For many of us, the end of a year or the beginning of a new one signifies renewal and change. The tradition of making resolutions for the year to come is common to many of us. For the person struggling with addiction or problematic substance use, it could be a resolution to stop engaging in the behavior that is having a negative impact on their life.
Changing a behavior is hard! Resolving to get more exercise or finding time for an old hobby is difficult enough. How on earth is someone who is addicted to a substance or behavior expected to make a lasting change? Where do they even begin?
Letting go of an addictive behavior is definitely possible, and the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to make this change! If you are still on the fence, it may be helpful to take a really objective, practical look at the pros and cons of stopping an addiction. For someone who has not struggled with addiction, it may be obvious that it’s worth stopping, but an addicted person’s thinking can be distorted when it comes to the substance or behavior that is causing them problems. Sometimes, writing out the ways a behavior is damaging and why it should stop is helpful for someone who is unsure of whether they are ready to make a lifestyle change.
One of the best things someone who wants to change an out of control behavior can do is reach out for help. This initial action is one of the most important steps in directing someone with an addiction toward lasting positive change.
Making the Decision
There are a multitude of ways in which people achieve sobriety. Choosing a residential facility, withdrawal management/detox centre, sober living, or a support group can feel overwhelming. This is one of the benefits of reaching out to someone for help. Having support during the process of making these decisions early on can make it a smoother, less stressful experience.
Withdrawal Management
Once you’ve made the decision to stop using alcohol or other substances, you should determine whether or not withdrawal management (e.g. medical detox) is necessary. For those addicted to alcohol, opiates/opioids, benzodiazepines, or barbiturates this is usually a good idea. Getting through the physical detox period of these substances is difficult and can be fatal depending on the duration and quantity of the drug being used. An assessment should be made by a medical professional if one of these substances is being used.
Residential Treatment
Once detoxed, many find that entering a residential treatment center is the best idea. A residential treatment center can offer guidance and structure that may be crucial for someone who has recently stopped engaging in their addiction. Underlying mental health issues can be addressed, and reestablishing positive habits, behaviors, and routines can make a big difference in achieving lasting sobriety.
This is also the period that many people begin exploring options for maintaining sobriety. There are multiple options available. The 12-Steps are the most well known program for maintaining a recovery-oriented lifestyle, but they are not a good fit for everyone.
SMART Recovery is a newer recovery program that has been very effective in helping people achieve long-term recovery. With its roots in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, SMART meetings are held internationally. They offer a program that deals with addictions of all types, from gambling and food to drugs and alcohol. Many find the logical, non-faith based approach that SMART takes to be one of it’s biggest attractions.
These may be the two most popular support organizations for those with addiction right now, but that doesn’t mean that they are essentials to a recovery lifestyle. There are a variety of ways that people maintain recovery. The most important thing to remember when checking out these options is to just keep an open mind. If there is something that seems useful or makes sense, hold on to that piece. You can discard what is not applicable or useful.
Deciding to seek help at a residential treatment center is another exercise in reaching out. It means you have a treatment team ready to provide support as you begin your new life. It also means you will have other people who have chosen a sober life to interact with. The relationships people build with one another while in treatment offer another type of support that frequently extends beyond residential care.
Meaning and Purpose – What Now
Once unintoxicated, many people find they are missing a sense of meaning and purpose. So many feel like they are coming out of a fog and are without direction or hope. Even those who managed to retain a strong sense of self, duty, or obligation may find themselves questioning these things once they are no longer actively using. This is a unique and personal experience for everyone. While these feelings and thoughts can be unsettling, they should be explored, not avoided. This is a key part of establishing a solid footing on the new road you are walking; deciding which direction you are headed!
Regardless of what direction you choose to go on your sober journey, it is important to keep an open mind. It’s a journey of exploration and discovery!
Learn more at www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca or reach Sunshine Coast Health Center at (866) 487-9010 or by email at [email protected]
By: The Fix staff
Title: Resolution: Getting and Staying Sober in 2020
Sourced From: www.thefix.com/getting-and-staying-sober-2020
Published Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2020 08:53:45 +0000
At New Horizon Drug Rehab, we understand addiction. If you or a family member are afflicted with addiction or substance abuse we can help. We work with the top centers throughout the US to provide the best detox and addiction treatments available.
Call Now: (877) 747-9974
Depression is a leading cause of disability and disease for people around the world. It often begins during adolescence, especially for females, may continue or recur in adulthood and tends to become a lifetime chronic health condition.
More than 300 million people suffer from this mental health disorder worldwide. Depression is not only about feeling blue. It can also harm one’s social relationships, school or work and physical health. Poor mental health and depressive symptoms may also be associated with the recent increase in midlife premature deaths of despairdue to suicide, alcohol and drugs.
Although treatment methods and intervention efforts continue to advance, many depressive conditions remain irreversible. The push for prevention and early, affordable and feasible intervention is stronger than ever, especially for young people.
We are both social demographers who study family processes and health. We use a life course perspective in our research, meaning that we use longitudinal data to follow individuals as they move through various stages of life and examine how the social contexts they experience influence their health.
Recently we were interested in understanding how mental health changes from adolescence through mid adulthood. We wanted to see if we could identify family processes that might protect teens from depression in adolescence and later. We found that close and cohesive family relationships, understanding, and shared good times protected them then and later.
Prevention a Worthy Goal
It is well known from the scientific evidence that close family relationships reduce the risks of depression during adolescence, a life stage when depression often begins, especially for girls. We were interested to know whether the mental health benefits of close and cohesive family relations in adolescence last into young adulthood, and so we used longitudinal data from a nationally-representative sample to address this question.
The family context is a key area that draws wide scholarly and public attention for early intervention efforts. Most research on the role of the family context for depression focuses on risk factors, such as neglect, abuse and financial insecurity. We wondered, however, whether preventive efforts may be more effective if focused on protective factors. We could not find major studies that could shed enough light on the topic.
Some small cross-sectional studies with clinical and community samples suggest that being part of a close and cohesive family in adolescence helps alleviate depression symptoms for teenagers.
But does this protective effect last long into adulthood when adolescents move out of their parent’s house and embark on their independent lives? This intriguing and pressing question remains unknown due to a dearth of longitudinal studies that follow the same people over time.
A study, which we published on Oct. 7 in JAMA Pediatrics is, so far as we know, the first to examine this topic in a nationally representative sample by tracking individuals over a 30-year life course from early adolescence to midlife. Our findings suggested that, yes, the protective effect not only helps in the tough teen years but also protects later.
Some Good News, and Good Insights
The data we used come from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally-representative study that has followed over 20,000 adolescents starting in 1995 into adulthood. The group of adolescents who started in the cohort have been re-interviewed five times, adding valuable knowledge about development over the course of life. The new data from the 2017 round of interviews have enabled us to examine how what happens in adolescence matters for later life mental health.
Our findings provide a new contribution to the research on early family experiences and lifetime depression and insights into how depression can be prevented from developing into a lifetime illness.
First, we found gender differences in depression over time. Females experienced significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than males between early adolescence and their early 40s.
The overall trajectory of depressive symptoms was high in adolescence, fell in the early 20s, and then slowly rose again in the late 30s. The growth curve of depression is flatter for men than women.
Teenage girls are vulnerable to high levels of depression during middle to late adolescence. Teen boys, in comparison, experienced a shorter period of depression in late adolescence. Women then experienced the highest levels of depression in their late 30s. Men’s highest levels of depression occurred in their mid-30s to early 40s in the face of increasing challenges from work, family and social life.
Our primary interest, however, was to examine whether cohesive family relationships in adolescence protect young people from depression in adulthood and how long those protections last.
Our findings indicate the mental health benefits of cohesive family relationships during adolescence last through midlife. Individuals who experienced positive adolescent family relationships had significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms from early adolescence to midlife (late 30s to early 40s) than did those who experienced less-positive family relationships.
We also see this benefit working differently for men and women. Women benefit more from positive adolescent family relationships than men, especially in adolescence and the early 20s. But men with low parent-child conflict benefit for a longer time throughout young adulthood than women.
Living in a cohesive home, having someone around who understands and pays attention, and having fun together as a family can build up warmth, trust and attachment between the family members and adolescents and positive feelings for teens. The absence of parent-child conflict reinforces parental support and approval for them. Close relations may provide sources of social and emotional support that encourages the development of skills for coping with changing and cumulative stressors.
Our research findings emphasize the urgent need for early preventive interventions of depression in adolescent family life. Adolescence is a critical life stage where profound transformations in neurological, biological, cognitive and social development take place. These profound changes during adolescence make teens especially vulnerable to the development of lifetime depression.
Public health initiatives can teach and encourage parents and family members to nurture positive family relationships with their adolescents. Programs can be developed to promote family cohesiveness for adolescents by providing tips on how families can show affection and understanding, spend time together and work through conflict. This preventive approach will be most effective in fostering long-term healthy mental development into adulthood.
Our study, however, does not imply that adolescents in less cohesive families are doomed to lifetime depression. Depression is an extremely complex mental disorder. No one knows exactly what causes it. Factors such as genetics, abuse or serious illnesses can increase risks of depression too. Teens may be able to find similar sources of social support and gain coping skills through other social connections with friends, in religious and other institutions, and in the local community.
The skills and strategies that youth learn to cope with emotional problems may last throughout life, continue to promote mental health well into adulthood, and help to prevent negative outcomes and premature deaths due to suicide, alcohol or drugs in middle age.
[ You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter. ]
Ping Chen, Senior Research Scientist, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kathleen Mullan Harris, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
By: Ping Chen, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Title: Strong Family Ties During Teen Years Can Help Ward Off Depression in Later Life
Sourced From: www.thefix.com/strong-family-ties-during-teen-years-can-help-ward-depression-later-life
Published Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 07:27:46 +0000
At New Horizon Drug Rehab, we understand addiction. If you or a family member are afflicted with addiction or substance abuse we can help. We work with the top centers throughout the US to provide the best detox and addiction treatments available.
Call Now: (877) 747-9974
Whenever the topic of faith comes up, there are almost always variations of opinions and strong viewpoints.
Let’s look at dispelling five of the most common myths about faith-based addiction treatment programs.
Myth #1: Patients Are Not Interested in Faith Programming
Dr. David Rosmarin is a psychology professor at Harvard and the Director of Mental Health and Spirituality at McLean hospital, ranked number one in psychiatric hospitals for adults in the county by Healio Psychiatry. Dr. Rosmarin was a guest on my Faith in Recovery radio show in June 2018. What’s interesting is that of the top ten psychiatric hospitals throughout the country, McLean hospital is the only one that has a spirituality program. McLean conducted a study on the significance of spirituality as it relates to mental illness.
In a study on the significance of spirituality as it relates to mental illness, 58.2% of patients coming into McLean’s psychiatric unit requested to have spirituality/faith programming as part of their treatment. According to an article McLean published on April 25, 2013, “Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment. The study concludes belief in God is associated with improved outcomes in psychiatric treatment.”
This brings us to the obvious question! Why is McLean hospital the only one of the major psychiatric hospitals who offers faith programming? I believe it has much to do with the increased politically correct environment. People are afraid to offend anyone, in particular regarding the topics of religion and mental illness. People may feel as if they are walking around on egg shells, which results in overlooking programs that are proven to be effective. Let’s not put political correctness over the many people afflicted with mental illness or substance use dependency who are in desperate need of help.
Myth #2: Faith Programs Are Judgmental and Condemning
As a Chaplain in our Faith in Recovery program, the three things I hear the most are: “Why does God allow suffering?” “How do I know what God’s will is for my life?” And the last one is a statement: “I stopped going to church because I was forced to go when I was young and all I felt when going was guilt, shame and judgement, so I stopped going.”
According to the 2017 Lifeway research survey, “66% of Americans between 23 to 30 years old stopped attending church on a regular basis after turning 18.” It’s a sad commentary on the Church, especially since it’s supposed to be a place of healing and acceptance. I experienced the same thing growing up and as soon as I was old enough to stop going, I did just that.
Not all churches have a judgmental environment. There are some incredible churches out there, but the damage has been done and it’s difficult to turn the perception around. What is disturbing is the fact that the teachings of Christ and all that He did were the exact opposite of guilt, shame and judgement. Apparently somewhere during the past two thousand years some churches didn’t get the memo.
A faith-based program in a treatment setting at its core must be non-judgmental. The majority of our patients are coming in with tremendous guilt and shame. The last thing they need is to have more of that directed their way. In fact, one of our groups is called “Overcoming Guilt & Shame.” When coming into treatment for substance use dependency or mental health disorders, patients need to be treated with respect, and they need to know that God loves them. He wants to forgive them and has a plan for their lives. It must be emphasized that they have value and a purpose and most importantly God values them. When people truly begin to realize these things, the light begins to open their eyes and the seeds of hope emerge. It’s an incredible sight to witness and I am blessed to have a front row seat on a daily basis.
Myth #3: I Won’t Fit In, I’m Not Very Religious
I think this is similar to any topic that we do not feel we are well-versed in or do not know much about. In general, we tend to shy away from the things we are unfamiliar with or which we associate with a bad experience. Not fitting in is simply not the case. We meet every client right where they are at on their spiritual journey, even if they have no spiritual journey at all. We have patients who grew up in the Church and fell away, those who never stepped foot in a church, devout atheists, agnostics, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and those coming out of the occult. All are welcome and treated the same.
Often times in 12-step treatment, the default setting is “I already heard this.” This contrasts with the faith programming most patients have never heard. This is all new information to them, which gives us a fighting chance to keep their attention. More importantly, our patients begin to face their fears. They realize they are much stronger than they think they are.
Myth #4: They Will Force Me to Convert
One of the things we hear in our faith program is: “I liked it because beliefs were not forced on me.” As one of our former patients, Richard, said in his testimonial video, “One of my biggest things is there’s a connection with God, but I don’t want Him shoved down my throat all day long… it’s so far from that, but it’s so connected it’s amazing.” I believe the reason so many feel this way relates back to what we discussed earlier: They were forced into attending church. We all know when forced into something–especially in our adolescence–we tend to rebel against it.
The reality is God gave us the gift of free will. He never forces us to do anything, so why should we force Faith on someone? All we can do is plant the seeds and water them. God is the one who transforms people’s hearts. We do not have the capacity to change someone’s heart.
Myth #5: We Will Not Be Allowed to Share Our Views
This point actually came from a group in our Faith in Recovery program after I asked for their feedback on myths about faith programming. A few patients stated that one of the concerns they had prior to coming into the program was that they would be talked down to and their opinions would not be heard. After experiencing the group, the consensus was that it was the opposite of this concern; that they were actually encouraged to share their thoughts and perspectives on their faith and to always ask questions.
When patients feel that they are not being heard, they tend to shut down completely. This is the exact opposite of what we are trying to have them accomplish in treatment. Transparency and being completely open is an essential part of getting better. Most patients have been suppressing things for far too long so the last thing we want them to do is shut down.
It’s not surprising that people have this preconceived notion of faith programming as they may be associating it with the years of sitting in the pews being preached to with little opportunity to ask questions. We focus on who our patients are becoming, not on who they were in active addiction. What I witness on a daily basis is patients encouraging one another, praying for each other and providing a listening ear to someone who is struggling.
If those who are in treatment are given the opportunity to speak, you will be surprised at the profound and insightful things they have to say.
By: Anthony Acampora
Title: The 5 Most Common Myths About Faith-Based Addiction Treatment Programs
Sourced From: www.thefix.com/5-most-common-myths-about-faith-based-addiction-treatment-programs
Published Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2020 07:23:04 +0000
At New Horizon Drug Rehab, we understand addiction. If you or a family member are afflicted with addiction or substance abuse we can help. We work with the top centers throughout the US to provide the best detox and addiction treatments available.
Call Now: (877) 747-9974
I’m 50 years old and 7 years sober and I’m still terrible and completely freaked out by adulting. This is not something I’m proud of. I make jokes about it like “I’m a Jew” or “I’m a woman” to explain away my ignorance of electronics and mechanics. (I recently killed my computer’s battery by keeping it plugged in 24/7 and didn’t have my oil changed for 2 years.) But, let’s be honest, that’s racist and sexist and absolute bullshit. Truth is, I spent half my life battling drug addiction and mental illness and was pretty much absent for that learning curve that included taxes, car maintenance, building your credit, budgeting, and relationship skills. So basically at 50 I’m learning stuff that I should have learned at 25.
I’ve also been coddled, apart from the drug addiction and mental illness. I went from my father handling everything to my ex-husband handling everything. When that marriage tanked and I ended up in treatment and sober living for the umpteenth time, my best friend stepped in and started handling everything. I’m still on her phone plan and my car is still in her name because when I got divorced and relapsed, I had the worst credit on the planet. Having good credit wasn’t something I had ever worried about and not something that anyone had ever taught me. To be blunt, people were concerned with keeping me alive because I had been trying to kill myself for years with drugs and suicide attempts. Credit scores don’t seem super important when your kid/friend/wife can’t keep a needle out of her arm or a knife away from her wrists.
But with aging and ill parents and no partner, the reality of my lack of life skills is more evident than ever. Per usual, I try to make it funny as I beg my friend to help me with my taxes, saying “Hey I have other skills like making a soda bottle into a crack bong or hitting a rolling vein.” However, at seven years sober and hitting middle age, is that really an excuse anymore? Here’s the truth: Your car doesn’t care. The IRS doesn’t care. Nobody really cares why you can’t do basic life shit. At my age, it’s just kind of pathetic.
I’ll be honest, part of it is fear. It’s unfamiliar. Thanks to the classic addict mentality, I’m afraid of responsibility. The unknown is scary. I don’t want to learn this stuff. I’m lazy. I want to be taken care of. Still. It’s gross, I know.
I’ve been fired from every job I’ve ever had except for an editing one I held for six years that I recently quit to pursue a bunch of freelance stuff. The only reason that job was remotely viable was because I got to work from home in my holey sweatpants and my boss loved my irreverent, inappropriate attitude. Nobody else would have put up with it.
Despite a book and speaking gigs and my podcast whoredom, I’m still not fully self-supporting. And sure, I’ve managed to stay afloat but some of that is my weird ability to manipulate people into taking care of me, mostly men. It used to be based on my brokenness or them wanting to fuck me. Now it’s that I’m seen as the Golden Goose, the next new whatever. It’s not ideal but considering it was my survival technique for 20 plus years, I have to cut myself a little slack.
I dress like a 22-year-old stoner skater girl in ripped up vintage t-shirts and cords and weird suede booties. That’s fine and attracts many men in their 30’s who are fooled by my faux weird youthfulness, but it’s not so good when I’m booked to speak at a conference or a fundraiser. That’s when terror steps in. I’ve managed to cobble together a vintage style that seems to fly but you’ll find me dead before you’ll see me in a blazer.
I can’t really cook either. I never learned mostly because I couldn’t be less interested. Again, I make some corny joke that the only thing I can cook is dope. But again, how long into sobriety or middle age is that really funny or appropriate?
I will give myself some props. I have health insurance because I have to–thanks to my epilepsy. And even my cat has health insurance. I am my mom’s social security payee and handle all her bills but that’s solely because it was forced upon me as her only child when she developed dementia. So yeah, I can man up–or woman up, I should say–when it’s necessary.
We’ve all heard the saying that when you get sober you’re the mental age of when you started using. I’m not sure if I agree with that; I see stunted growth in myself and also in others that started to use later in life.
Drugs and alcohol hinder the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, reasoning, and critical thinking. If those parts are shut down by addiction, well obviously you aren’t going to acquire the skills to navigate life. We learn by making mistakes, but addicts tend to make the same mistakes over and over again, slow to learn or gain any new perspective.
Just to check my science, I asked Dr. Howard Wetsman. “Well, that is the current party line, but I think whether we’re using or not, having low dopamine self-centers us so we are prone to making those impulsive self-centered mistakes again and again. As dopamine is necessary for long term potentiation (memory), we may not actually learn as well or as permanently as others. I don’t know if there’s enough evidence to say either way, but we all have to just do the best we can day to day.”
Thankfully, I’m not too proud to ask for help, and luckily, people in the program and friends are happy to offer it.
By: Amy Dresner
Title: Learning to Adult in Recovery
Sourced From: www.thefix.com/learning-adult-recovery
Published Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2020 07:23:07 +0000
At New Horizon Drug Rehab, we understand addiction. If you or a family member are afflicted with addiction or substance abuse we can help. We work with the top centers throughout the US to provide the best detox and addiction treatments available.
Call Now: (877) 747-9974
Singing the national anthem at the NFL Championship game is considered a great honor, even if it can be rather unforgiving in terms of criticism. This year the honor was given to Demi Lovato, singer, pop-culture icon, mental health activist, and, perhaps most notably, a person in recovery for substance abuse.
Of Singing and Substance Abuse
It appears as though the media and the public have had a positive reaction to Lovato’s singing of the national anthem. Her release of a new single, “Anyone,” a few weeks earlier have marked a sort of career revival for Lovato. This is significant, considering that the musician was considering leaving her music career behind after a near-fatal overdose two years ago.
Before the overdose, Lovato had been in recovery for nearly six years. In various interviews, she admitted to abusing alcohol and cocaine, mentioning that she frequently smuggled it onto planes and into other venues. Lovato’s addiction problem became so bad that it began to affect her career and her ability to perform. Regardless, the singer’s return to the public scene provides a stark lesson regarding the nature of recovery. Relapses may be devastating, but they are not always absolute. One can come back from a relapse and still live and flourish in recovery.
A History of Substance Abuse
From the start of her career, Demi Lovato struggled with mental health challenges. She ultimately found herself in an inpatient rehab facility. Following her treatment, Lovato maintained sobriety and went on to hit several career highs. While in recovery, Lovato released some of her top-selling albums, built a loyal and energetic fanbase, and became involved with mental health activism, even going on to speak about the topic at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
In July of 2018, Lovato suffered an overdose from oxycodone laced with fentanyl. She was rushed to a hospital and revived with naloxone. The overdose occurred after six years of sobriety for Lovato. Following the overdose, Lovato thanked her fans for her support, but went on an extended hiatus. Her performance at the NFL Championship game marks her return to her music career, and is a testament to the process of recovery.
People Like us…
Demi Lovato is an example of how living in recovery can be empowering. Despite various mental health and substance abuse challenges, and a near-fatal relapse, Lovato has chosen to reclaim her career and her life in recovery. While her continuing involvement in mental health activism remains unconfirmed, Lovato’s story provides an honest snapshot of the recovery process.
Yet, Lovato is but one example of a person making their way in recovery. Everyday people face the specter of relapse, the niggling little temptations to break sobriety. It’s important to remember that recovery is a journey. Sometimes the journey gets tough. But the will to keep going, regardless of the challenges, is the key to finding peace and freedom from addiction.
The post Demi Lovato: Snapshot of Recovery appeared first on Recovery.org.
