Author: The Fix

Kanye West Says He Was Misdiagnosed With Bipolar Disorder

The rapper discussed the misdiagnosis during his highly publicized sit-down with President Donald Trump.

In a recent conversation with President Trump, rapper Kanye West expressed that he believes his diagnosis of bipolar disorder was a mistake and he was actually suffering from sleep deprivation.

According to The News-Herald, West met with President Trump on Thursday, October 11 and discussed the importance of communication when it comes to mental health.

“What I think is we don’t need sentences, we need pardons,” he told the president, according to The News-Herald. “We need to talk to people. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I was connected with a neuropsychologist that works with the athletes in the NBA and NFL. He looked at my brain. I wasn’t actually bipolar, I had sleep deprivation which can cause dementia 10 to 20 years from now when I wouldn’t even remember my son’s name.”

In a previous interview, West discussed his diagnosis and said he was happy to know he had bipolar disorder.

“I think it’s important for us to have open conversations about mental health – especially with me being black,” West said. “Because we never had therapists in the black community. We never approached taking a medication. I think it’s good that when I had my first complete blackout at age five, my mom didn’t fully medicate me. Because I might have never been ‘Ye. And there’s times where at least I’m happy that I know [I’m bipolar.] Like, even like for this interview, I knew I wanted to stay in a calm state.”

West has also worked his mental health diagnosis into his songs. In a song called “Yikes” on his album Ye, West sings, “ain’t no disability, I’m a superhero.”

According to Time, West also told radio personality Big Boy that he is grateful to have the resources he does.

“I’m so blessed and so privileged because think about people that have issues that are not Kanye West, that can’t go and make that [music] and make you feel like it’s all good,” he stated. “I’d never been diagnosed and I was like 39 years old… That’s why I said on the album, ‘It’s not a disability, it’s a super power.’”

In addition to his bipolar disorder, the rapper has also struggled with substance use disorder. On an episode of TMZ Live, West discussed his battle with pain pills after having liposuction.

“I was drugged the f— out,” he stated. “I was drugged out. I was on opioids. Two days after I got off opioids, I’m in the hospital. Two days before going to the hospital, I was on opioids. I was addicted to opioids. I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y’all.”

In another interview, this one with radio personality Charlamagne tha God, West explained that he uses anyone he speaks to as his therapist.

“I use the world as my therapist. Anyone I talk to is my therapist,” he said. “I will pull them into the conversation of what I’m feeling at that point and get their perspective… I like just talking to acquaintances, friends, family, and I keep them on the phone for 45 minutes at a time, talking through things. It’s kind of narcissistic.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 October 2018
Using Love as a Drug

I used drugs and alcohol to control my feelings and gave up on relationships early on since people are harder to control than substances. As I felt the other person pull away, my urge to control increased.

Recently I was sitting in a meeting with a little over two years sober, feeling completely insane. For a few months, my moods vacillated between elation and utter sadness, complete faith and deadbeat nihilism, raging excitement and total fear. I was leaning into the program of AA more than ever. I was attending meetings every day, sticking to my spiritual practice, sponsoring two women, and regularly checking in with my sponsor. Even so, I wasn’t able to find any middle ground. The emotional chaos raging inside me was very reminiscent of active addiction. I felt so twisted I asked myself: Am I even sober?

I googled the word “sober” and found a source that defined it as “being unaffected by alcoholism.” Fuck! I’M NEVER GOING TO BE SOBER, I thought. Over two years without any mind-altering substance in my body and serenity felt that far out of reach.

You hear about people feeling messed up and hitting bottoms all the time in sobriety. But there’s a flip side to that: you can feel just as good in sobriety as you did in active addiction when the drugs and alcohol were actually working. At its best, it’s what the Big Book calls “being rocketed into a fourth dimension.” In my experience, the highs in sobriety get higher and so do the bottoms. Even so, feelings can come as quite a shock in early sobriety since they’re no longer being regulated or masked with drugs or alcohol.

They say that for real alcoholics, the problems really begin once the drink is removed. My obsession to drink and do drugs was removed through working the 12 steps in AA (a few times) and the idea of picking up a drink or drug rarely, if ever, crossed my mind. This in itself is the ultimate miracle.

But alcoholism is a beast that will show up in many forms. Once the obsession is lifted, the addict/alcoholic mind will quickly move on to other things: coffee, cigarettes, shopping, gambling, sex, eating disorders, social media, take your pick. In my case, it shifted towards arguably the greatest drug of all time: love.

“Love” can mean different things to different people and our understanding of love has been shaped by what we saw growing up and our past experiences. As a point of reference, I use renowned spiritual teacher and physician David R. Hawkins’ Map of the Scale of Consciousness, which categorizes every level of consciousness a person can experience into levels of falsehood and levels of truth. Shame is the lowest energy field in falsehood where one feels hateful towards themselves and views a Higher Power as despising, and Enlightenment is the highest in truth where one feels completely attuned and at one with a Higher Power.

Based on this structure, I propose that love is an energy field in an array of consciousness that we can fall in and out of at any moment. In Hawkins’ scale, Love is sandwiched right above Reason and below Joy. So here, we see that love is literally beyond reason. According to Hawkins, it is here that a person experiences feelings of reverence and revelation before transcending into Joy where one views themselves as complete. Perhaps this helps explain why our culture is so fixated and obsessed with the idea that another person can “complete” us.

The process of revelation may come to an addict easily since, for many of us, any human connection at all in early sobriety is unprecedented and revolutionary. For years I used drugs and alcohol to connect with people around me. As I continued to develop a sense of belonging with others in sobriety, and saw it was possible that I could feel emotions of such a loving nature, I felt as if I had been “rocketed” into that fourth dimension the Big Book referred to.

In his excellent book Unsubscribe: Opt Out of Delusion, Tune in to Truth, recovered addict and Dharma teacher Josh Korda explains that feelings of attraction and infatuation create a neural surge of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that is related to our rewards state and motivation. The same neurotransmitter that floods your brain after two drinks, that thing that makes you go “Ahhhh.”

As an addict, I was bound to chase that high. I was driven by an obsession of the mind and a phenomenon of craving. All I wanted was to feel that rush. Even a text message would send the dopamine levels up. It wasn’t long before this relationship dictated my every move, just like drugs and alcohol did. It was no different than when I chased one high to the next in active addiction, doing everything in my power to find relief and a sense of control. (For the sake of disclosure and to spare the theory of sex addiction, there was no sex involved.)

Without realizing it, I’d become hooked. And with every high, there comes a crash.

During the crashes, I found myself resorting to some lower-level behaviors I had not seen in a while. My behavior was extremely erratic, I couldn’t stay focused, and I was irritable unless my craving was satisfied. My addiction found its way into other areas of my life and unmanageability and insanity crept in once again.

Once someone becomes addicted, they lose their free will and will do anything in their control to satisfy the craving. Referring back to Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness, the addict falls into another state entirely: Desire. Often confused with Love, Desire is actually one of the states of falsehood, along with Guilt, Shame, Fear, and Hatred. Desire itself can never truly be satisfied, because it’s based in an illusion. One wants what they can’t have. It is here that nothing is good enough, everything fails to hit the mark, and any other place and time is better than the present moment. This conjures the state of restlessness, irritability, and discontentedness. This internalized state eventually turns so wretched that drugs and alcohol appear to be the solution again. My alcoholic mind took all its evil twists and turns so that once I exhausted all other alternatives, I “all of a sudden” had the thought, A line of coke and a shot would make all of this go away.

That is the insanity of drug addiction and alcoholism.

Naturally, there is an impermanence to all things and all states; a simple fact of life I could never easily accept and consistently fought against. Feelings ebb and flow, usually without any sense or rationale behind them. Relationships are not guaranteed. As an addict who is obsessed with control and wants to feel good all the time, these truths are not easy pills to swallow. I used drugs and alcohol to control my feelings and gave up on relationships early on since people are harder to control than substances. As I felt the other person pull away, my urge to control increased.

I tried to take control of my feelings back. I had no desire to pick up a drink or drug at the time, but my addiction manifested in my anorexia, chain smoking, excessive running, drinking too much caffeine. Meanwhile, I still attempted to control the course of the relationship. Even my participation in AA was extremely alcoholic in that I was using the tools to fix the way I felt, rather than simply living with it. (Yes, it is possible to do the 12 steps like a drug.)

It was suggested to me that I was perhaps a love addict, to which I countered: Am I love addict or am I simply an addict who now participates in relationships? I did attempt to dive back into the 12 steps yet again, but this time in the area of relationships, so I could just figure it out and then just not be that way anymore. It didn’t work.

One thing I’ve learned in recovery is that this is all super normal, human stuff. People meet other people, develop feelings and feel the adrenaline and dopamine rush of a crush and the heady feelings in the beginning of a relationship. Everyone experiences rejection and break-ups. However, my experience as an addict is that I did not thoroughly develop in these areas because I was never truly there for them. My emotional growth was stunted when I began to use drugs and alcohol, and sobriety is a big catching up game in terms of emotional intelligence. It’s how I cope with these normal life experiences that matters and what I found was that I was still living alcoholically, even without drugs or alcohol in my system.

Is all of this to say that addicts should shy away from connecting with others, initiating new relationships, and striving for new, unadulterated levels of intimacy? Am I doomed in every relationship because I’m an addict and alcoholic? Absolutely not.

One of the greatest things about recovery is its wide invitation to exist on this plane with other people, to feel things the way humans should. These developments can take years to even out. In recovery, we get to challenge our false belief systems and stumble around with everyone else learning how to care about each other effectively. Relationships are where we see our character defects in action, where we experience life, where we ultimately grow in the process. The longer I stay sober, the greater my capacity to connect with others and to be honest becomes. And it all boils down to this: There is no way to grow spiritually in isolation.

All I needed to remember was one of the simplest things I heard when I first got sober: The unmanageability would cease as soon as I relinquished control. Just as it did with drinking and doing drugs.

I was back at step one and had to get honest. With truth and reality can come a lot of pain and suffering, but it’s not the truth that causes it. It’s the extent to which and for how long someone lives in a false reality that perpetuates suffering. Not only was I driven by the same obsession of the mind and phenomenon of craving that drove me in active addiction, I was also driven by the false belief that people, places, and things are on this planet for me to prove my worthiness and to validate my experience.

The old ideas and beliefs that drive us in our relationships were constructed by years and years of living in falsehood. Now, in active recovery, we chip away at those old ideas and free ourselves from those false beliefs.

View the original article at thefix.com

16 October 2018
Can Social Media Reduce Depression In Older Adults With Chronic Pain?

A recent study examined how social media use affected the mental health of elderly adults living with pain.

There’s been lots of information put forward about the toll that social media can take on our mental health, with excessive use of social media linked to depression and addictive behaviors.

However, a new study indicates that there may be a silver lining: social media use might be associated with lower depression levels in older adults with pain.

The study, published in Journals of Gerontology, Series B and reported by Reuters Health, followed 3,401 people ages 67 or older. The people in the study all lived in the community, rather than in an assisted living or nursing facility, and 54% of them said they’d been bothered by pain in the past month.

Researchers found that among people with pain, 15% of those who did not use social media showed signs of depression. That dropped to just 6% among people who did engage with social media.

“Using online social media to maintain contact with family members and friends is a good way to compensate for seniors who restrict their social activities due to pain. It is not going to replace seeing people in person, but it will help supplement their reduced activities,” said Shannon Ang, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and co-author of the study. “For us, this study is about preserving mental health.”

Despite the connection with better mental health, only 17% of participants were using social media, Ang found. He said that programs that teach the elderly how to use computers and engage online could be beneficial.

In the future, Ang wants to research the connection between social media and mental health further, looking at what social media platforms and patterns of use are most closely connected with mental health benefits.

Healthcare providers say it isn’t necessarily surprising that social media could reduce depression symptoms, since it can alleviate feelings of isolation.

“It’s very well known that social support is helpful for depression and physical symptoms. It’s a growing area of interest in research and clinical care,” said Dr. William Pirl of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who wasn’t involved in the study.

However, people should proceed with caution, Pirl said.

“People respond differently to it. Some people can become more anxious hearing other peoples’ stories or about other treatments for what they’re experiencing. There’s a lot of variability of whether social media is right for you.”

View the original article at thefix.com

16 October 2018
Gang Accidentally Filmed Themselves Prepping Drone Drug Drop

During an attempt to smuggle drugs into prison, Scottish gang members managed to give police ample evidence to lock them up.

The Scottish gang members who accidentally filmed themselves loading up drugs on a prison-bound drone are now bound for prison themselves.

Paul Reilly and Michael Martin were hit with nearly four years in the hoosegow following their ill-fated flight, according to The Scotsman.

The duo was aiming to send the drugs over the walls and into Perth Prison, where Martin’s brother was expecting to reel in the pills and pot, according to the New York Post.

But, while packing the narcotics onto the remote flyer, Martin accidentally turned on the drone’s camera and recorded more than 18 minutes of footage of him and his gang prepping the drug load.

“If there was an award for the movie with the most inept director,” prosecutor Michael Sweeney said, “then it would have been won by the accused.”

The footage showed both men—along with a third still-unidentified suspect—neatly packing Kinder Eggs full of drugs to send into the prison. Though the video even managed to show the gang’s house number, the criminal crew turned out to be better at filming than they were at flying, as the drone was eventually found crashed outside the prison yard.

When they recovered the wrecked flyer, authorities found a micro SD card full of the incriminating evidence.

“I don’t think they were aware the drone was actually filming at that time. I’m assuming he was looking at the drone to check if it was on, if it was functioning,” PC Nicholas Schembri said in court. “He was maybe making sure it was properly set-up. From the footage I viewed you could see clearly a tattoo on his neck.”

The crew tried to exercise some element of caution, covering their hands with gloves to shield their fingerprints and DNA from the drone—but that turned out to be a futile precaution.

That arrest came just months after authorities in the UK collared another set of gang members accused of making dozens of drone flights into prisons. In that case, it was an outdoor wildlife camera that tipped off police to the illicit flying operation and landed eight people behind bars.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
Narco Submarines Give Coast Guard A Run For Their Money

The DEA estimates that 30 to 40% of narcotics coming into the country are hauled on the homemade submarines.

Narco subs seem to be on the rise as a stealthy method of smuggling drugs, a shift that comes amid booming cocaine production in the South American country most known for it.

In the first nine months of 2018, the Colombian navy caught 14 drug-hauling vessels, three times as many as they intercepted the year before according to Business Insider.

In 2017, the U.S. Coast Guard offered similar observations, reporting a “resurgence” in low-profile vessels like subs.

But those captures likely represent only a small fraction of the drug-laden subs headed stateside, according to the online news outlet. The DEA estimated that 30 to 40% of narcotics coming into the country are hauled on the homemade submarines – and authorities are probably only catching 5% of them, Insider reported.

The shift comes amid a boom in the coke-making industry in Colombia, where there is now more land dedicated to coca-growing than ever before in the nation’s history, according to the New York Times.

“It’s a curve that’s permanently going up and hasn’t reached its inflection point,” the Colombian defense minister, Guillermo Botero, told reporters this year.

The first time U.S. authorities snagged a drug-running sub wasn’t until 2006, when law enforcement intercepted a homemade vessel hauling 3 tons of blow near Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast.

Five years later, American authorities encountered their first stealth sub on the other side of the isthmus, in the Caribbean. Though the traffickers tried scuttling the vessel to ditch the load, authorities ultimately recovered 14,000 pounds of coke from the craft.

Since then, Colombian crime rings have pumped out an estimated 100 drug subs per year, launching them in the country’s rivers where there is relatively little policing to stop them. And, as the blow industry continues booming, traffickers have more and more money to pour into making sure their underwater vessels are ever more sophisticated and able to escape detection.

But the recent uptick in intercepted subs may not mean that there’s more of them. Coast Guard officials told Business Insider that’s actually a sign of anti-trafficking success. Yet, Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA, chalked it up to the sheer volume of drug trafficking on the high seas.

“They may be capturing more,” he said, “but again, that’s because there’s a hell of a lot more being using to smuggle drugs.”

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
E-Cig Maker Called Out For Putting Erectile Dysfunction Meds In Vape Juice

The FDA issued a warning to one e-cig maker that reportedly violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The FDA is casting a closer eye on HelloCig Electronic Technology, an e-cigarette manufacturer, after FDA researchers discovered that not only were the fruit-flavored products found to impair lung function in trials on mice, but the liquids contained prescription erectile dysfunction drugs as well.

While e-cigarettes, vapes, and their ilk have been touted as a healthier alternatives to smoking for years, the truth is that the products were simply too new to allow any deep understanding about the possible adverse risks they carry as well as what product regulations should be put in place to protect consumers.

This lack of regulation may have contributed to HelloCig’s inclusion of tadafil and sildenafil, usually used as the active ingredient to treat erectile dysfunction, in their e-cigarette liquids.

“There are no e-liquids that contain prescription drugs that have been proven safe or effective through this route of administration,” said Scott Gottleib, FDA Commissioner.

The FDA also undertook a surprise inspection of popular San Francisco e-cig manufacturer Juul, snatching up their marketing documents to ensure the company is not marketing to minors. Juul has been a runaway success, seeing a massive increase in sales from 2.2 million devices in 2016 to 16.2 million devices in 2017.

Considering that 2 million high schoolers reported using e-cigarettes in a National Youth Tobacco Survey study, a significant portion of these sales made their way to the hands of minors.

That’s why last September, the FDA warned and fined any e-cig manufacturers found to have sold products to minors and gave them 60 days to prove they had mechanisms in place to prevent minors from purchasing their products.

The fruity flavors that are most attractive to teens have been linked to impaired lung function in mice. While this does not necessarily mean that the same effects will be seen in humans, it’s an important first step to determining the risks the products present.

“Our findings suggest that exposure to e-cig vapor can trigger inflammatory responses and adversely affect respiratory system mechanics,” wrote the study’s authors. “We conclude that both e-cig vaping and conventional cigarette smoking negatively impact lung biology.”

Groups of mice were exposed to cigarette smoke as well as different formulations of e-cigarette vapor. After three days, all the mice were found to have problems with inflammation, mucous production, and lung function.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik Reflects On Getting Sober

The “Iris” singer has been sober since 2014.

The Goo Goo Dolls, the multi-platinum rock group best known for hits like “Iris” and “Name,” are still going strong both on the road and off. And lead singer John Rzeznik is living the family life he had never previously imagined before he got sober.

Rzeznik recently reflected on his hard upbringing and journey to sobriety to Buffalo News. The singer grew up in Buffalo, New York with a “pretty serious drinker” for a father.

“I have no idea how he survived as long as he did.” Rzeznik recalled his relationship with his father as “distant… That’s the mark of an alcoholic—the distance. It’s a very lonely disease. It’s a disease of loneliness.”

As Rzeznik told the Press of Atlantic City in 2016, “I was wearing my father’s clothes. My father was a brutal alcoholic, just crazy. I thought that was my destiny as well. I finally got slapped in the head hard enough to go get help.”

Rzeznik lost both his parents in the early ’80s, leaving him on his own when he was 16. He took refuge in music, but he was still trying to deal with serious mental and emotional demons.

“I had no idea what was going on inside my head,” he recalled. “I didn’t understand it, that what I was feeling was depression, and it was very, very hard.”

On November 16, 2014, Rzeznik had a meltdown in New York, and drank himself into a blackout. When he came to, he called his manager and said, “I’m not doing anything for the next three months. I’ve got to take care of this, because I’m going to die.”

Rzeznik then checked into rehab for three months, and adds, “I wish I could have stayed for six months. I went to a very serious place, where they don’t do yoga and massage. They concentrate on triangulating treatment, where it’s like therapy and 12 step and some spiritual work.”

Rzeznik now has a sobriety calendar on his phone, and as of September 10, he racked up 3.81 years, 45.79 months, 1,395 days, and 33,467 hours sober to his credit.

Rzeznik’s wife Melina confessed that she was thinking of leaving him before he went into rehab. Once he hit his one-year sober milestone, they started a family and had a daughter, Lili, who was born in December 2016.

Today the singer says, “I’m paraphrasing someone else, but kids turn you into the person that you should have been the whole time.”

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
Jason Biggs Celebrates One Year Of Sobriety

The movie star posted a photo on social media to celebrate his one-year sober milestone.

Jason Biggs posted a photo of his one-year sober coin on Instagram to celebrate his newfound freedom from alcohol addiction. The milestone marks the Orange is the New Black star’s second attempt to get sober.

“I first tried to get sober over 5 years ago, when the weight of my obsession with booze and drugs became too heavy for me to handle,” he wrote on the post.

Biggs acknowledged that it’s been a struggle to keep on his path, but he is proud of the progress he’s made.

“Turns out this shit is hard. After some fits and starts, I’ve managed to put together one year of sobriety,” he posted. “I’m as proud of it as anything in my life.”

He also had a message for those out there who might know they need help but for some reason feel avoidant of actually getting it.

“If you’re struggling, know there’s help. Don’t be ashamed. We can do this,” Biggs wrote.

His wife, actress Jenny Mollen, also took to Instagram to celebrate Biggs’ achievement and posted a picture of Biggs kissing her cheek.

“So proud of my husband today. Congrats baby. I know how hard you work,” she wrote in the caption. “I see you. I love you.”

The couple has been married for 10 years and have two children between them, four-year-old Sid and one-year-old Lazlo. In an interview with PEOPLE Now, Mollen read a fill-in-the-blank card to her husband, Biggs:

“‘At this point in our marriage, the sexiest thing she can do for me is…’” she started.

“Oh, take the kids and leave for a couple hours,” Biggs quipped.

Biggs’ big public reveal of his recovery is part of a tidal wave of celebrities and famous figures opening up on addiction and their struggles with mental health. Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, and Ben Affleck are just a few examples over the past year, sharing their personal experiences with mental health or addiction to fight stigma and encourage those who need help to seek it. Their message is more important than ever as the opioid crisis becomes more and more prominent.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
How Do You Define "Recovery"?

Our time would be better spent trying to help people recover in whatever way is most effective for them rather than pushing and shaming everyone into one particular recovery pathway.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard someone say that a person might be sober, but that they’re not in recovery, or describe them as a “dry drunk,” because the person doesn’t attend some defined program of recovery. I find that attitude divisive, dogmatic, and unhelpful, particularly because it shames others to believe in only one gold standard of recovery. This simply isn’t true. And it’s harmful; we have too many people dying of substance use disorder. Our time would be better spent trying to help people recover in whatever way is most effective for them rather than pushing and shaming everyone into one particular recovery pathway.

This kind of mindset originates from 12-step fellowships — where members often believe that these programs, combined with abstinence, are the only effective way to recover — and from the outdated professional definition of recovery provided by organizations like the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). However, with the emergence of recovery science, this outlook is beginning to change. Leading researchers are painting a much broader, more inclusive picture of recovery. Instead of accepting dogmatic perspectives, we can now turn to science, which shows us how people recover, the impact of the language we use, the complexities we face as people in recovery such as trauma and co-occurring disorders, and offers more cohesive definition of recovery.

In 2005, according to ASAM: “A patient is in ‘a state of recovery’ when he or she has reached a state of physical and psychological health such that his/her abstinence from dependence-producing drugs in complete and comfortable.” Over the years, this definition has evolved. Other thought and policy leaders in addiction recovery have also updated their definitions, including the Betty Ford Institute (2006), William L. White (2007), the UK Drug Policy Commission (2008), the Scottish government (2008), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, 2011), researchers John Francis Kelly and Bettina Hoeppner (2014), and the Recovery Research Institute (2017).

One of the most popular definitions, and one I’ve favored as a writer in this field, is SAMHSA’s: “Recovery from mental disorders and substance use disorders is a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.” What I like particularly is that SAMHSA doesn’t define how someone should recover and they have no opinion on abstinence or the use of medication in the process of recovery.

Cognizant of the varying definitions and the lack of general consensus among experts in the field, recovery scientists and professionals from across the country came together to formulate a new concept. The Recovery Science Research Collaborative (RSRC) met in December 2017, evaluated various definitions of recovery, and reviewed essential components of recovery in order to more clearly define the process.

I spoke with Robert Ashford, one of the recovery scientists in the collaborative, about the process of formulating a new definition.

The Fix: What would you say were the main limitations of previous definitions that led to your aim to define a new concept of recovery?

Robert: We were hoping to bring together our understanding of recovery with the real-world empirical and practical evidence. Our desire for inclusivity was due to the high prevalence of co-occurring disorders (mental health and substance use disorder (SUD)) and the lack of inclusion of non-prominent recovery pathways (e.g. medication alongside abstinence modalities). We wanted to give the individual autonomy in self-directing their recovery process, both with and without clinical and other professional or peer recovery supports.

In reaching a consensus for a new definition, what were the main components that were critical to include?

It was a direct reflection of previous work describing the contention in recovery definitions, both real and perceived, by those in different “recovery” camps and between mental health and substance use disorder. Personally, I don’t believe recovery is reserved for the most severe and symptomatic individuals. If we conceptualize recovery as a series of interpersonal growth stages over time and in different settings or contexts, then recovery is a broad phenomenon that can apply to a range of issues. Our definition allows this to exist as a self-directed and intentional process that frames recovery as different in approach, style, and intensity depending on the range of diagnosis. Perhaps a good way to frame this, within the context of a continuum of SUD, is that recovery is also possible along a continuum that is proportional to the severity and type of SUD (mild, moderate, or severe), with most not needing to ascend along that continuum completely.

Our definition: “Recovery is an individualized, intentional, dynamic, and relational process involving sustained efforts to improve wellness.”

One of the main disputes within the recovery community is the belief that “true” recovery means complete abstinence. How did this belief factor into your discussions? And what would you consider to be the challenges of such a point of view?

I think the field at large stands to benefit, at least from an empirical perspective, because not having the focus solely on abstinence allows us to capture, estimate, and perhaps even predict, recovery in different pathologies, different severities, and at different life stages. This recovery typology is only possible with an inclusive definition in mind. The advocacy community also stands to benefit. Inclusive definitions allow the size of the population, or the prevalence of recovery, to increase — which is a good talking point and a strong policy lever for behavioral health. There is a potential for the “watering down” of recovery for the most severe of cases and for those traditionally following an abstinence modality, but this potential is moderated in my mind through the potential benefits.

At the end of the day, abstinence shouldn’t be excluded from the idea of recovery, but it should be situated where it best fits — as a potential outcome for a person who needs it. The definition of recovery can expand without diminishing those who are in abstinence-based recovery, and the expansion doesn’t negate anyone. If anything, not doing it negates the reality of millions of people seeking wellness.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 October 2018
Meth Makes A Rural Comeback In The Shadow Of The Opioid Crisis

“They came in with much purer, much cheaper meth and just flooded this region of the country,” says one DEA agent.

While the opioid epidemic has been at the forefront of headlines and national attention, another danger has also been growing in the background: the use of methamphetamine in small, rural areas of the country.

According to Rolling Stone, meth was previously prominent in the 1990s due to “new synthesizing methods,” which allowed individuals to use cold medicine and cleaning products to create the drug in their homes.

Eventually, due to limiting over-the-counter access to certain medications via the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act (2006), domestic meth lab seizures dropped drastically.

However, this wasn’t because meth ceased to exist, Rolling Stone notes. Instead, the market reportedly shifted to Mexico, where “superlabs” managed by Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel can create a large quantity of the drug in pure form and at cheap rates.

Such superlabs can cook hundreds of pounds of meth daily and at 95 to 99% purity. And, according to CNN, an ounce of meth today goes for $250 to $450 in Oklahoma, versus the $1,100 it cost in 2012. Similar price drops have been reported in Virginia, Ohio and Florida.

In addition to price drops, certain states are also seeing increases in meth-related deaths. In Oklahoma, fatal meth overdoses have doubled in just five years.

“They came in with much purer, much cheaper meth and just flooded this region of the country,” DEA Agent Richard Salter told CNN.

Oklahoma isn’t alone. In Alaska, Rolling Stone reports, meth overdoses quadrupled in the eight years between 2008 and 2016. Florida, according to the Department of Law Enforcement’s 2016 report, is seeing fatal overdoses four times higher than they were six years ago. And, according to a recent report, meth seizures have tripled within two years in Southwest Virginia.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that meth seizures have increased tenfold in the past eight years—from 8,900 pounds in 2010 to about 82,000 pounds so far this year. Despite that fact, the drug is still making its way into U.S. states like California and Arizona, then being taken to distribution areas like Atlanta.

From there, it makes its way into smaller, rural areas.

Mark Woodward, spokesman with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, tells CNN that while attention is being directed to the opioid epidemic, meth is being left behind.

“There’s so much attention—not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide—on the opioid crisis,” Woodward said. “But our single most deadly individual drug is methamphetamine.”

View the original article at thefix.com

13 October 2018