Leslie Glass's Blog, page 389

We Must Face Challenges In Recovery Rather Than Avoid

From Gary Enos @ Addiction Professional: If there was a common thread of clinical advice from a diverse group of presenters on day one of this week’s Summit for Clinical Excellence in Anaheim, Calif., , it could be summarized as, “Sometimes you have to help patients face challenges they’d rather avoid.”

It might require their processing of painful experiences, or embracing one’s imperfections, or disengaging from screen time in favor of real connection. Speakers at the Institute for the Advancement of Behavioral Healthcare’s March 1-2 event East Meets West: Multiple Perspectives on Trauma and Addiction offered attendees numerous suggestions for modeling healthy behaviors and helping patients get to a similar place.

“The absolute level of challenge is not the critical variable. The critical variable is the capacity to bear pain,” said Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, a member of the board of directors at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and author of The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems. Siegel, who is also an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, questioned prominent therapeutic approaches that encourage patients to avoid uncomfortable emotions.

In a talk on how mindfulness practice can assist in the treatment of anxiety and depression, Siegel said, “So many people are trying to teach coping skills that go away from the anxiety.” This partly explains why many patients are attracted to benzodiazepines, which can become psychologically addictive because patients crave the experience of the anxiety stopping.

Instead, “We need to encourage people to go toward [the anxiety], not away from it,” Siegel said, with mindfulness-based approaches an important strategy for managing the anxiety.

Risk Factors For Trauma Response

Andrea Barthwell, MD, founder of the Two Dreams treatment center in North Carolina, sounded similar themes in a talk on a recovery-focused approach to trauma. Now that the therapy field has shunned a 1980s-era mindset of not opening the discussion of topics that it might struggle to close, “We have to have generalists in every [treatment] environment who can deal with [addressing trauma],” said Barthwell, who is also medical adviser to the CEO at Treatment Management Behavioral Health.

Trauma is not defined by what happens to a person, she said, but how that person experiences it. She listed factors that increase the probability of a trauma response, included the unexpected nature of an event or its repeated occurrence. She also outlined risk factors for a lifelong experience of trauma, from the event’s taking place as part of a series of losses to its timing early in childhood.

Barthwell also discussed the important link to substance-using behavior, stating that young people who use alcohol are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after trauma. “The longer you delay initiation, the less pronounced the adult deficits can be,” she said.

Going Dark

Britten Devereux, a co-founder of D’Amore Healthcare, opened her 90-minute talk by challenging attendees to disengage from their computer screens and smartphones for the duration of her presentation. Devereux discussed several paradoxes facing the “digital hamsters” that clinicians, patients and just about everyone else in modern society have become:

“I am so connected. I am disconnected.”
“It’s augmenting our reality, but we still don’t feel cared for.”
“We want companionship. We settle for ‘likes.’”

How her mental health treatment agency handles this challenge with patients involves banning screen time at first, but then allowing them to earn the time over the course of their treatment, Devereux said.

Finding the right treatment makes all the difference. Visit Recovery Guidance to find treatment choices, therapists, and physicians near you.

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Does Addiction PTSD Ever Fade

This week the father of a recovering heroin addict told me he has addiction PTSD. I’ll call him Jesse and his daughter, Amy. After telling his and Amy’s story, Jesse mentioned his PTSD almost as an afterthought. PTSD is common for families coping with addiction, but new for Jesse. Like millions of other parents, Jesse didn’t think one of his children would fall prey to addiction, and did not know what to do. After several overdoses, how could he save an adult child no longer living at home who didn’t, at first, want help? Jesse was able to get Amy into detox, treatment, and sober living. Now she has a program and the support of her family and addiction doctors to help her stay in remission. Great family outcome.

But Jesse has PTSD

Jesse quickly learned that no one gets a parade of casseroles after having that final showdown and taking an adult child to detox. Jesse and his family rallied around Amy, but the comfort and pictures of what life would be like when recovery worked for them as a family were just not there. They didn’t know what recovery looks like. What we see in the media still, are the images of death and mayhem and criminal activities, and…failure. There is no national campaign to show what recovery looks like, no major efforts to educate family members on how to deal with young adults in recovery, and no major support for the recovery lifestyle. What does recovery look like? Where is the fun? Are you ever happy again? Does PTS ever fade?

While addiction is inescapable in our society, recovery has not become a regular feature story in mainstream reporting. And it should be featured everywhere. Recovery is the solution to the addiction epidemic. Education and information that normalizes the recovery journey are needed as part of any funding for addiction. In a public forum two weeks ago, Jesse asked lawmakers what was being done for family members. He was met with silence.

Addiction PTSD Occurs In Family Members

Family members often suffer crippling anxiety, flashbacks, fear of telephone calls, lack of trust in a loved one, anger at a loved one, and other lasting emotional fallout from dealing with a loved one’s addiction. Addiction is an assault on emotional wellbeing that changes a parent, spouse, sibling and friends’ lives forever.

What people don’t know is that life and relationships for families in recovery are better than it was before addiction.

Recovery Brings Hope

Addiction is horrific, like cancer, but is worse than cancer in one major way. Addiction is the only disease in which the patient has to decide he wants the treatment needed to survive. For family members the fact that the patient is the one who makes the decisions, is the hardest thing to accept. Family members can’t save their loved ones all by themselves. But with education, and a national policy of support, parents can catch the signs and symptoms sooner and treat the disease faster.

Jesse’s story, and mine, and that of 23 million other Americans in recovery show there is good reason for hope. About that PTSD, the answer is yes. After a while when recovery has taken hold and is a lasting part of the entire family dynamic, the PTSD also goes into remission.

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Untapped Genome Biology New Hope For Depression

From Science Daily Scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered a new target for treating major depressive disorder, a disease that affects more than 16 million American adults. Their research shows that individuals with high levels of an enigmatic receptor called GPR158 may be more susceptible to depression following chronic stress.

“The next step in this process is to come up with a drug that can target this receptor,” says Kirill Martemyanov, PhD, co-chair of the TSRI Department of Neuroscience and senior author of the new study, published recently in the journal eLife.

The researchers say there is an urgent need for new drug targets in major depressive disorder. Current pharmacological treatments for depression can take a month to start working — and they don’t work in all patients.

“We need to know what is happening in the brain so that we can develop more efficient therapies,” says Cesare Orlandi, PhD, senior research associate at TSRI and co-first author of the study.

The researchers zeroed in on GPR158 as a player in depression after discovering that the protein is elevated in people with major depressive disorder. To better understand GPR158’s role, the scientists studied male and female mice with and without GPR158 receptors.

Behavioral tests revealed that both male and female mice with elevated GPR158 show signs of depression following chronic stress. On the flip side, suppression of GPR158 protects mice from developing depressive-like behaviors and make them resilient to stress.

Next, the researchers examined why GPR158 has these effects on depression. The team demonstrated that GPR158 affects key signaling pathways involved in mood regulation in the region of the brain called prefrontal cortex, though the researchers emphasized that the exact mechanisms remain to be established.

Martemyanov explains that GPR158 is a so-called “orphan receptor” (which gets its name because its binding partner/partners are unknown) with a poorly understood biology and mechanism of action. GPR158 appears to work downstream from other important brain systems, such as the GABA, a major player in the brain’s inhibitory control and adrenergic system involved in stress effects.

“This is really new biology and we still need to learn a lot,” says Martemyanov.

The study also offers a potential clue to why some people are more susceptible to mental illness. Because mice without GPR158 don’t alter their behavior after chronic stress, the researchers concluded these mice were naturally more resilient against depression. Their genetics, or gene expression, offer a layer of protection.

Laurie Sutton, PhD, a research associate at TSRI and co-first author of the study, says this finding matches what doctors have noticed in people who have experienced chronic stress. “There’s always a small population that is resilient — they don’t show the depressive phenotype,” says Sutton.

As the search goes on for additional targets for depression, Martemyanov says scientists areincreasingly using new tools in genome analysis to identify orphan receptors like GPR158. “Those are the untapped biology of our genomes, with significant potential for development of innovative therapeutics,” he says

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What Kind Of Fat Can You Eat

From The NY Times by Aaron E Carroll There was a lot of news this week about a study, published in the medical journal BMJ, that looked at how diet affects heart health. The results were unexpected because they challenged the conventional thinking on saturated fats.

And the data were very old, from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

This has led many to wonder why they weren’t published previously. It has also added to the growing concern that when it comes to nutrition, personal beliefs often trump science.

Perhaps no subject is more controversial in the nutrition world these days than fats. While in the 1970s and 1980s doctors attacked the total amount of fat in Americans’ diets, that seems to have passed. These days, the fights are over the type of fat that is considered acceptable.

Most of our fat comes from two main sources. The first is saturated fats. Usually solid at room temperature, they’re in red meat, dairy products and partly in chicken. The second is unsaturated fats, usually softer and more liquid at room temperature. They’re in fish, nuts and vegetable oils. Many doctors and nutritionists still argue, quite strongly, that the key to health is to emphasize the unsaturated fats. Others believe that’s misguided.

So which kind of fat is actually bad for you? CreditKarsten Moran for The New York Times

This week’s news came to us by way of a randomized controlled trial, which I’ve argued repeatedly is the best kind of study to determine how one thing causes another.

The Minnesota Coronary Experiment was a well-designed study that was conducted in one nursing home and six state mental hospitals from 1968 to 1973. More than 9,400 men and women, ages 20 to 97, participated. Data on serum cholesterol were available on more than 2,300 participants who were on the study diets for more than a year.

At baseline, participants were getting about 18.5 percent of their calories from saturated fat, and about 3.8 percent from unsaturated fats. The intervention diet was considered a more “heart healthy” one. It encouraged a reduction in the amount of calories from saturated fats (like animal fats and butter) and more from unsaturated fats, particularly linoleic acids (like corn oil). The intervention diet lowered the percent of calories from saturated fats to 9.2 percent, and raised the percent from unsaturated fats to 13.2 percent.

The average follow-up for these participants was just under three years. In that time, the total serum cholesterol dropped significantly more in those on the intervention diet (-31.2 mg/dL) than in those on the control diet (-5 mg/dL).

There was, however, no decreased risk of death. If anything, there seemed to be an increased mortality rate in those on the “heart healthy” diet, particularly among those 65 years and older. More concerning, those who had the greater reduction in serum cholesterol had a higher rate of death. A 30mg/dL decrease in serum cholesterol was associated with a 22 percent increase in the risk of death from any cause, even after adjusting for baseline cholesterol, age, sex, adherence to the diet, body mass and blood pressure.

Of course, this is only one study. It involved only institutionalized patients. Only about a quarter of the participants followed the diet for more than a year. The diets don’t necessarily look like what people really ate, then or now. But this is still a large, randomized controlled trial, and it’s hard to imagine we wouldn’t at least discuss it widely.

Moreover, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis of all studies that looked at this question. Analyzed together, they still found that more people died on the linoleic-acid-rich diets, although the results were not statistically significant. Even in a sensitivity analysis, which included more studies, no mortality benefit could be found with a diet lower in saturated fats.

It’s important to note that other meta-analyses both support and dispute this. A 2010 study argued that substituting unsaturated fats for saturated fats would reduce the rates of coronary heart disease. So did a 2015 Cochrane review. A 2014 study in Annals of Internal Medicine, though, showed the opposite.

People’s reactions to this news have been much as you’d expect. Supporters of a diet low in saturated fat have called the new study an “interesting historical footnote that has no relevance to current dietary recommendations.” Others have said that if this research had been published when the study was over, “it might have changed the trajectory of diet-heart research and recommendations.”

This isn’t the first time that data from long ago have run against current recommendations. In 2013, an analysis was published of recovered data from the Sydney Diet Heart Study, a randomized controlled trial of a similar nature performed in men with a recent heart attack or angina. Although the study was done from 1966 to 1973, results weren’t available publicly until three years ago. It, too, found that a diet higher in unsaturated fats led to a higher rate of death from heart disease.

Why wasn’t this research published decades ago? It’s possible that modern computer technology allows us to do analyses that couldn’t be performed then. It’s possible that researchers tried, but were unable to get the results published.

But it’s also possible that these results were marginalized because they didn’t fit with what was considered to be “truth” at the time. The two principal investigators on the Minnesota study were Ivan Frantz and Ancel Keys, the latter of whom may be the most influential scientist in promoting saturated fat as the enemy of heart health. (Mr. Keys died in 2004.)

I’m not suggesting anything sinister. I’m sure that both these scientists absolutely believed that their prior epidemiologic work established that diets lower in saturated fat led to lower cholesterol levels and better health. Research consistently confirmed the former. When that lower cholesterol didn’t translate into actual outcomes like lower mortality, though, they must have been baffled.

Like others today, they may have been able to rationalize the result away and decide that it “has no relevance.” Unfortunately, other, similar controlled trials seem to support the notion that the case against saturated fat isn’t as robust as many think.

We all must be concerned about publication bias, which occurs when results of published studies are systematically different from results of unpublished studies. Research has shown that studies with statistically significant results are more likely to be published than those without. Studies with a low-priority topic or finding may be less likely to be published.

One of the reasons that epidemiologic evidence often leads us to conclusions that can’t be supported is likely publication bias. Studies that find significant associations between foods (like meat) and scary findings (like cancer) are more likely to be published than those that don’t find those associations. When controlled trials are finally done, though, the scary results often can’t be replicated.

But the most common reason research isn’t published is because researchers don’t write it up and submit it. That could be because they think it won’t be accepted. It could also be because they don’t believe the results. In the charged environment of nutrition research, when people’s careers are built on certain hypotheses, it’s hard not to imagine our biases creeping into play.

Unfortunately, the health of Americans and others is at stake. Should we be eating more polyunsaturated fats? Should we be avoiding saturated fats? The honest answer is: I don’t know. Given my review of the evidence, I stand by my previous recommendations, which essentially focus more on foods and less on nutrients. I think the state of nutrition research in general is shockingly flawed.

It’s hard enough to debate the data we can see. Knowing there’s probably data out there that people haven’t shared makes everything much, much harder.

Aaron E. Carroll is a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He blogs on health research and policy at The Incidental Economist, and you can follow him on Twitter at@aaronecarroll.

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5 Types of Diabetes Not 2

From Time For many years, diabetes cases have largely been classified as either type 1 or type 2. But a new study suggests that there may actually be five different types of the disease—some of which may be more dangerous than others. A new classification system could help doctors identify the people most at risk for complications, the study authors say, and could pave the way for more personalized and effective treatments.

The research article, published in The Lancet: Diabetes & Endocrinology, calls attention to the need for an updated diabetes classification system. The current system “has not been much updated during the past 20 years,” the authors wrote in their paper, “and very few attempts have been made to explore heterogeneity of type 2 diabetes”—despite calls from expert groups over the years to do so.

Meanwhile, they wrote, diabetes is the fastest-increasing disease worldwide, and existing treatments have been unable to stem the tide or prevent the development of chronic complications in many patients. One explanation, they say, is that diabetes diagnosis is based on only one measurement—how the body metabolizes glucose—when the disease is actually much more complex, and much more individual.

Currently, diabetes is classified based mainly on age of diagnosis (younger people often have type 1) and on the presence or absence of antibodies that attack beta cells, which release insulin. People with type 1 diabetes have these antibodies—and therefore cannot make insulin on their own—while people with type 2 do not. Their bodies make insulin but don’t use it the right way.

Based on these criteria, between 75% and 85% of people with diabetes are classified with type 2, the authors wrote in their paper. A third subgroup of diabetes, known as latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), has also been discussed in recent research.

But the study authors, from the University of Gothenberg and Lund University in Sweden, say additional subgroups are needed. To demonstrate their argument, they analyzed health data from nearly 15,000 Swedish people with type 2 diabetes, focusing on six variables that had been measured and recorded at the time of their diagnosis: age, body mass index, the presence of beta-cell antibodies, level of metabolic control and measures of beta-cell function and insulin resistance.

From that analysis, they identified five “clusters” of disease with significantly different characteristics. Severe Insulin-Resistant Diabetes (SIRD) involved the highest levels of insulin resistance and the highest risk of diabetic kidney disease. Severe Insulin-Deficient Diabetes (SIDD) was made up of relatively young adults with especially poor metabolic control. Severe Autoimmune Diabetes largely overlapped with the current Type 1 diagnosis. And two other clusters, Mild Age-Related Diabetes (MARD) and Mild Obesity-Related Diabetes (MOD) seemed to be more benign forms of diabetes.

The study results suggest that a new classification system could help identify people at high risk of complications and better guide doctors in their choice of treatments, the authors wrote. They’re currently working on a web-based tool that could assign patients to specific clusters.

Specifically, they wrote, SIDD and SIRD are two new, severe forms of the disease that were “previously masked within type 2 diabetes.” They found that the risk of kidney complications was substantially increased in patients with SIRD, while the risk of diabetic retinopathy was highest in those with SIDD. “It would be reasonable to target individuals in these clusters with intensified treatment,” they wrote.

The researchers say their classification system could be helpful for both newly diagnosed patients as well as those who have had type 2 diabetes for many years. However, it’s not yet clear whether patients can move between clusters over time, and the authors say they can’t yet claim that their clustering method is the best classification system for diabetes subtypes. Larger studies, that include additional variables and more diverse populations, are still needed.

But overall, the authors say that combining several different measurements to form a more specific diabetes diagnosis appears to be more useful than using just one—glucose levels—to simply diagnose type 1 or type 2. “This new substratification could change the way we think about type 2 diabetes and help to tailor and target early treatment to patients who would benefit most,” they wrote, “thereby representing a first step towards precision medicine in diabetes.”

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6 Things To Do While Airport Waiting

You find yourself at the airport waiting for a connecting flight.  Or your relative dropped you off at the airport early because he or she got to get to work.  You went through security which took forever.  You are looking for your gate and you found it.

Now what?

Suddenly sneaky negative thoughts may appear out of nowhere.  What will happen if you don’t catch the next flight on time?  What would happen if your carry-on is too big?  All these ‘what ifs’ questions.  Anxieties may control you at any given moment.  To avoid or manage them, here are some tips to help you relax, but still stay aware of your surrounding:

Walk & stretch

Start walking along the gates.  It’s great if you have one of those watches that count your steps.  Or you can download an app on your smart phone.  You may find counting your steps encouraging to some degree.  From time to time stop and stretch.  By the way, make sure to take with you all your bags and carry-on.

People Watching

While you are walking, look around you.  Watch the faces, different details about the people you are passing by.  You will find the faces are changing with each walk that you are taking.  It may sound boring, but you can be creative and challenge your brain a little.  Make up stories about the people you watch during your walk.    If you happen to see couples, guess how long they are together.  If you see kids, guess how old they are.  That way you are shifting your attention outside and less paying attention or feeding your anxieties.

Hydrate yourself and eat

It’s easy to forget to drink and eat while you are under the stress of catching a plane, or even the dreadful thoughts of possible delays, or things going wrong during your stay at the airport.  While you are walking, look around the different stores.  See what they have to offer.  You might simply need a bottle of water and a small snack.  It might be time for a meal.  Some airports have food malls and some have just a few options.  Choose what is most conducive for you.  If you are looking for comfort food, go for a hearty sandwich and lemonade.  If you are looking for something fresh and healthy go for a salad and water.  Don’t forget to get a snack and something to drink for the flight itself if you want to avoid the airplane food.

Shop

Go into the different stores.  Look for a book or a magazine you like.  Gift yourself with a souvenir, or buy something for a sibling or a friend.  Look for deals.  Even at the airports there are deals.  You can buy 2-3 magnets and the next one for free or 2 children’s books for the price of one.

Connect with people

Call up your siblings and friends or text them.  Just make sure it is time appropriate.  You don’t want to wake them up and hear their grumpy voice on the other end.  You could make new friends at the airport while waiting for your flight. It’s easy as 1 2 3.  Say you are sitting and waiting for the plane.  Someone is sitting beside you.  Introduce yourself and ask his or her name.  You already have something in common.  Both of you are waiting for the plane to arrive.  Also, the safest subject is the weather.   If you have children and you happen to sit by a family you could chat with the parents and tell them how much you miss your kids.  Connect on social media.  Upload a selfie at the airport.  Or even better/funnier go to Snapchat and take a funny selfie and post it.

Read or watch a movie

Engage in reading something interesting.  Or from your device, watch a movie.  You could listen to podcast too.

Whether it’s a business or pleasure trip, you want to relax a bit.  Remember to enjoy yourself.  Take some of the tools that you like from the above list and leave what doesn’t work for you.  In a place as the airport, there are many temptations almost at any corner.   If you are in recovery, the major airports such as Atlanta or Phoenix will have 12 Step meetings.  Finally, have a safe flight.

If you need help with addiction and recovery, visit Recovery Guidance to find these recovery professionals near you.

 

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Two Friends Created Angels N’ Roses Recovery Pins

Cultural change requires many  strategies. What exactly am I referring to? I’m glad you asked. With 23 million people in recovery,  and some 23 million struggling with addiction, it’s vital for those of us in recovery to show pride in our lives on the other side of addiction.  No one should have to feel alone when taking the step to recovery.

Lindsey and Marisa creators of Angels N’ Roses recovery pins

A few years ago, an AA miracle occurred. I was secretary of a meeting when a cool-looking chick in red disco pants, a black leather jacket, and waist length black hair arrived. Now she has pink hair, FYI. Marisa Ravel, who is a fashion designer and unmistakable with any hair color, and I became fast friends. Marisa wanted to do something for the addiction recovery and mental health movement because of her own recovery and experiences, and I’d been a recovery advocate on and off for almost a decade. Very quickly we came up with the idea for Angels N’ Roses and Marisa designed our first round of enamel pins now in the ROR Shop.

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

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

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

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

Lindsey modeling recovery pins

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

Recovery pins are available in the ROR Shop.

For bulk orders call us: 941-366-0870

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NJ Corrections Staff Learn How To Help Opioid-Dependent Inmates

From Gary Enos @ Addiction Professional: Correctional officers and prison administrative staff in New Jersey are going to the classroom to achieve a better understanding of how substance use disorders manifest in inmates.

The entity offering the three-day “Introduction to Substance Use Disorders and Behaviors” training sees the effort as a partnership on behalf of better services for inmates, a joint effort between the individuals who best understand the workings of the prison system and those who best grasp the clinical needs of individuals with substance use disorders.

“We look at this as, ‘How can we take your experiences and ours and have a conversation?’” Stephanie Marcello, program director at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, tells Addiction Professional. “This is new for us too.”

Discussions between Rutgers and the state Department of Corrections identified a need to provide corrections staff with more education around addiction as a disease, says Marcello. With the high prevalence of substance use disorders in the state inmate population, “This is part of the department’s plan to educate the people who spend the most time with inmates,” she says. This will help establish a stronger professional identity among corrections officers as well, she says.

The required training takes place over three full days, with two speakers per day and interactive work as well as lectures. Marcello says officers and other staff in the prison system learn about the behaviors associated with specific drugs of abuse, coming to a better understanding of common withdrawal symptoms.

Another key goal of the department involves helping prison staff to understand the benefits of maintenance medications for opioid-dependent inmates, so that officers look at this as positive “rather than seeing it as ‘still using,’” says Marcello.

Education around inmate trauma and adverse childhood experiences also is an important component of the training, Marcello says, but trauma takes on a personal meaning in the classroom as well.

“We bring it back to the threats to the staff’s own wellness,” she says, as working with this population can exacerbate the risk of secondary trauma and substance use problems.

Looking for treatment options in New Jersey? Recovery Guidance has you covered. Click here to see treatment centers, doctors, therapists, drug courts, and more.

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Why I Speak Up About My Eating Disorder

As a woman in long-term recovery, I’m very familiar with the challenges, freedom, and growth we experience recovery. Yet, this growth sometimes feels stunted by our relationship with food. While many of us experience weight gain when we get sober—and sometimes experience what feels like an uncontrollable appetite—there are thousands of us that continue to struggle with food long into our recovery. Often, we don’t even realise we’ve had a disordered relationship with food our entire lives.

That was my story. I just thought every woman was on and off a diet her entire life—I chalked it up to being a woman. Likewise, I thought we all skipped meals, and then occasionally binged on food. I excused purging as part of my addiction too. When I got sober, the light of recovery shone brightly on my disordered relationship with food. I had to take notice. I discovered that my history with food amounted to eating disorders, yet couldn’t understand why I continued to binge in recovery. I’d find myself sitting in meetings and fantasizing about what food I’d buy on the way home to binge on in front of a TV drama.

Harmful Advice Led To Another Addiction

Myth: It’s perfectly normal to crave sugar when you get sober—you should carry a bag of candy in your purse, I was told. Don’t worry about putting on weight and eating cake if it keeps you sober, they said.

Looking back, now that I have dealt with my eating disorders, I realise just how harmful this advice was. It was like telling someone with substance use disorder that it’s okay to smoke heroin so long as you’re not drinking. It’s absurd.

I know I am not unique with this experience. Every day, I speak to women in recovery about their struggles with food, their sugar cravings, and their insatiable appetites. Eating disorder or not, women in recovery are struggling with food. I know many men are too—but they don’t talk about it. None of us are talking about it as much as we could because the behaviour is veiled in shame.

How My Eating Disorder Developed

My eating disorder started as a child when I discovered that food led to escape: I could use it to numb my feelings of loneliness and depression. I spent the rest of my life chasing that feeling; the only thing that changed was the substance—when I replaced food with drugs and alcohol, nicotine, or sex. The substance doesn’t matter; the disorder label doesn’t matter—it is the behaviour of seeking to avoid reality that mattered.

I never learned how to regulate my feelings and emotions and I had no idea how to weather the stress of everyday life. No one taught me. I was just told to get on with it, so I did what I knew best: escape and numb out.

How I Recovered From My Eating Disorder

Living in recovery gave me the ability to be present and learn how to deal with life. Except, without drugs and alcohol, my brain sought pleasure in food. I faced a paradox: I can’t be engaged in life and still binge eat. I had to get to the root cause of my eating disorder.

When I started to deal with my relationship with food, I uncovered a long-standing history of depression. This explains why my brain sought pleasure in substances that produced pleasure-releasing neurochemicals; namely dopamine. The problem I faced newly sober was that my brain was even more depleted in dopamine and I now faced overpowering cravings to balance the chemistry in my brain. With the help of a doctor, health coach, exercise, and eating whole foods, I slowly rebalanced my brain. In learning to care for myself and regulate my emotions, I could deal with the desire to escape and stay present.

Looking after my whole being became the key to maintaining long-term sobriety and dealing with my eating disorders. The desire to escape never really goes away, it just becomes less strong and I have more tools to cope today.

Be sure to check out my emotional eating cheat sheet below, which might help you curb those cravings to numb out.

From Liv’s Kitchen to yours…

 

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Heather Locklear Arrested For Domestic Violence

From Sasha Savitsky @ Fox News: ‘Melrose Place’ star Heather Locklear was reportedly arrested for felony domestic violence and attacking a police officer. When cops attempted to arrest the 56-year-old, she reportedly became violent.

Heather Locklear was arrested on charges of domestic violence and assault on three police officers. Capt. Dean Cook of the Thousand Oaks Police Department told Fox News cops responded to a 911 call at Locklear’s California residence on Sunday night.

She was subsequently arrested on one count of domestic violence and three counts of battery on emergency personnel. Sheriff’s Capt. Garo Kuredjian told Fox News the alleged victim of the domestic violence count is Locklear’s boyfriend. Locklear posted $20,000 bail and is due in court on March 13.

According to TMZ, when cops attempted to arrest the 56-year-old, she reportedly became violent and attacked officers. Locklear’s lawyer had no comment when reached by Fox News. The former “Melrose Place” star has struggled with substance abuse in the past and most recently entered rehab last year.

She was arrested in 2008 on suspicion of driving under the influence but the charges were later dismissed. She was sentenced to three years of informal probation and ordered to pay a $700 fine and take a driver safety class. In the same year, authorities were called to Locklear’s home following a 911 call from her doctor, who feared she overdosed on prescription medication but the warning turned out to be a false alarm.

According to TMZ, police went to the home of Locklear’s then-boyfriend Jack Wagner in 2011 after a fight turned physical between the couple. A law enforcement source told TMZ at the time that Locklear “lost it on him and he retaliated.” Locklear’s troubles continued in 2012 when her sister called 911 after fearing Locklear “was going to harm herself.” TMZ reported at the time that the actress had ingested a “dangerous mix” of a prescription drug, said to be Xanax, and alcohol.

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