Leslie Glass's Blog, page 357

11 Step Breakup Survival Plan

There are many kinds of recovery and addiction. If you have an addiction to a person and the relationship ends not by your choice, you need a breakup survival plan. We happen to have one. Your first goal is to get through it with your power still yours, your integrity still solid, and with love and forgiveness rather than hate and anger in your heart. Love works better than duct tape to put the broken pieces of your heart back together. Furthermore, this is not the time to develop an addiction to any substance to feel better.

Breakup Survival Plan

If you are on the receiving end of a cheating partner, lover, husband, you need useable tactics and techniques to get you through this horrible loss of trust (and relationship if you choose to go, or your partner chooses to leave you). The longer the relationship lasted, the more in depth and detailed the recovery may be.

Warning. If you suffer from an addiction, the breakup of a relationship puts you in danger of losing control of any improvement towards addiction-free life you had acquired. People often use their current addiction substance to help them through this tough emotional process to put salve on a violent wound. And it would be the first go-to for an addict, and a dangerous one!  Spurned lovers want, desire, need something to help them. “Beam me up Scotty” won’t work.

So, let’s look at what I have found to be helpful to get you through to the other side of the fresh new Hell. Understand the breakup survival plan has no specific order, and many tips both overlap and share qualities with each other.

The First 24-48 Hours

This is the hardest time, maybe. Call in any and all friends and coping mechanisms. And for those suffering with addiction, struggling to “use” is hardest right now. Call upon your sponsors if you have one, go to meetings, ask for help, resist the urge to numb your brain and heart with drugs. Do whatever you can that is socially and legally acceptable, but that does not send out bad energy. Some people like to get out the bad energy by throwing and breaking things. Not only do you have one heck of a mess to clean up afterwards, but it is counterproductive in so many ways. Buy a dart board. You might just get good enough to enter and win a contest. I like to scrub things when I have that much intense and possibly destructive and negative energy.

Screaming, crying, ranting and raving seems to be universal. Let it out, and then if necessary repeat until it is all spent. Some people can’t eat at times like these, while others sit down with a container of ice cream and a spoon. Invite your best friend and get two spoons so that he/she can impart some calming and loving words of advice. Keep busy and try to get some rest. I am not advocating more prescription medication here, especially if you have addiction problems, but sometimes in periods of severe grief, a few pills (no more than 5) of something like Ativan, Xanax, or something like Ambien can help you get some rest. And rest is vitally important so you don’t get run down and then, potentially, ill. There are many herbal and homeopathic remedies that might be helpful. A supplement called Theanine 100 mg taken two to three times a day can also help with the stress levels. But short of playing Rip Van Winkle and sleeping until your hair grows to your toes, nothing is going to take the pain away but tincture of time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been good at waiting.

The Five Stages of Grief

The stages, developed by Kubler Ross in her book On Death and Dying, relate to the death of a loved one.They include: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance

You will likely go through these several times, and often in no certain order. While these are normally thought of as pertaining to death, I feel the loss of a relationship is a death of sorts; you have to go on in the world without that person; however, you might have to reconcile the fact that you may still see that person from time to time as you go through life. That also can be very difficult until you are truly beyond the situation.

Consider journaling. Writing down your feelings, the events, the facts, etc. is a great way to get the energy you are feeling out and down in a way that you can use and learn from.

Don’t get stuck in any one stage, and don’t worry if you are not going trough them in order. The key is to get through them, understand the feelings associated with each step, see if you can learn from them, and—most importantly—move on!

Tools

Whether physical or emotional, tools can help here. Just don’t include the pharmaceuticals of your addiction here. Meditation, prayer, yoga, other exercise and other such tools can help you think clearly, get you moving, organize you and keep good energy at play.  If you belong to a religion, go to your “church” and speak to your religious leader. They can help you think about this from a position of forgiveness and love. I firmly believe that forgiveness and love must be the outcome of this kind of living Hell. Send out good energy and when it comes back to you, you will feel blessed. Negative thought and energy do not have a positive outcome for anybody. There are a lot of “self-help” type vehicles that can be useful towards giving you help to analyze the events and feelings you are having. If you can talk to the other person and they are willing to engage in a discussion (a debriefing kind of interaction) of what happened then that is a good thing; this is rare to happen though I have found.

Music and movies/TV are great tools here. Go ahead and play those “somebody done somebody wrong” songs, cry in your beverage of choice, let it out. Then dry those tears and play some good dance tunes. Dance your way around the house until you run out of energy. Don’t watch the Hallmark channel where everybody gets the love they want and they all live happily ever after!! Feel and acknowledge the bad feelings and bad energy and then find a way to dispel it; and of course, in a legally and socially acceptable format! The news and TV are full of bad examples of what people do to each other when they are in the throes of anger and hurt. But then they “wake up” in the early light of day to feel sorrowful, hungover, and maybe in jail!

Emotions

You are going to feel them all. Feel them, look at them, write about them, cry and scream about them. And then send them off with a proverbial kiss and a prayer. You have to be able to love yourself, and for those suffering from an addiction problem, this is the hardest to accomplish. There are so many reasons and psychological issues that cause an addiction, and that is beyond the scope of this article. I’ll repeat it again and again; if you are an addict and you have lost a relationship that you valued and maybe needed, then you are going to need your sponsor and any other agents of help right now. Call on them and use them. Try really hard to stay positive, because negativity is destructive. You’ve already just gone through the negativity of a lost relationship; don’t add to it by sending more negative thoughts out to the universe. It is really hard right now to find a positive, but it’s important that you do. Find a mantra to say to yourself. Here’s one I use: May I be happy; May I feel loved. May all my suffering be healed; May I be at peace.

Friends And Support Systems

I think I covered much of this already, but I cannot stress how important your friends are at a time like this. Use them. They love you. Some day you can repay the favor. They know you best and can provide good counsel.

Therapy

Whether it is with your support groups, or individualized, it can be very helpful. Gaining insight to you and the situation from a third party is unbiased and honest. I’ve mentioned other types above as well, like music, dancing, talking, and journaling.

Trust Issues and Dealing With Your Ex

I’ve combined two here as they are related. If you are able to work out the problem with the ex, that’s good. However, you will have to resolve the trust issues before you can move on. If you caught your ex cheating on you, and you are able to work through it and come back together, the trust issue can make or break the success of a reunion. This requires talking it out at the very least, and possible therapy. If you two go your separate ways, you may have to see each other occasionally unless you move away. Try to be kind and offer a loving friendship, or at least a kind work. Remember, positive energy gives back same as does negative energy.

Goals

I think I have alluded to these in all above, but obviously the main goal is to get through this in one piece, with sanity intact, no broken dishes, and love in your heart for someone you loved very much. You’ll learn something about yourself too, and you can take that forward with you. You may also at some point find yourself in the position of helping someone else through this walk of misery.

Taking Care Of You

This included physical and mental health needs. Staying busy (the last one on the list) is vital to mental health here, I believe. If you can stay busy and focus on a task, then you will be less likely to dwell on the horror you are feeling. You need to eat even when you have no appetite or are so upset that you cannot swallow. Fluids and sugar will keep you going when you can’t eat. Sleep is important, as is exercise; and no, crying yourself to sleep is not considered exercise! Someone I love tells me “one hour, one day at a time”. Sometimes, it’s minute by minute. Get through one day and hope the next day is a bit less painful. I firmly believe that if you come at adversity with love rather than hate and anger, the outcome will be better. Good luck!

So here are the first four steps to get you going forward:

Call on your friends and other support systems for comfort and guidance
Take time to grieve, but not for an open-ended time frame. Set a limit for yourself
Form your analysis of what happened, and then let it go with a kiss to the wind
Allow your normal life’s routine carry you forward, one step in front of the other

And remember, this too shall pass.

 

 

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Single Female Home Safety Tips

Single female and in recovery? Think home safety. In 2017 almost thirty-seven million Americans were living in a single-person household. It is a growing trend for it affords many freedoms such – you get to be the decorator and choose what you’d like to eat for dinner.

If you’ve found recovery from substance use (your own or an abuser), you go to meetings, your financial world is in somewhat of an order, and you no longer have to share a living space with others who put you at risk. The’s one downside, however. You don’t know who has been watching you and your daily activities. Be the one on guard.

Your Home Safety Should Be Your Top Priority

With help from home security experts, we came up with 8 tips to keep you safe in your home no matter who you are, or where you live.

Alarm System

This is the no brainer if you want the alarm to go off, or be tied into a police station. It’s not for everyone, but a wide variety of alarm systems can be purchased either from a security company or from Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon. You name it. You have have a buzzer that goes off when the door or window is open.

Security Camera

A security camera is like having another set of eyes looking out for you while you are away from your home. You know immediately who has been lurking at your front door, and what they were doing there. Security cameras can be purchased at Home Depot or Best Buy, or wherever electronics are sole.

Outdoor Lights With Motion Sensors

Put your invited guest, as well as uninvited guests, in the spotlight when the sun goes down. Motion sensors lights provide that extra security whether someone is standing right at your doorway or whether they are walking around your property. Here’s another option that can be found in your local Home Depot or Lowes.

Smart Doorbell 

Most burglaries happen during the day. High-tech smart doorbells come with live video streaming and remote viewing apps as well as two-way communication that let you see and talk with whomever is at your door. Check out your visitors before opening the door to protect yourself from home invasion or violent attack when you are at home. You no longer need to get up and look through a peephole. These, too, can be found at any store that has products for the home.

Be A Friendly Neighbor 

In the age of high tech and social media we live in, we don’t take the time to get to know our neighbors. Take the time to interact with your neighbors and to introduce yourself to the. You will be able to recognize the people who live in your neighborhood and distinct them from strangers. You would be able to enlist their help in keeping an eye out for suspicious activity on your street or in your building.

Use Backup 

Just because you live alone doesn’t mean that you are on your own when planning your security and safety strategies. Include your friends and family in your plans, inform them about your daily routine and scheduled vacations. Set-up check-ins with designated friend or a family member. And if you plan to meet a repair person you have never met before, invite a friend over for extra security.

Trim The Bushes Back

Your yard is for enjoyment, or maybe to receive a prize or two from the garden club if you happen to be a gardener. It should not afford a hiding place for burglars or criminal elements in your neighborhood. Therefore, keep your trees and bushes neatly trimmed so they don’t obstruct your view, or provide a hiding place.

Secure Your Garage

Often overlooked, the garage is most common entry point to your home. Seasoned criminals now how to hack into your garage door opener. Make sure you don’t leave any areas of your house venerable. If you park your car outside be sure to lock it, for your garage door opener will be resting right on the sun visor for any criminal to use. And lock the door from your garage to your home.

Enjoy every minute of living alone but stay safe and secure and don’t leave your well-being up to chance.

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500,000 Years Of Life Lost In Ohio To Overdose

From Science Daily More than 500,000 years of life expectancy were lost in Ohio during a seven-year period, according to a study conducted by The Ohio Alliance for Innovation in Population Health (OAIPH) — a collaborative initiative formed by Ohio University’s College of Health Sciences and Professions and the University of Toledo’s College of Health and Human Services.

As opioid overdose continues to increase as a cause of preventable mortality in the state, the OAIPH set out to examine how opioid overdose deaths contribute to increased mortality and to shine a light on the effect of the epidemic on the lifespan of Ohioans at the state and county level. “This data gives us a picture of the profound impact of opioid related deaths,” said Rick Hodges, director of OIAPH. “These are people in the prime of life during their most productive years. The data also tells a story about families and communities.”

The years of life lost (YLL) was calculated from data abstracted from the Ohio Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Ohio Death Certificate File for the years 2010-2016. YLL due to premature death were calculated at the state and county level and patterns of opioid overdose mortality were mapped geographically and monitored over time.

A number of key findings stand out in the study:

13,059 Ohioans died from opioid overdose during the 7-year period of study (2010 — 2016).
Opioid overdose accounted for 519,471 YLL from 2010 — 2016. This figure represents over half a million years of life lost to Ohioans due to a preventable cause.
Opioid overdose deaths continue to rise. 140,045 YLL were attributable to opioid overdose in 2016 alone. That year, opioid overdose had the effect of lowering the life expectancy of an average Ohioan by 1.1 years.
Fentanyl related deaths have increased dramatically in recent years from 77 deaths in 2010 to 2,357 in 2016.
Fentanyl was involved in 67 percent of fatal opioid poisonings in 2016 and fentanyl overdose accounted for 96,118 YLL that year alone.

“One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the opioid epidemic is the incredible loss of life as so many young people die of overdoses,” said Randy Leite, dean of the OHIO College of Health and Sciences and Professions. “The years of life lost data paint a picture of the greatest consequence of the epidemic — the loss of so many individuals who could have been productive parents, spouses, workers, and citizens.”

“These numbers are staggering. Ohio University has made a commitment to provide resources to help reverse the rising tide of the opioid epidemic,” added President M. Duane Nellis. “This study is one example of the work that we are accomplishing to meet this important priority.” Nellis recently created the Opioid Task Force, comprised of both community members and University faculty, staff and administrators from the Athens and Regional Campuses, to collectively elevate the impact of the region’s opioid-related initiatives.

Of the Task Force, Nellis said, “We can make significant progress in combatting this epidemic in a concerted, coordinated manner and leverage our collective expertise to save lives and enact real change toward the betterment of our region.”

References:

1. Ohio Death Certificate File. In: Ohio Department of Health BoVS, ed2010 — 2016.

2. Murray CJ, Acharya AK. Understanding DALYs (disability-adjusted life years). Journal of health economics. 1997;16(6):703-730.

3. Struijk EA, May AM, Beulens JW, et al. Development of methodology for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) calculation based on real-life data. PLoS One. 2013;8(9):e74294.

4. Administration USSS. Period Life Table, 2013. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Ohio University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Major Study Of Drinking Will Be Shut Down

From The New York Times:

An investigation at the National Institutes of Health concluded that the $100 million trial had been tainted by funding appeals to the alcohol industry. The extensive government trial was intended to settle an age-old question about alcohol and diet: Does a daily cocktail or beer really protect against heart attacks and stroke?

To find out, the National Institutes of Health gave scientists $100 million to fund a global study comparing people who drink with those who don’t. Its conclusions could have enshrined alcohol as part of a healthy diet.

As it turned out, much of the money for the study came from the alcohol industry. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that officials at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the N.I.H., had solicited that funding from alcohol manufacturers, a violation of federal policy.

On Friday, an advisory panel to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the N.I.H., recommended that the trial be stopped altogether. Shortly afterward, Dr. Collins agreed.

While the advisory group was not asked to determine whether N.I.H. officials violated federal policy, investigators did find that there “was frequent email correspondence” among the staff of the alcohol institute, outside scientists and alcohol industry representatives.

Alcohol industry officials offered input into the design of the trial, the investigators found.

The lead investigator, Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, discussed the methods with alcohol groups by email in August 2014, responding to questions raised by Diageo, Anheuser Busch InBev, and trade groups like the Distilled Spirits Council.

In December 2014, he participated in a conference call discussing the research with a dozen representatives of alcohol companies, the investigators said.

“The early and frequent engagement with industry representatives calls into question the impartiality of the process and thus casts doubt that the scientific knowledge gained from the study would be actionable or believable,” said the advisory committee’s report.

The contacts by staff with industry officials and others took place before the Foundation for the N.I.H., which has the authority to seek donations for government studies, was given permission to raise private funding for the trial.

Investigators also found that officials at the alcohol institute “hid facts” from other staff and from the foundation.

Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University and an early critic of the alcohol study, applauded the N.I.H. for discontinuing the research.

“This ensures that N.I.H.’s research agenda will be determined by scientific merit, not corporate marketing priorities,” he said. “The N.I.H. research portfolio should not be up to the highest corporate bidder.”

In a statement, Dr. Mukamal denied any wrongdoing and said he and his colleagues “stand fully and forcefully behind the scientific integrity” of the trial.

“We are deeply disappointed that issues raised have led to a recommendation to end the trial and negate the extraordinary efforts of its participants, investigators, scientific and ethics review boards, and many dedicated staff members,” he wrote.

Officials at the alcohol institute lobbied beer and liquor companies to help fund the $100-million trial, The Times reported in March. Scientists were flown to industry meetings where they described the proposed trial and suggested that the results would support moderate drinking.

N.I.H. policy prohibits employees from soliciting, suggesting or requesting donations, funds or other resources to support the institutes’ activities. After The Times revealed the industry’s financial interests in the study, Dr. Collins ordered an internal investigation into whether that policy had been violated.

He also asked a working group of his advisory committee to review the scientific merits of the government trial. That study, called M.A.C.H., was already underway, but enrollment of volunteers was suspended on May 10.

Anheuser Busch InBev, one of the five industry sponsors, pulled its $15 million in funding from the study last week, saying the controversy had undermined the trial’s credibility.

The international study, a 10-year-long randomized clinical trial that aimed to recruit 7,800 participants at 16 sites around the world, is the kind of ambitious, broad-reaching scientific project that few agencies other than the N.I.H. could attempt.

Carried out under the auspices of the alcohol institute and led by Dr. Mukamal, the study was to examine the effects of alcohol on adults aged 50 and older who were at high risk for heart disease. Half were to be asked to consume a single serving of alcohol of their choice every day, while the other half were to abstain.

The goal was to follow the two groups for six years on average to see if moderate drinkers have fewer heart attacks and strokes, and lower odds of death and diabetes.

But N.I.H. investigators on Friday were extremely critical of the trial’s design, suggesting that the investigators’ interactions with the alcohol industry “appear to intentionally bias the framing of the scientific premise in the direction of demonstrating a beneficial health effect of moderate alcohol consumption.”

A review by two N.I.H. officials concluded the number of participants and the follow-up time were insufficient to assess important adverse outcomes of daily alcohol consumption, particularly its relationship to cancer.

“Thus the trial could show benefits while missing the harms,” said the investigators’ report.

The trial also did not include heart failure as a primary endpoint, and alcohol consumption is associated with a higher risk of heart failure, the investigators said.

Outside experts also have criticized the design of the study.

Though the goal was to recruit an equal number of male and female participants, for example, Dr. Mukamal has acknowledged the study would not be large enough to detect gender differences unless they were pronounced.

Women metabolize alcohol more slowly than men, and studies have shown that women are more susceptible than men to the toxic effects of alcohol on the liver at any dose. Heart disease also manifests differently in women, experts say.

The investigators also planned to exclude any participants whose health might be compromised by light drinking, including people with a history of substance abuse, mental health problems, liver or kidney problems, certain cancers or family histories of cancer, as well as people who have never consumed alcohol.

The exclusions were meant to protect volunteers, but they would have altered the results of the trial and minimized the potential harms, particularly to older adults, noted Dr. Richard Saitz, chair of the community health sciences department at Boston University School of Public Health.

Many of the researchers selected to run clinical trial centers in the United States and abroad also enjoy close ties to alcohol beverage companies, receiving research funding from industry groups like the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation and the International Life Sciences Institute.

“Industry influence on the N.I.H. research agenda should be avoided. It’s very important that N.I.H. make research decisions independently,” said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University.

“N.I.H. should focus on studying what industry does not want to study.”

 

 

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US House Of Representatives Passes Multiple Bills Targeting Opioid Crisis

From Topix.com:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives has passed multiple bills this week relating to efforts addressing the opioid crisis, including a measure named after a late Charleston native.

Between Tuesday and Thursday, legislators passed 39 resolutions regarding opioid misuse and addiction treatment. This includes a bill allowing the sharing of practices in Appalachia for addressing drug abuse and legislation enforcing new requirements for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration related to informing pharmacists when they may refuse to fill a prescription of a controlled substance.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia has the highest death rate due to drug overdose in the United States with 52 deaths per 100,000 people.

“This is an epidemic, our most challenging public health and safety issue of our time,” U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., said. “We are hard at work in Washington to do what we can to tackle this most challenging issue. It is life and death, and we have all been impacted.”

The chamber passed House Resolution 5009 on Tuesday, which would require the Health and Human Services secretary to develop guidelines for health care providers regarding the sharing of a patient’s history of addiction.

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U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va.

The bill is titled “Jessie’s Law” and is named after Jessie Grubb. She was addicted to heroin for seven years before becoming sober and moving to Michigan. In late February 2016 — six months into sobriety — Grubb underwent surgery for a running-related injury. The discharging doctor did not know about Grubb’s history of addiction and prescribed her 50 oxycodone pills. Grubb died March 2, the day after she was discharged from the hospital. Authorities reported eight of the 50 pills as missing.

The Senate passed its version of “Jessie’s Law” in August 2017. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., introduced the bill and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., signed on as a cosponsor.

In the omnibus spending bill passed in March, there was language encouraging the development of these standards, but not enforcing the creation.

“I’m hoping that we will have a bill on the president’s desk … that actually will ensure that medical professionals have access to patients’ medical information,” Jenkins said.

The chamber also passed House Resolutions 5176 and 5197 on Tuesday. H.R. 5176 would enforce the development of protocols for discharging patients who have overdosed, and H.R. 5197 would create and fund a three-year grant program to allow hospitals and emergency facilities to develop and study alternative pain management treatments.

Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., introduced H.R. 5176. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J. introduced H.R. 5197, and Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.; Scott Tipton, R-Colo.; and McKinley originally cosponsored the bill.

“During every meeting we hold in the district, the opioid crisis is the number one concern,” McKinley said in a statement. “We brought our constituents’ feedback with us to Washington, and introduced legislation to address these issues.”

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USC Students Recovering From Substance Abuse Find Help

From Greenville Online:

Long before Chase Loveless overdosed, his father knew something was wrong.

Bruce Loveless had been taught drug addiction was the result of a personal choice, something that one could overcome if they tried hard enough. He pushed his son — whose addiction likely stemmed from pain pills he was given after having wisdom teeth removed, Bruce said — to overcome his addiction through tough love and sheer willpower. After all, it was that same hard work and determination that made him a state champion football player and a basketball star at Hammond School.

“I didn’t know, and I did everything wrong,” Bruce Loveless said. “I should have just locked him in a cage and got him help.”

Chase, 23, died of an opioid overdose on January 22, 2014, just months before graduating from the University of South Carolina.

Though Chase never overcame his addiction, Bruce thinks a program for Gamecocks trying to stay sober after an addiction could have helped save his son’s life. That’s why he and USC students recovering from drug and alcohol addiction pushed for the university to join about 200 other colleges and universities in creating a recovery program for college students.

In May, Bruce — who founded the Palmetto Foundation for Prevention and Recovery in his son’s memory — got his wish.

When students return to campus this fall, USC will have a full-time staff member dedicated to coordinating support programs for recovering students and serving as an advocate for them. Larkin Cummings, who previously worked at the University of Texas-Austin in that university’s recovery program, will coordinate the programs.

“She’s a really good hire, and she’s really qualified,” said Tyler Crochet, a graduate student who has, since 2013, advocated for USC to hire a Gamecock Recovery staff member. “I think a bigger staff is important, but I think that will come in time. Hiring someone is a good start.”

Cummings could not be reached for comment.

About 12 students are “very active” in the Gamecock recovery program, and more occasionally participate, USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said in an email. But a fall 2016 survey found 4 percent of the student body — roughly 1,350 students at the time — could use help recovering from a drug or alcohol addiction. Some studies estimate drug and alcohol abuse is a factor in 40 percent of cases where students drop out of college.

“Hiring a full-time coordinator was the result of conversations with students in recovery, who voiced a strong desire to have a full-time staff member to assist with the needs of their community,” Stensland wrote in an email. “Although recovering students are a small portion of our student population, we’re pleased that we could add the coordinator position to better serve the needs of recovering students and help them have a meaningful and fulfilling college experience.”

At other programs in the country, recovery groups form intramural sports teams, go hiking and take bus trips to football games, said Bill Pruitt, who helped advocate for a collegiate recovery program at USC.

“If it’s done properly, it’s like a fraternity, where young people going through recovery have a community,” Pruitt said. “They want to be like every other kid in college.”

Students interested in recovery services can email gamecockrecovery@sc.edu or call 803-777-3933. The website is www.sc.edu/sape/recovery.

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Potential Treatment To Prevent Relapse Shows Promise

From The Fix:

The journal Addiction Biology published research from scientists at the University of Bath which offers a new mechanism for preventing drug-addiction relapses.

According to Medical Xpress, the Bath scientists collaborated with colleagues from RenaSci and University of Surrey to use an animal model in order to study specific behaviors of rats and mice that sought out morphine after being exposed to environmental cues associated with the drug.

The scientists then withheld morphine from the rats and mice and then reintroduced the environmental cues. The rodents then lapsed into drug-seeking behaviors. The premise set, the scientists then tested the effect of a brain neurotransmitter blocker called acetylcholine.

Acetylcholine is crucial to the memory process. Using the blocker on a specific acetylcholine receptor on the rats and mice, the researchers observed that the blocker drug, called methyllycaconitine, or MLA, did not block the rodents from searching for morphine, but did prevent them from ingesting it.

Moving forward with that information, the researchers honed in on a part of the brain vital for memory, the ventral hippocampus. The venal hippocampus is linked with emotional memory, crucial in the functions of addiction and relapse.

Relapse is a pervasive reality for those with an addiction to drugs or alcohol. While studies present differing statistics on relapse rates, Science Daily reports that “the majority of addicts return to drug-taking within 12 months of quitting.”

Triggers for relapse are numerous and range from physical cues such as drug paraphernalia to emotional cues such as a painful setback. The study shows that MLA—at least in animal models—works to prevent relapsing even when exposed to those environmental cues.

Medical Xpress quotes Professor Sue Wonnacott, from the University of Bath’s Department of Biology & Biochemistry, as saying, “More work needs to be done to uncover the brain mechanisms involved, but it raises the prospect of erasing long-term drug-associated memories that underpin addiction and the propensity to relapse.”

Dr. Chris Bailey from the University of Bath’s Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology looked forward to more research which could reveal if MLA blocks relapse for other drug addictions besides morphine.

He said, “We already have evidence, in the same animal model, that it is effective against the more potent opioid, heroin. If MLA has similar effects against other drugs of abuse such as cocaine it would be even more encouraging.”

Research is being done on relapse prevention using other methods for other drugs, as well.

This year, a promising study published in Neuropsychopharmapsychology (also done on animals), found that they were able to reduce relapse rates with a drug used to treat diabetes and obesity, called extendin-4. No adverse reactions were found, and research continues to move forward.

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Are You A Sex Addict? Spot The Signs Of Sexual Addiction

From Addiction Blog:

Problem Behavior Causes…Problems!

Experts disagree on whether or not sex addiction should be considered a medical condition. Those who see sex addiction as a medical condition liken it to other recognized medical conditions such as gambling addiction or gaming disorder. Those who don’t see it as a medical condition argue that “sex addiction” is just a heightened version of the normal human libido.

But the argument misses the point.

Everybody agrees on the fact that some people struggle to control their sexual impulses, and that this lack of control can be extremely harmful to themselves and the people around them. It’s possible to learn to control these sexual impulses and behaviours through therapy, just as it’s possible to learn how to control the impulse to drink or to gamble.

The number of people seeking help for sex addiction is rising rapidly. Most people seeking help are men, but there is also a growing number of women seeking help too. Whether or not sex addiction is included in the latest edition of the World Health Organization’s International Classifications of Diseases (ICD) is of little concern to the people who consider themselves sex addicts.

What Is A Sex Addict?

Sex addiction is commonly thought of as the pursuit of sexual stimulation for pleasure or escape to the point that it harms or endangers the individual and those close to them. The sexual stimulation sought might include sex with a partner, but it might also include masturbation with or without the use of pornography.

Sex addicts engage in range of behaviours. These include (but are not limited to) the following:

Excessive use of pornography (sometimes extreme).
Sex with heterosexual or homosexual partners.
Sex with casual partners.
Sex with prostitutes.
Exhibition (flashing) and voyeurism (peeping).
Sadistic or masochistic sex acts.

What Are The Signs Of Sex Addiction?

Sex addiction can be hard to spot. Someone with an alcohol use disorder may show physical signs of excess drinking, but someone who masturbates for six or seven hours a day might otherwise look exactly like anyone else.

But there are some clear warning signs. Sex addicts (who have sex with partners) are much more likely than the average person to have a sexually transmitted disease (STD) such as chlamydia or gonorrhea.

Heterosexual women who are sex addicts are also likely to report unwanted pregnancies. Sex addicts can also cause damage to their genitals like cuts and sores due to excessive use. Porn addicts are often exhausted because they watch pornography in place of sleeping, and they also show other symptoms associated with excessive screen use.

Sex addiction is associated with a range of co-occurring mental problems such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse and obsessive-compulsive behaviours.

Are You A Sex Addict?

Potential sex addicts face another complication. While patients with an substance use disorder can recover and lead fulfilling lives without ever drinking alcohol again, that’s usually not the case with sex addicts. Sex is a meaningful part of life for most people — sex addicts included. For most sex addicts, the aim isn’t total abstinence, but reducing sexual behaviours to a “healthy” level. But that can make it more difficult to determine when a line has been crossed.

Therapists generally agree that “harm” is the tipping point. When your sexual behaviours cause harm to you or those around, you may be a sex addict. Examples of harm include the following:

Risky sexual behaviour (e.g. unprotected sex with a casual partner or sex worker).
Illegal sexual behaviour (e.g. non-consensual exhbitionism or voyeurism).
Contracting STDs.
Severe damage to your relationships and professional life due to sexual behaviour.
Severe self-loathing as a result of sexual behaviours.

How Is Sex Addiction Treated?

As with other forms of addictive behavior, the gold-standard treatment for sex addiction is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Through CBT, the patient learns to identify automatic negative thoughts and modify thought processes so that problematic patterns can be modified or eliminated. Couples therapy and family therapy is recommended when sex addiction has damaged a marriage or a familial relationship.

In severe cases, a sex addict might seek intensive treatment at an inpatient rehab center. This will be a supportive environment free from potential triggers where small groups of people can stick to their recovery goals and attend group meetings.

What can you typically expect during a treatment session?

A counselor might also discuss the patient’s sexual history and upbringing, and analyse formative moments. People who have experienced sexual abuse or childhood neglect might want to discuss this with their counselor and examine how these traumas might be shaping current behaviors.

Is Sex Addiction Real?

Harvey Weinstein. Tiger Woods. Kevin Spacey. All three of these men sought treatment for sex addiction in luxurious rehabilitation clinics after either immoral or possibly even illegal behavior. Commentators have been tempted to ask:

“Is sex addiction a real thing, or is it just a way for badly behaved men to paint themselves as victims and diminish their responsibility for their actions?”

Of course, just because some people might pretend to be sex addicts for their own benefit doesn’t mean that there aren’t real sex addicts out there. It should also be said that being a sex addict doesn’t automatically absolve you of your bad behavior.

In the past, addiction was often defined more narrowly to only include substances that caused withdrawal symptoms when the addict quit. In this sense of the word, alcohol and nicotine are chemically addictive. In addition, definitions of addiction also included some concept of harm. Most people don’t truly consider themselves to be addicted to coffee despite the chemically addictive properties of caffeine, because there’s no substantial risk of harm, even when coffee is drunk “to excess”.

Nowadays, researchers unanimously agree that it’s possible to become addicted to behaviours like gambling or even gaming. The WHO has just added “gaming disorder” to the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases. These behaviours can be considered addictions under a wider understanding of addiction. In this wider definition, an addiction is a habit-forming activity pursued for pleasure that brings harm to the participant.

The difficulty is in the definitions: all of us pursue pleasure, most of us pursue full sexual lives and many of us do stupid — potentially even harmful — things in the pursuit of sex. Deciding when that harm indicates an addiction, and what to do about it, is a decision to be made by the people directly affected.

The post Are You A Sex Addict? Spot The Signs Of Sexual Addiction appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

On The Recovery Road With Greg McNeil

Greg McNeil is the recovery reporter America needs, and he’s bringing his podcasts to ROR on all subjects related to the opioid crisis and solutions. Greg’s business is web design, but his passion is recovery reporting. In two short years Greg has produced 186 (as of today) podcast interviews with an unbelievably wide range of people who work in the Addiction and Recovery fields.

For mainstream media, if it bleeds it leads. For Greg, it’s just the opposite. If it helps, that’s the story he wants to tell. As far as we know there is not another reporter like Greg McNeil. He’s the 60 Minutes kind of reporter we’d be if only….we could get on the road.

I met Greg at the CARA Family Day in Washington D.C. on April 25, where we were lobbying on behalf of the Addiction Policy Forum for 61 Congressional Bills dealing with opioid crisis that happened to be on the table the week of April 25. As we met with our Congress people and Senators, it quickly became clear to me that our lawmakers didn’t know there was no policy for public information or services for family members and children. Just like the Surgeon General’s Report on Addiction failed to mention family members and children. It’s as if the 120 million people traumatized and destroyed by addiction don’t matter….

Greg lost his son Sam to a heroin overdose when Sam was in aftercare in 2015. And like many families of loss, as Greg calls those left behind by overdose and suicide, Greg was consumed by the desire to help others. His grief caused a transformation that led him to the kind of activism that especially resonates with us. Greg literally gets on the road to interview people and things that interest him.

Only a few weeks after we met in D.C. Greg was on the road to Florida. Before interviewing Dave Aronberg, Florida State Attorney in Palm Beach County who is leading the Sober Homes Task Force, Greg flew to Sarasota, to visit the ROR offices, have lunch, and talk with us. Soon we’ll be visiting Greg in his studio in Ohio.

Here are just a few of the subjects Greg has covered recently.

Ep. 173 – Greg Interviews David Sheff, One of Time Magazine’s “Top 100 Most Influential People”

Ep. 175 – A Discussion with one of Time Magazine’s “Top 100 People Who Shape Our World” Dr. Nora Volkow

Ep. 174 – Cover2 Salutes First Responders and Recognizes First Responders Appreciation Week

Ep. 176 – How to Be a Respectable Junkie: Greg Vovos, Cuyahoga County Public Library in Parma

Ep. 177 – Expanding Naloxone Availability Throughout Our Country to Save Lives

Ep. 178 – Addiction and Sobriety with “My Fair Junkie” author, Amy Dresner

Ep. 179 – Mayor’s Task Force to Combat the Opioid Epidemic in Philadelphia

Ep. 180 – Plant Manager Addresses Drug Addiction in Workplace Head On

Ep. 181 – Using Genetics to Treat Addiction with Dr. Howard Wetsman

We’re looking forward to the collaboration. Welcome Greg.

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Cambridge Improv Comes To Florida

Cambridge Improv July tour in Florida, ROR is going, and so should you. 10 cities in Florida. 10 chances to laugh and support NACOA at the same time. Reach Out Recovery is promoting the Laughter is the Best Medicine Tour because we love comedy and we love NACOA, the voice for children in the addiction epidemic.

1 in 4 children lives in a family with a parent addicted to drugs or alcohol.

That translates into 18.25 million children who need your help

NACOA is one of three charities who are receiving the proceeds from this debut American tour of the renown British Comedy group. “We’re so proud to be supporting not only NACOA, but also the Susan G Komen foundation and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society…We can’t imagine any better use of our comedic skillset than to support work and research that makes such a difference in the quality of life of the people who need it,” says Co Director Jack Lawrence.

“Improv has really made a difference in all of our lives… laughter is really so vital to enjoying life, and you don’t know how much you miss it until you really have a good hard laugh. We’ve been lucky to have each other for that, and that’s what we want to share with Floridian audiences.”

 
Explore the cobbled alleyways of Cambridge and you’ll find these student comedians in all sorts of nooks and crannies – from big theatres to college bar corners. Wherever the stage, whatever the setup, the Cambridge Impronauts pride themselves on delivering an incredible show. The quality of their work has earned them renown – their reputation and ambition has taken them to theatres and sell-out crowds all the way from London to Edinburgh, where they regularly perform at the world-famous Fringe comedy festival.



Click here for Cambridge Impronauts Tour Dates

 
Endlessly ambitious, and eager to hone their skills further, the Cambridge Impronauts are now taking off and traveling to Florida for a whole month of improv. And better yet, all the proceeds go to charity. “This is definitely the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken” says Jack Lawrence, co-director of the show “and what makes it all the better is that we’re raising money for such fantastic causes”.

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