon Resort in Montego Bay is pricey (rates start at $459), but the convenience of having fitness classes (yoga, meditation, spin), extensive watersports and an equestrian center (a highlight is riding into the sea on horseback), plus an on-the-water spa at your disposal (tennis, nonmotorized watersports and breakfast are complimentary) might be a worthwhile splurge.

To hike, you’ll have to drive 1.5 hours southeast to Cockpit Country, acres of other worldly wilderness replete with waterfalls, mossy hillock and limestone caves. A local guide is essential. A full-day excursion with Cockpit Country Adventure Tours involves outdoor hiking through the dense foliage and spelunking in stalagmite-filled Rock Spring Cave.

Healthy eating veers exotic — and affordable — in Montego Bay. Sit in a rustic, beachfront hut at Sky Beach Bar and Grill for just-caught seafood to accompany the water from your just-plucked coconut. Scotchies is an institution for classic, no-frills Jamaican jerk cooking. Eat its zestily prepared chicken, pork or fish with roasted breadfruit under a thatched umbrella alongside locals. What is lacks in charm (it’s in a strip mall), Wright Life Live Eatery makes up for with a robust vegan menu.

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‘Happiness’ Exercises Can Boost Mood In Those Recovering From Substance Use Disorder

From Science Daily:

Brief, text-based, self-administered exercises can significantly increase in-the-moment happiness for adults recovering from substance use disorders, report researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Recovery Research Institute. The study, published online in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, is the first of its kind to test whether positive psychology exercises boost happiness in persons recovering from substance use.

“Addiction scientists are increasingly moving beyond the traditional focus on reducing or eliminating substance use by advocating treatment protocols that encompass quality of life. Yet orchestrated positive experiences are rarely incorporated into treatment for those with substance use disorders,” says lead author Bettina B. Hoeppner, PhD, senior research scientist at the Recovery Research Institute.

Through a randomized, online survey, more than 500 adults who reported current or previous problematic substance use were assigned one of five short, text-based exercises that took an average of four minutes to complete. Participants reported the greatest gains in happiness after completing an exercise called “Reliving Happy Moments,” in which they selected one of their own photos that captured a happy moment and entered text describing what was happening in the picture.

An exercise called “Savoring,” in which participants described two positive experiences they noticed and appreciated during the preceding day, led to the next highest gains in happiness, followed by “Rose, Thorn, Bud,” in which they listed a highlight and a challenge of the preceding day and a pleasure they anticipated the following day. Conversely, “3 Hard Things,” in which participants were asked to write about challenges they had faced during the preceding day, led to a significant decrease in happiness.

The authors note that the ease of use and effectiveness of these positive psychology exercises suggest they may be promising tools for bolstering happiness during treatment, which may help support long-term recovery.

“These findings underscore the importance of offsetting the challenges of recovery with positive experiences,” says Hoeppner, an associate professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “Recovery is hard, and for the effort to be sustainable, positive experiences need to be attainable along the way.”

The post ‘Happiness’ Exercises Can Boost Mood In Those Recovering From Substance Use Disorder appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Find Peace With ROR’s Recovery Activity Book

Living with addiction and family dysfunction are unmanageable. Without recovery, we often have no peace and no solutions to restore family harmony. Recovery brings peace to hopeless situations. While many find this peace an hour at a time in meetings or counseling, ROR’s new recovery activity book lets them find peace at home and on the go.  Here are just a few of our favorite pages:

Who Needs This Activity Book?

Approximately 23 million Americans are in some form of recovery, and this is tremendous news. Millions of Americans are not drinking and drugging when they used to. Millions of Americans are finding peace, healthy ways to communicate, and solve problems.

Unfortunately, only one out of 10 people who need recovery have found it, and they need tools to make their recovery stronger. The other 9 out of 10 need to see what they CAN DO in recovery instead of what they can’t.

Families Need Recovery Too

“Recovery isn’t a spectator sport. Eventually the whole family gets to play.” Addiction is a family disease that affects generations long after the substance abuse has stopped. When one member of the family suffers, everyone hurts. Recovery is also for the husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings, partners, grandparents, and friends. This activity book helps translate the new recovery lifestyle into terms the entire family can understand. We call this recovery literacy.

Bringing cultural change to our communities so people can understand, find peace, and yes, experience the fun of recovery is imperative.  How do we further this message? We provide new messages and tools using techniques that work.

What Actually Works In Recovery?

Most treatment programs include 12 step principles in group settings and journaling for self awareness. Many programs also include coloring pleasant scenes or mandalas for peace and serenity.

ROR blended all three tools together in an activity book like no other. Find Your True Colors in 12 Steps has 51 gorgeous pages to color, the 12 steps in simple terms to promote deeper understanding, and 17 writing prompts with pages for journaling.

Why Add Art Therapy?

“According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is a mental health profession in which the process of making and creating artwork is used to “explore feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety and increase self-esteem.” So basically, it’s similar to good old therapy. Yet art therapy is not only about learning and improving yourself — it’s a means of personal expression, too.”

Hence, this activity book combines art and recovery tools to solidify recovery.

Why This Recovery Activity Book Works

Find Your True Colors has 70 pages of soothing coloring and reflection. These scenes are perfect for people who desperately need safe, enjoyable, and convenient activities to keep their minds occupied and thinking about recovery, not relapse.
Following the steps with coloring helps process recovery lessons using principles that promote growth and healing. We’ve also included popular recovery tools and slogans.
Journaling thoughts and feelings promotes self expression.
This book teaches recovery literacy. The whole family can learn a safer way to talk about tense subjects.

Beautiful Second Edition Has Arrived

Our first printing of this activity book sold out. Now, the 2nd edition of Find Your True Colors has arrived in the ROR office.

We can’t wait for you to experience the pleasure of a book that your family, friends, sponsees, and clients will treasure forever.

Click here to order your copy today!

For those who want to order a set for your entire group, we do offer a group discount. Give us a call to learn more: 941.366.0870.

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Eight Addiction Myths

From Psychology Today:

Even modern revisionist harm-reduction addiction specialist miss the forest for the trees.

Harm reduction treatments and strategies like long-term MAT and reducing painkiller prescriptions have been accepted across the board, from the AMA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other leading addiction-as-disease advocates to prominent harm reduction groups.

Yet these so-called harm reduction approaches have failed to stem the tide of drug deaths. Their failure is because they identify and address addiction as a brain disease to be treated medically. There is no sign that the failure of this perspective is causing or will cause any prevailing actors to change their thinking. They simply can’t.

In my recent presentations, I have begun by warning audiences that I will undercut all of their fundamental beliefs about addiction — but that if that prospect seemed alarming, they shouldn’t worry. They wouldn’t change their thinking no matter what evidence I presented, even if the consequences of their not doing so took the form of continuing spiraling drug death rates.

I began speaking in Galway before the Western (Ireland) Region Drug and Alcohol Task Force by establishing four criteria on which to decide the truths of addiction: common-sense logic, evidence, personal experience, and meaning. I then confronted eight myths about addiction imported largely from the U.S.

Myth I: Opioids Are the Lone Cause of Opioid Addiction

I asked the group of 180 people whether any of them had ever taken a painkiller. Virtually every person in the audience raised their hand. I then asked if any of them had become addicted. No one raised their hand.

“Isn’t that remarkable?” I asked. “Opioids are the sine qua non of addiction. Experts like Sam Quinones in his bestseller Dreamland detail how the opioid molecule envelops the receptors in the brain and nervous system, trapping even the most resilient people in addiction. Yet not one person here who was exposed to this molecule became addicted. WHY didn’t you become addicted?”

I got less of a response – none – than I had hoped for. I prodded further: “Isn’t the question of who becomes addicted, and under what circumstances, the fundamental question we need to ask? Do you have no ideas about why none of you became addicted?”

One man finally said, “I stopped taking the painkiller when my pain went away.”

“You mean people quit using painkillers when they no longer feel pain?” I reacted, with mock incredulity.

That was all I got. Later, my host at the conference, Liam O’Loughlin, told me over dinner how he had badly hurt his hand, but stopped taking the powerful opioid and anti-inflammatory he had been given after just three days. “I didn’t like becoming groggy at two in the afternoon.” In other words, he had other matters to attend to with which narcosis interfered, and therefore he wasn’t inclined to savor the drugs’ effects.

Back to my interacting with the audience, I asked, “So why, then, do you believe opioids are special agents of addiction to which everyone must succumb?  After all, not you nor anybody you know – if this audience is typical of your acquaintances – became addicted when they consumed an opioid.”

I offered the audience my one-word explanation for their resistance to opioid addiction – their “connectedness.” They had too many points of contact with life to allow them to sink under the drug’s effects; instead, they found ballast from the world around them to hold to their life course.

Myth II: People Can’t Quit Addictions On Their Own

I then asked the group to name the most difficult substance addiction to quit. They (correctly) shouted “tobacco” or “smoking.”

“Has anyone here quit smoking?”

From a third to 40 percent of the audience – 60 to 70 people – raised their hands.

“How many of you relied on a medical treatment – like Chantix or a nicotine gum or patch – to quit?”

Three or four people raised their hands – say five percent of quitters.

There was the usual grumbling that cigarettes are not “really” addictive, reversing decades of addictionology history because they aren’t mind-altering. In fact, on the evidence provided by the massive NESARC study of recovery from substance dependence, smoking was the least likely and slowest to remit:

Lifetime cumulative probability estimates of dependence remission were 83.7% for nicotine, 90.6% for alcohol, 97.2% for cannabis, and 99.2% for cocaine. Half of the cases of nicotine, alcohol, cannabis and cocaine dependence remitted approximately 26, 14, 6 and 5 years after dependence onset,

“Given that smoking is the hardest substance addiction to quit, haven’t you just disproved in your own lives the two basic received opinions about addiction; first that opioids are irresistibly addictive, and in this instance that treatment is required to overcome addiction?”

Myth III: America is the Leading Edge in Thinking About and Dealing With Addiction

“The reason I ask these questions is that ideas you have about addiction, which come largely from America, control your thinking. Yet how well would you say that we in the U.S. are doing vis-a-vis addiction?”

I then presented the NIDA’s chart of drug deaths in America through 2017: As I summarized: ”Last year, deaths from every major class of drug peaked in the U.S.: that’s synthetic opioids, heroin, natural opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine. In fact, they left out another major category of drug for which that was true: benzodiazepines.”

Myth IV: Pill-Pushing Is Still Causing the Current Drug Epidemic in America

“Why did this occur? Before answering that, please note that deaths began skyrocketing in 2012-13. Do you know what has happened to painkiller prescriptions since that time? They’ve plummeted.”

Three people then gave the same explanation for this unhalting rise in drug fatalities – the go-to-one in America – “drug companies are pushing pain pills and doctors are overprescribing them.”

I responded, skeptically, “Overprescription of opioids accounts for why the number of prescriptions has fallen dramatically, and yet drug deaths of all types have accelerated – really?”

Finally, one woman answered that people were turning to street drugs when they failed to get prescribed painkillers.

I answered that this was a logical and true answer, since getting drugs on the street was always more deadly than taking drugs under medical supervision. But I added that this was not a sufficient explanation for drug deaths due to everything from stimulants to the whole array of depressant-analgesic drugs rising in lockstep.

Myth V: Public Health and Addiction Groups Are Driven By Bottom-Line Success in Attacking Addiction

But return to my claim that no one would change their minds due to logic, evidence, experience, and the lack of efficacy of our efforts to curtail drug addiction and death, as indeed my audience wasn’t prepared to do.

So what of policy-makers? I quoted the head of the AMA’s task force on opioids, Dr. Patrice Harris.

Reckoning that between 2013 and 2017, there was a 22% decrease in opioid prescriptions nationwide, Dr. Harris noted that, “While this progress report shows physician leadership and action to help reverse the epidemic [by limiting prescriptions], more than 115 people in the United States die daily from an opioid-related cause.”

In other words, doctors were doing wonderfully, although opioid and other drug deaths continued to surge. The clear path forward based on Dr. Harris’s remarks was for physicians to redouble their efforts to curtail painkiller prescriptions.

How could I fault my audience for their unwillingness to accept logic, evidence, experience, and lack of efficacy as spurs to reconceive addiction and how we respond to it when the leading medical body in America refuses to do so?

Myth VI: All People Are Equally Susceptible to Drug Addiction

I then turned to a popular myth brought over to Ireland in a reverse migration: that addiction is “an equal opportunity destroyer.” This is the fantasy that the socioeconomically well-off become addicted to opioids as readily as the poor and disenfranchised do.

I cited a comprehensive study by West Virginia’s health commissioner, Dr. Rahul Gupta, who examined every drug fatality in his state, one that leads the country in opioid deaths by a wide margin.  Gupta found a shockingly prevalent template for such deaths: “If you’re a male between the ages of 35 to 54, with less than a high school education, you’re single and you’ve worked in a blue-collar industry, you pretty much are at a very, very high risk of overdosing.”

I asked the group what it meant that those dying were nearly always older rather than younger: “Are these fatalities due to drug overdose, which would be more likely for young and naive users? This profile instead tells us that those who are dying are isolated people on the underside of society who are suffering long declines in spiritual and physical health.”

In fact, other data sources have highlighted this deep association between drug deaths and social class and education, to wit: “deaths have grown increasingly more concentrated among those with lower levels of education, particularly among non-Hispanic whites.”

“Why,” I then asked, “do we insist on ignoring this profile? Because doing so allows us to believe the first myth, that drugs themselves cause addiction, which has the side advantage of removing for society any need to examine and to improve the conditions of the lives of people most susceptible to addiction and death. And, frankly, we don’t seem to care that much if these people die. We worry only about our own.”

The easy solution we seek instead of facing reality is to label addiction a medical problem. The one thing I and two distinguished speakers also presenting to the group – Dr. Shane Butler, sociology professor emeritus at Trinity University and Pauline McKeown, CEO of Coolmine TC in Dublin – were unified around was that any treatment for addiction must embody a holistic approach that attends to the human essentials of health, housing, purpose (as through education and work), and community. And it is these things that my online Life Process Program for addiction addresses.

By not doing so, and instead focusing on some imagined brain mechanism to account for addiction, one that neuroscience not only has failed to find but that research indicates cannot possibly exist, we have lost any chance of helping the most susceptible populations.

Myth VII: MAT is the Solution to Drug-Related Mortality

Which returns us to the subservience of even supposedly radical drug policy reformers who buy the medical model hook, line, and sinker – most notably in proposing MAT, medicine-assisted treatment, as a remedy for addiction. MAT replaces street opioids for illicit drug users with prescribed Suboxone, buprenorphine, or methadone.

And while it is true that people maintained medically on narcotics are less likely to die, this substitution in no way addresses their addictions, leaving them perpetually vulnerable to relapse and drug crises when they depart from their medical drug regimens.

In fact, drug reformers and mainstream agencies now argue that MAT would end our drug crisis were it not, they claim, for the unfortunate difficulty of administering MAT in rural settings. Nonetheless, according to a study of ten leading opioids, “prescription opioid use peaked in 2011 and has declined rapidly since then. . . But buprenorphine bucked the trend by being the only opioid that showed an increase.”

And it is the largest American cities — which are most thoroughly served with MAT options – that are experiencing the greatest rise in opioid deaths (in this case due to heroin and fentanyl, et al.), thus balancing the findings of Gupta and others that the opioid epidemic is concentrated in poor white regions of the U.S. With both vulnerable populations, black and white, dismal failure is the constant companion of our “best” efforts in the addiction field.

Myth VIII: A Medical Approach to Addiction is Effective Because it Removes Human Agency As a Factor

I ended my talk by noting, “Underlying a recovery model based on health, home, purpose and community – a model created through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) surveying mental health and addiction researchers — is the crucial, essential role of personal agency: ‘Recovery is person-driven. Self-determination and self-direction are the foundations for recovery as individuals define their own life goals and design their unique path(s) towards those goals.’”

And nothing refutes personal agency like the so-called medical model that addiction is a disease invading from outside the person, a point of view propounded for decades by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Standing for the government position through Democratic and Republican administrations, the NIDA defines addiction “as a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking … It is considered a brain disorder.” This too is the view on which the leading drug reform organizations now base their own “best” practices, such as MAT. And no one in a power or policy advocacy position in the U.S. seems to notice, or care about, the negative consequences of this approach.

Contra the NIDA, addiction is a disorder of the lives and lived experience of human beings, the remedy for which is that people must develop a sense of personal agency within a supportive setting and community.  Unless and until we recognize and approach addiction in this light, we will never reverse its lethal hold on America and its most vulnerable citizens.

In the December 4 issue of NYRB, Harvard Medical School faculty and former editor-in-chief of NEJM, Marcia Angell, addressed America, “Opioid Nation.” Angell reviewed four books, Pain Killer, Dope Sick, American Overdose, and American Fix. She found all of them inadequate to the task of explaining America’s 2017 72,000 plus drug deaths – the first three because their “pill pusher” account (Myth IV) fails, and the fourth because it relies on the author’s addictive “disease” as an explanation. (Let it be noted that Angell is a critic of the pharmaceutical industry.)

Angell is especially concerned to refute the idea that drug availability, rather than the demand for drugs among disillusioned whites, is the cause of our epidemic (Myth VI). Instead, she believes “As long as this country tolerates the chasm between the rich and the poor, and fails even to pretend to provide for the most basic needs of our citizens, such as health care, education, and child care, some people will want to use drugs to escape.”

This is a critical insight that America misses – “to end the epidemic of deaths of despair, we need to target the sources of the despair.” But Angell too embodies many of the myths of addiction. She considers drug use itself – as universal as it is – to be the result of despair (Myth I). This is no truer than saying drinking alcohol, shopping, playing video games or using mobile phones, sex, or love are signs of despair.

Addiction, not its various manifestations in activities that may or may not be used addictively, is a sign of despair.

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Researchers See Possible Link Between Opioids, Birth Defect

From The Chicago Tribune:

Health officials are looking into a possible link between prescription opioids and a horrific birth defect.

When a baby is born with its intestines hanging outside the stomach, due to a hole in the abdominal wall, it’s called gastroschisis. Most are repaired through surgery.

Roughly 1,800 such cases are seen in the U.S. each year, but the number has been rising and officials don’t know why.

The condition seems to occur more often when the mom is a teenager or was smoking or drinking alcohol early in pregnancy, researchers have noted.

But a study released Thursday noted cases were 60 percent more common in counties that had the highest overall opioid prescription rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study focused on 20 states.

The study did not see if each mother had been taking opioids, and it does not say opioids caused the birth defects. But it echoes earlier research that found a higher risk of birth defects when moms took opioid painkillers like oxycodone just before or early in pregnancy.

Also Thursday, the CDC’s director and two other agency officials wrote a commentary in the journal Pediatrics urging more study of the possible connection between opioids and birth defects.

“The report sounds an early alarm for the need to increase our public health surveillance on the full range of fetal, infant, and childhood outcomes potentially related to these exposures,” wrote CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield and his two co-authors.

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A Growing Number of People Are Trading Their Pain Meds for Weed, Study Finds

From Men’s Health:

As more states legalize marijuana, a new study shows that many patients are choosing medical cannabis to supplement or even replace pharmaceutical drugs.

The study comes from the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, which surveyed 450 adults who identified as current cannabis users. Among those surveyed, 78 percent said they used cannabis to treat a medical or health condition.

As the study notes, people use medical weed for a wide variety of health issues, including chronic pain, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, menstrual cramps, and headaches. It’s also used to mitigate the adverse effects of chemotherapy, and to alleviate nausea in HIV-AIDS patients.

Nearly half of those users—42 percent—said they’d completely stopped taking a pharmaceutical drug, while 38 percent cut back their use of one because of using medical marijuana. Users reported trusting medical cannabis more than mainstream health care, rating weed better than pharmaceuticals on effectiveness, side effects, availability, and cost. Also, nearly a third of respondents (30 percent) said their doctor or healthcare provider didn’t know they were using medical marijuana.

The authors note how little was previously known about the mindsets of medical marijuana users, writing that, “Given the state of the science of medicinal cannabis, even basic information about users’ attitudes and behaviors would be helpful.” The results suggest that medical cannabis users trust the plant more than they do pharmaceuticals, and are finding enough relief using it that many have moved away from other drugs. At the same time, many are not sharing that decision with their healthcare providers.

Understanding these attitudes, the authors say, will be essential to shaping policy. As more states legalize (while marijuana remains prohibited at the federal level), the questions around medical marijuana will only get more tangled.

“Given the growing use of cannabis for medical purposes and the widespread use for recreation purposes despite criminalization,” Daniel Kruger, a study co-author, said in a statement, “the current public health framework focusing primarily on cannabis abstinence appears obsolete.” With people using weed to improve their health—even as they turn away from pharmaceuticals, “just say no” is no longer useful advice.

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