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The Thankful Addict

Posted on by Christy Weeks

To those who have been in the trenches of addiction, recovery frequently provides opportunities to be thankful. Recovery gave them their life back. Though it was certainly earned, the work and efforts put forth in the recovery process, resulting in an improved quality of life, is something to be grateful for. Many recovering addicts are even feel thankful for the addiction they endured, as it made them stronger and gave them a better life than they ever had before they ever took the first drink or drug.

Recovery requires work and personal insight. The gift of recovery, and the personal traits it equips its receivers with, is something very few people ever get to experience. Those in recovery strive for constant improvement in knowledge of themselves, improvement in relationships, and strive to find a meaning and purpose to life. They take pride in helping others, and try to improve the lives of everyone they meet. This is certainly something to be thankful for. Many float through life without ever taking a good look in the mirror. The continued self-awareness, desire for self-improvement and perseverance those in recovery have is a trait that’s shared by few.

Although they may not be aware of this, those in active addiction have much to be thankful for as well. They are actively involved with a very deadly disease, and remain alive. They are also blessed with the reality that, if they wish, they never have to use again. The qualities of those in recovery mentioned above are attainable starting right now. It isn’t easy to achieve, but a life of recovery is worth it.

Though recovery is obtainable, it can’t be done alone. Getting help at a reputable addiction treatment facility like ours is the first step to a better life. If a better life, a sober life and all that comes with it, is something you are interested in, Harmony Foundation can help you achieve it. Recovery is just a phone call away.

The Importance of Exercise in Addiction Recovery

Posted on by Christy Weeks

When a person exercises they experience positive physical, mental, and emotional results. Exercising is a key component to a healthy lifestyle. For this reason, exercising in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction is generally encouraged. The simple things like a well balanced diet and exercise can go a long way in helping one stay sober. It helps in early recovery by speeding up the process of getting healthy. It also helps with long term recovery by maintaining one’s overall health and establishing healthy relationships and routines through exercising or going to the gym.

A recent study has found that exercise reduces the risk of relapse during early recovery. Interestingly, there was correlation between exercise and relapse rate or urges, but no correlation between the actual length of the workout and relapse rates. Simply put, being involved in physical fitness, on any level, was enough to reduce the cravings and help prevent relapse. Even a 20-minute workout can go a long way. The study also found that even during active addiction, exercising resulted in the addicts not needing as much of their drug of choice to be satisfied.

Exercise, like drugs and alcohol, activate the brain’s reward system. Runners have often referred to the rewarding feeling they obtain while running as “runner’s high”. The “feel good” chemicals that exercise brings on can show a person that there are other ways of becoming elated besides using drugs. 

It may seem like a simple task, but exercising can ripple into other aspects of recovery as well. Many who start exercising, even in small amounts, will start to incorporate other healthy aspects into their lives naturally. They may be more inclined to eat healthy to hold onto feeling well or dress nicer because their overall confidence has improved. Exercising can start small, and snowball into a very healthy lifestyle.

Exercise is a key component to our men’s residential treatment program, women’s rehab and our young adult addiction treatment program. This, coupled with our nutritional program, helps clients get physically healthy along with the spiritual and mental health that comes with getting sober.

A Click Away: Drugs on The Deep Web

Posted on by Christy Weeks
buying drugs on the deep web

The Internet is involved in nearly every aspect of American’s lives these days. Banking, communication, research, and navigation are all done primarily on the Internet. With the popularity of the World Wide Web growing, it was only a matter of time before it started to leak into the world of drug addiction.

Buying prescription drugs on the Internet is hardly a new thing. Individuals have bought painkillers and other drugs from shady pharmacies online for years. After several crackdowns on online pharmacies, dealers have needed to find new means of getting substances to addicts online.

The vast majority of the illegal drug trading online today is done on what is known as the Deep Web. This is the portion of the Internet that is not discoverable by search engines. The Surface web refers to  the Internet that the majority of people use. Search engines index the Surface web, and these websites are discoverable using search engines like Google or Bing. The Deep Web has been estimated to be 4,000-5,000 times larger than the Surface Web. It is here where addicts meet a dealer and order their drug of choice. Chinese criminals seem to be at the forefront, or at least heavily involved with the illegal Internet drug trade, using bit coins as currency to facilitate the trading, and operate from both Mainland China and Hong Kong.

While in active addiction, addicts became masterminds in the art of procuring their drugs of choice. It used to be that the best way to get someone clean was to keep them contained – in a lockdown facility to prevent them from drug seeking behavior. Addicts are told to stay away from people, places and things related to their addiction.

Since drugs are accessible everywhere now, including the web, recovery has to be all encompassing. It may have been an addict’s thought that changing locations and “starting fresh” would be sufficient to beat addiction. Running away from addiction is no longer an option. Availability and therefore temptation is stronger than ever, and addicts need to have the tools necessary to face these temptations.

The recovery program at Harmony Foundation provides the tools to combat these inevitable temptations – including group and individual counseling, 12 step support meetings, aftercare, alumni support and highly credentialed addiction therapists to help addicts sobriety have staying power, even when faced with explicit opportunities to fall prey to temptations.

The Addiction Carousel: Substituting Addictions

Posted on by Christy Weeks

Many people in early recovery are warned about substituting addictions. Substituting an addiction is defined as replacing an old addiction with a new addiction that the individual didn’t have previously. However, a case where someone has a co-occurring disorder, and one of those disorders or addictions grows after another is eliminated, wouldn’t be labeled as a substitution.

Substituting addictions in recovery is a common occurrence, and most people battling addictions have seen this take place within themselves or someone else. Someone who had a heroin addiction gets sober and starts drinking more. An alcoholic who quits drinking and starts binge eating. Substitutions of this nature are common.

So how many categories of addictions are there? According to Dr. Steven Sussman, there are 11. Dr. Sussman co-authored a paper in which he categorizes 11 “relatively common behaviors” as addictions. These common behaviors are: tobacco use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, binge eating, gambling, internet use, love, sex, exercise, work, and shopping. Any of these behaviors can count as addictions. If any are incorporated into a person’s life after giving up an addiction, and they culminate into a new addiction, that constitutes an addiction substitution.

Addiction substitutions are dangerous for those in recovery. Even if the substitution is a “safer” addiction, like going from heroin addiction to a work addiction, having an addiction at all is obviously negative. Any of the above mentioned addictions pose a threat to a person’s quality of life. A recovering addict should be mindful of other potential addictions, and make sure they stay off of the addiction carousel.

The Link Between Child Abuse, Substance Abuse and Relapse

Posted on by Christy Weeks

It is well known that relapse is common for those in early recovery from addiction. Also well known is that those with a history of child abuse are more likely to abuse substances in adulthood. A recent study now links the two – showing that those with history of substance abuse who are in early recovery have a higher propensity for relapse.

New York University School of Medicine and Yale University School of Medicine researchers published their recent findings in the American Medical Association journal, JAMA Psychiatry, showing the link between the two and highlighting the potential difficulty of treating adult addicts with a history of abuse. The researchers used MRI scans to look at the brains of 79 people in substance abuse treatment, some with a history of child abuse and others without. The researchers looked for changes in the brain previously associated with an increased risk for substance abuse relapse. They found these changes to be more prevalent among those who had a history of child abuse. The research showed that the increased risk of relapse pertained to all addictive substances. The study also noted that as many as 5 out of 10 people who experience neglect or childhood abuse will develop substance abuse problems and will have a high rate of relapse.

The findings also discussed the challenge of having effective treatment for those with child abuse in their history because the relapse potential is so high. However, addiction treatment centers like Harmony Foundation already consider abuse history when crafting treatment plans for new clients and programs for those who had relapsed. Because the rate of relapse is high for those in early recovery in general let alone those with a history of abuse, offering relapse prevention groups and therapeutic opportunities to recognize and face triggers is essential in addiction treatment.

Risk of Opiates Outweigh Benefits

Posted on by Christy Weeks

 

Photo Via www.neurology.org

 

The painkiller epidemic that has swept across the U.S. in the last decade is common knowledge these days. Many people have developed addictions, and many have died, from taking prescription opiates. Those in recovery are made aware of the fact that any mind altering substance will have devastating effects on their lives. While someone new to recovery may still struggle with reservations about the dangers of prescriptions, they are increasingly thought of as being as dangerous as it gets in the recovery community.

It should come as no surprise that prescription opiates pose a danger to everyone, not just addicts. In fact, the American Academy of Neurology published a position statement in their latest medical journal stating that the dangers and risks associated with taking prescription opiate drugs outweigh the benefits. This statement wasn’t referencing addiction or addicts, but everyone in general. It asserted that with the exception of cancer patients, the risk of overdose and other health problems associated with opiates outweighs the benefit of pain relief. For a person with chronic headaches or back pain for example, even the relief they may get from taking opiates isn’t enough to outweigh the associated dangers – the most glaring dangers being the propensity for addiction and accidental overdose.

With the well-respected American Academy of Neurology publishing statements on how opiates are dangerous for everyone, it underscores how particularly hazardous they are to addicts or those in recovery. In short, if they are too dangerous for the average Joe, imagine how deadly they are to addicts or alcoholics. Alternative pain management practices like acupuncture and other holistic therapies may pave they way for the future of pain management to mitigate the public risk of these dangerous drugs.

The Dangers of Molly (MDMA)

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Molly Abuse and Overdoses on the Rise at Music Festivals

 

Drugs have developed a reputation in modern society. Alcohol use is thought of as normal, while heroin is generally associated with an addict on the street. While there is some truth to stereotypes surrounding specific drugs, many are false. Molly, or MDMA, has developed a reputation among young adults as a “fun” drug. It is generally typecast as a drug young people do when at a club or music festival. It’s reputation as “fun” is dangerous.

Two young individuals overdosed on Molly earlier this year at the Electric Zoo concert in New York and earlier this month a 21 year old died after ingesting a lethal dose of Molly at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Molly or MDMA related deaths are becoming a regular occurrence, with young adults overdosing at several festivals over the last few years. These tragedies are, in part, attributable to the general reputation of the drug – thought of as fun, and by association, safe. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anything from gasoline to baby powder has been found to be an ingredient in Molly.

When drugs have reputations as being fun or safe it is dangerous for everyone, but especially threatening for recovering addicts. The idea that a drug, any drug, is ok in sobriety can be devastating. Some in recovery may feel that if a drug wasn’t their drug of choice, they can take it and not endure the same wrath as they did in active addiction. The age old tale of the addict who thought alcohol was ok to consume after becoming clean off of drugs is an example of this. A positive reputation being associated with a drug is menacing, especially when that drug is killing people. It’s of monumental importance is sobriety to remember, a drug is a drug is a drug – no matter its reputation.

Alcohol is Still the Deadliest Drug

Posted on by Christy Weeks
Statistically Alcohol is still the most deadly drug in existence. Surveys polling incarcerated criminal offenders confirmed that alcohol was the mind altering substance most associated with violent crimes. TV shows and movies may indicate that cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin intoxication lead to more acts of violence, but alcohol has been shown to be the real killer.

The survey showed that among individuals incarcerated for violent crimes, around 40% had been drinking at the time they committed the crime. Alcohol consumption was most common in people committing certain crimes like murder and sexual assault. Alcohol affects everyone differently, but it generally lowers inhibitions for people across the board. Some drink and experience feelings of elation while others drink and get sad. There is also a group of people who drink and get violent. Unfortunately, this type of reaction to intoxication seems to be common, as 40% of those who have committed violent crimes were drinking and there are a lot of individuals – incarcerated or not – who have committed violent crimes.

Analysis of the survey showed that being under the influence of alcohol didn’t just make people more likely to be the perpetrator in a crime; it also made them more likely to be a victim. Almost 40% of homicide victims had alcohol in their system at the time they were murdered.

Many believe that alcohol is present in more victims and perpetrators because it is more widely available. That is true, alcohol is legal and can be bought legitimately in a wide variety of locations. However, the people who committed these violent crimes typically didn’t just have a beer with dinner. The study showed that among these perpetrators, the average blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.

Alcohol intoxication isn’t just dangerous behind the wheel. Many people, with or without an alcohol addiction, go out drinking with good intentions. They want to go out and have a good time or relax. However, as the survey showed, the road to jail is paved with good intentions.

Good intentions also keep alcoholics in denial and may delay their path to alcoholism treatment. No matter how many times the alcoholic’s binge with good intentions – believing they’ll just go out and have a good time – they keep having the same ending which includes but is not limited to being violent, blacking out, promiscuity, fighting or becoming a victim.

 

Where Drug Abuse Meets Politics

Posted on by Christy Weeks

Where drug abuse meets politics has been evident in the news this past month with several headlines catching national attention.

First, Obama’s former right hand man turned Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is advocating that the state of Illinois lay off some of its stringent drug laws. Specifically, he wants to reduce the felony charge for those caught with a gram or less of a controlled substance. Currently, those caught with a  pain pill for which they have no prescription or a small amount of cocaine face a felony charge, which can have lifelong repercussions. According to Emanuel, “A felony conviction can slam the door on someone’s future and make it harder to go to school, apply for financial aid and find housing. There are times when a felony conviction is no doubt warranted, but we have to ask ourselves whether it’s too high a price for using drugs.” What’s left out of this story was whether those charged with non-felony possession would be encouraged to seek drug abuse treatment.

Second, the Federal Government recently posted a job seeking pot farmers for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. They are looking for farmers to “cultivate and harvest, process, analyze, store, and distribute cannabis (marijuana) for research.” Specifically, they are looking for marijuana farmers who are able to grow plants with “altered” variations of THC for specific research they are conducting.

Obviously the farmers must be approved by the FDA and DEA and registered to handle Schedule II substances. A spokesperson for NIDA said the organization’s contract for marijuana farms is going to expire next year and that these new contracts will likely be for one year, but may have the option of a four year contract. Obviously a lot of research on marijuana abuse will come out over the next few years but this job post in particular has gotten many interested in what NIDA is researching exactly.

Third, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he will resign last week as soon as his replacement is confirmed. Critics say that Holder is leaving at a time when the DOJ is in over it’s head with the discordance between state and federal marijuana policy. Whoever the new Attorney General will be will have to contend with the fact that two states have legalized marijuana, 23 have sound, clear cut laws around medicinal use of cannibus and a few states have a few limited and blurry laws around medicinal uses. However, the Federal government continues to classify marijuana as a schedule I drug (or a drug defined as being criminal, without medicinal purpose and with high abuse potential). Because the DEA is part of the DOJ, the new Attorney General has the power and authority to reschedule or de-schedule a substance – something Holder failed to do while in office. Time (and nominations for Attorney General) will tell how marijuana will be classified federally.

What Lies Beneath: Depression and Substance Abuse

Posted on by Christy Weeks
What Lies Beneath
 
 
In the darkest hours of addiction addicts often question what led them to spin out of control – to be completely powerless over drugs or alcohol. Many have felt something deeper attributed to their addictions other than poor choices or bad luck.

In most people’s first 12 step recovery meeting they get a glimpse of who an addict really is; who they really are. They hear their fellows describe their feelings and thought processes around not only drinking or drug abuse but also everyday situations and life in general. Through this process many find they share that others have had some form of depression prior to alcohol or drug abuse.

A recent study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that depression typically precedes alcoholism. The study indicates that people who are depressed as children are more likely to develop addictions when they reach adulthood. It found that those depressed in their teen years are twice as likely to start drinking alcohol than those without depression.

Other studies have shown that alcoholism causes depression – raising the classic “what came first the chicken or the egg?” question. In many cases, the two are present concurrently and when one is worked on, the other improves. Often it is the substance abuse that gets attention first and depressive symptoms improve. That is because most drugs are depressants and it is hard to clinically diagnosis someone with substances present because they skew an accurate portrayal of that person’s well being.

Here are Harmony Foundation’s residential treatment program, our clients find that their depression, anxiety or other co-occurring disorders are more manageable, improve or disappear altogether when they put down substances. By detoxing from substances and allowing the body and mind to heal through long-term recovery, addicts give themselves a fighting chance against what lies beneath their addiction, like depression.