Author: The Fix

Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington's Widow Appear In Suicide Prevention PSA

The cast of ABC’s “A Million Little Things” also appear in the mental health PSA.

The family of Chester Bennington appear in a new suicide prevention PSA, continuing the Linkin Park vocalist’s legacy through mental health advocacy.

Linkin Park bandmate Mike Shinoda and Bennington’s widow, Talinda Bennington, appear alongside the cast of A Million Little Things, a new ABC drama about losing a friend to suicide. The PSA aired during the premiere of the show last Wednesday (Sept. 26).

“We lost our fictional friend to suicide,” says actor James Roday, who plays Gary Mendez on the show. “And we lost our very real friend,” says Shinoda.

Chester Bennington died by suicide in the summer of 2017. He was 41. Since his passing, his widow Talinda has become the face of mental health advocacy and suicide prevention.

Through social media, Bennington has been able to open a dialogue with grieving fans and promote efforts to raise awareness of the warning signs of depression and suicidal thoughts.

“The passing of my husband cannot be in vain,” she said this year. “His passing was a catalyst for opening up dialogue with respect to emotional and mental health. Throughout his life, he saved countless lives with his music and philanthropy. And through his death, he continues to save lives by spotlighting the urgent need for a change in our mental health culture.”

On what would have been her husband’s 42nd birthday this past March, Bennington encouraged fans to learn the Five Signs of Emotional Suffering. She is hoping to “change the culture of mental health” so that people who are struggling, and their family members, can address it openly and feel comfortable to seek help.

“I am now more educated about [the warning] signs, but they were definitely there: the hopelessness, the change of behavior, isolation,” she said during a CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper in June.

A Million Little Things is a new show on ABC that confronts the reality of losing a friend to suicide. The cast of friends and family—played by Romany Malco, Grace Park, James Roday, David Giuntoli (whose character Eddie credits his late friend for his recovery) and more—are left to cope with the fact that their friend Jon (played by Ron Livingston) is gone.

“Jon was the one who made the plans, who brought everybody together. They all relied on him. Now he’s no longer there, and they’re going to have to figure out what their new role is,” said Stephanie Szostak, who plays Jon’s wife Delilah.

In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that suicide rates in the United States “have been rising in nearly every state.”

In 2016, nearly 45,000 Americans age 10 or older died by suicide.

As for the “why” behind Jon’s passing, actor Livingston said he’s not focusing on that. “I decided early on to resist the urge to try to find the answer to why this guy did this. Suicide takes people in different ways for myriad reasons,” he said.

View the original article at thefix.com

5 October 2018
Mayoral Candidate Leaves Race To Deal With PTSD, Depression

“I thought if I focused exclusively on service to my neighbors in my hometown, that I could fill the hole inside of me. But it’s just getting worse.”

A Kansas City mayoral candidate and veteran of the war in Afghanistan has dropped out of the race in order to address his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jason Kander, a rising Democratic star, reached a campaign milestone last week, but instead of celebrating the occasion he found himself reaching out for help.

“Last Tuesday, I found out that we were going to raise more money than any Kansas City mayoral campaign ever has in a single quarter,” Kander wrote on Medium. “But instead of celebrating that accomplishment, I found myself on the phone with the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line, tearfully conceding that, yes, I have had suicidal thoughts. And it wasn’t the first time.”

Kander served as an Army Intelligence Officer in Afghanistan before leaving the army 11 years ago. His book about his service Outside the Wire, became a bestseller this summer. However, about four months ago Kander says he reached out for help, saying “my tour over there still impacted me every day.”

“I can’t have PTSD, I told myself, because I didn’t earn it,” he wrote. “But, on some level, I knew something was deeply wrong, and that it hadn’t felt that way before my deployment. After 11 years of this, I finally took a step toward dealing with it, but I didn’t step far enough.”

Kander filled out forms online to get treatment from the VA.

“But I left boxes unchecked — too scared to acknowledge my true symptoms,” he wrote. “I knew I needed help and yet I still stopped short. I was afraid of the stigma. I was thinking about what it could mean for my political future if someone found out. That was stupid, and things have gotten even worse since.”

Kander served as Missouri’s secretary of state from 2012 to 2016, defeating an incumbent Republican in the conservative state. Last year he started Let America Vote, a voting rights group. He will also be stepping back from day to day operations of that organization while he gets treatment.

“I’m done hiding this from myself and from the world. When I wrote in my book that I was lucky to not have PTSD, I was just trying to convince myself. And I wasn’t sharing the full picture. I still have nightmares. I am depressed,” Kander wrote. “Instead of dealing with these issues, I’ve always tried to find a way around them. Most recently, I thought that if I could come home and work for the city I love so much as its mayor, I could finally solve my problems. I thought if I focused exclusively on service to my neighbors in my hometown, that I could fill the hole inside of me. But it’s just getting worse.”

Kander said he knew that he wanted to be upfront about why he’s leaving the race.

“I decided to be public for two reasons: First, I think being honest will help me through this. And second, I hope it helps veterans and everyone else across the country working through mental health issues realize that you don’t have to try to solve it on your own,” he wrote. “Most people probably didn’t see me as someone that could be depressed and have had PTSD symptoms for over decade, but I am and I have. If you’re struggling with something similar, it’s OK. That doesn’t make you less of a person.”

Read Kander’s full announcement here.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Doctor Who Made 6K A Day For Prescribing Oxy: "I Was A Scapegoat"

“When I started treating people with chronic non-cancer pain. I felt it was unethical and discriminatory to limit the dose of medication.”

Florida physician Barry Schultz was convicted to 157 years in prison for illegally prescribing enormous amounts of opioids to his patients.

Now he calls himself a “scapegoat” for the pharmaceutical companies who produce, distribute and advocate for the prescription of opioids.

Mallinckrodt pharmaceutical company was the provider of opioids in Schultz’s practice. The company eventually paid a fine for its part. Mallinckrodt provided 500 million oxycodone pills to the state of Florida, which has a population of 20 million people.

Even after Mallinckrodt’s own internal investigation concluded that Dr. Schultz’s prescriptions had “a suspicious pattern indicating diversion” the company continued to supply him with opioids.

Barry Schultz interviewed from prison with 60 Minutes to announce that he was a “scapegoat” for those really to blame—the opioid manufacturers.

State Attorney Dave Aronberg’s office prosecuted Barry Schultz. Aronberg blamed Florida’s lax laws at the time for fueling the opioid overdose crisis. Pain clinics in Florida allowed patients to visit, pick up pills, and pay in cash. As a result, people from other states began coming to Florida to obtain opioids, creating a frenzy where waiting rooms would be overflowing.

This was the kind of pain clinic that Schultz operated in Delray Beach, Florida. DEA records show in 2010 that Dr. Schultz was prescribing some patients as many as 100 pills a day, and making more than $6,000 a day from prescribing opioids.

Despite this, Dr. Schultz refuses to take responsibility for his actions. “When I started treating people with chronic non-cancer pain,” he told 60 Minutes, “I felt it was unethical and discriminatory to limit the dose of medication. And if I had known that the overdose incidents had increased dramatically the way it had, I would have moderated my approach.”

Carol Tain’s son David died in 2010 of an opioid overdose from pills prescribed by Dr. Schultz for pain management after a car accident. Tain’s mother considers Dr. Schultz responsible for her son’s death.

“He didn’t even examine him. He hadn’t seen him in four-and-a-half years,” Tain said to 60 Minutes of the doctor’s prescriptions for her son. “He just—just wrote—wrote out these scripts… As far as I’m concerned, he’s a murderer and—and not a doctor. He murdered my son. He – he didn’t need a gun. He used his pen to murder my son.”

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Temporary Overdose Prevention Site Gets Extension

The site was expected to close by September’s end, but the government made a last-minute decision to extend it for another month.

At the end of September, the government of Ontario province in Canada decided to extend operations of its Temporary Overdose Prevention Site (TOPS) through October—but with no current plans for a permanent site, the community says it will be ready to pick up where TOPS left off.

“If the government was going to let these people down then our community needed to step up,” said community organizer Blair Henry.

TOPS, located in the city of London, was expected to close at the end of September, but the government made a last-minute decision to extend the site for at least one more month.

TOPS is the first sanctioned supervised consumption facility (i.e. supervised injection facility or SIF) in Ontario. The first SIF in North America, Insite, resides in British Columbia province in Vancouver. A handful of American cities are planning to establish SIFs as well, despite opposition by the U.S. government.

According to Canada’s Global News, about 2,000 people have visited TOPS 8,000 times since it opened in February. The non-profit that runs TOPS—Regional HIV/AIDS Connection—estimates that there have been about 400 drug-related deaths in London and greater Middlesex County in the last decade.

Currently TOPS remains a temporary program while the Ontario government considers a permanent site. While there is no guarantee of a permanent program, volunteers are prepared to serve the community if TOPS should close for good.

Last month Blair Henry organized about 200 volunteers to help operate a “pop-up tent” in the heart of London—equipped with medical supplies and treatment services—in case TOPS did close at the end of September.

But even though the government extended the program for one more month, Henry’s group, This Tent Saves Lives, still has work to do. “We have to help use this public momentum to inform Doug Ford (premier of Ontario) that there is support for this project,” said Henry.

“There will be an overdose prevention site of some sort that will be erected should that funding (for TOPS) go, but we are going to make sure that that messaging gets out so we can avoid that,” said Henry.

Another potential safety net for drug users—should TOPS close down in the near future—is to dispatch public health workers on bicycles throughout London.

According to the London Free Press, city health officials is considering a plan to reach drug users on the street with naloxone, medical supplies, and other harm-reduction supplies. A similar program exists in Vancouver.

“In urban cores, cycling tends to be the most efficient way of getting around,” said Chris Mackie, medical officer of health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit. “One thing we would do, that we’ve worked on with the London Bicycle Cafe, is we would put our staff on the street on bicycles, with naloxone, so that they’re traveling around.”

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Kevin Hart Details Forgiving His Father For Being Absent Due To Addiction

With the help of his older brother, Hart eventually put aside his feelings and helped his father find help in rehabilitation.

Comic actor Kevin Hart spoke at length about the process of forgiving his father, Henry Witherspoon, for being absent during his childhood due to drug and alcohol dependency.

The Night School star wrote about his father, Henry Witherspoon, in his 2017 memoir I Can’t Make This Up, and said that while his father’s presence while he was growing up was both sporadic and prone to tumult, he has learned to look beyond those memories and focus on their relationship today.

“Regardless of my upbringing and the way I was raised and how often he was in my life, he’s my dad,” said Hart. “I have a positive outlook on life regardless, and I’m going to love [him] because [he’s] my father.”

Hart also detailed the difficulties in his relationship with his father in a 2016 interview with Howard Stern, where he explained that while he was growing up in Philadelphia, Witherspoon was dependent on “heroin, coke, crack, you name it, he did it.”

According to Hart, Witherspoon even stole $20 that his son had received as a gift.

Thankfully, Hart had a grounding force in his mother, who worked as a computer analyst at the University of Pennsylvania while raising him and his brother.

“The reason I am the way I am is because my mom was so strong,” he said. “[She] was such a strong woman, she said, ‘Look, regardless of whatever your father’s doing and where he is, I have a job to do raising you. You’re going to do what you’re supposed to do and you’re going to grow up to be two intelligent men, me and my brother.”

With the help of his older brother, Hart eventually put aside his feelings about his father’s absence and helped him find help in rehabilitation.

There, according to Hart, “he met an amazing woman who turned his life around and helped him stay clean, and right now, he’s all about clean living.”

Hart added that he saw no value in holding on to the pain of the past. “I don’t understand people who hold grudges,” he said. “Do you know how much time and energy it takes to hold a grudge?”

Today, Witherspoon has a presence in his sons’ lives, for which Hart is grateful.

“I’m in a position where I’m blessed and I can provide,” he explained. “I can say, ‘Here, dad, here’s a home, here’s a car, here’s some money. Go spend time with your grandkids. Be the best grandpop. The days you missed with me are the days we missed. It’s fine. I’m okay with that.”

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Emma Stone Talks Anxiety, Panic Attacks

“You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety. You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

Emma Stone can vividly remember her first panic attack at age seven.

“I was sitting at a friend’s house and all of a sudden I was absolutely convinced that the house was on fire,” Stone recalled. “I was just sitting in her bedroom and obviously the house wasn’t on fire but there was nothing in me that didn’t think I was going to die.”

On Monday, October 1, the actress sat down with Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz for a 30-minute conversation at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. She discussed her history of anxiety, beginning with the panic attack. Stone went on to describe how she would visit the nurse daily during second grade, where she would then call her mom.

“I had deep separation anxiety,” she told Koplewicz.

Stone’s mother decided to take her to therapy and was informed her daughter had generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, ABC News reports. However, she chose not to tell her daughter, which is something Stone says she has appreciated.

“I am very grateful I didn’t know that I had a disorder,” Stone said. “I wanted to be an actor and there weren’t a lot of actors who spoke about having panic attacks.”

Stone described how in therapy, she came up with a book called, I Am Bigger Than My Anxiety. She says she drew photos inside of “a little green monster that sits on my shoulder.” In the book, the monster — her anxiety — would increase in size if she listened and decrease if she didn’t.

A few years after her first panic attack, at age 11, Stone says she began acting in improv and realized “my feelings could be productive.”

She says she also kept involved in the local children’s theater which was helpful in managing anxiety.

“I believe the people who have anxiety and depression are very, very sensitive and very, very smart,” she said. “Because the world is hard and scary and there’s a lot that goes on and if you’re very attuned to it, it can be crippling. But if you don’t let it cripple you and use it for something productive, it’s like a superpower.”

Today, Stone says, she manages her anxiety disorder through therapy, medication, the company of others and staying busy. She also avoids social media.

“That would send me into a spin,” she said. “I don’t need to be getting constant feedback on who I am.”

For anyone battling anxiety, Stone says the key is finding somewhere else to shift your focus.

“You don’t have to be actor to overcome anxiety, you don’t have to be a writer to overcome it,” she told Koplewicz. “You just have to find that thing within you that you are drawn to.”

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Setting Boundaries in Sobriety

Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it.

People with addiction issues are not used to setting boundaries, especially when those boundaries involve behaviors we have reinforced for years.

I spent years violating boundaries as a drunk. Particularly when it came to relationships. Piss me off and I’d become belligerent. Let me drink all night and I’d throw up on your carpet. Invite me to a party and I’ll embarrass you in front of your friends. Weddings? Absolutely! Sign me up as the drunkest attendee. For drunks, the people who let us violate their boundaries are the ones we come back to over and over again.

I chose to become sober and dry after drinking made my life unbearable. My fiancé Jill didn’t make that choice. She didn’t have to; she wasn’t experiencing the same struggle with alcohol abuse I was. Drinking was ruining my personal and professional relationships. I spent my days trying to make up for what I destroyed at night. She had a glass or two of wine when she felt like it and functioned fine the next day.

***

Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it. Perhaps I would have learned about being a decent sober person if I had gone to an in-house treatment program. I did my sobering up in the wild, so to speak. My changes, positive and negative, took place in front of everyone around me.

Jill and I were blindsided by boundary-setting issues early in my sobriety. Our relationship was one of the few things from my drinking days I wanted to save. At best, it was hanging by a thread. We agreed to stay together while I tried to get a firm grasp on sobriety. She gave me support and encouragement as I experienced little successes: one day sober, one week sober.

I appreciated Jill’s support. We never discussed the specifics of what I’d need from her. I wouldn’t have known what to ask for anyway. I intended to go to AA every day for the first 90 days and I was seeing an individual counselor and going to a weekly all-male support group. I was bursting at the seams with support; I was exhausted from so much support.

Jill drank wine. Not my drink of choice. I was the typical Philadelphia-living, bearded, tattoo-covered, craft beer drinker. The higher the ABV the better. The more ounces the better. Wine? No thanks. I hadn’t asked Jill to stop drinking or to keep alcohol out of the house but she had naturally done so, initially. I assumed we had an unspoken agreement.

A couple weeks into my sobriety, we had plans to spend a relaxing afternoon and evening together. I was leaving work early to watch a Team USA World Cup soccer match, an event I would have typically used as an excuse to overconsume alcohol on a weekday. Just like football games, tennis matches, holidays, and days ending in a y.

However, my newly-sober-person plan consisted of spending time watching soccer and eating takeout Thai food with Jill.

Jill sent me a text asking if I would pick her up a bottle of wine on my way home from work. It was a reasonable request on the surface; she didn’t have a car, so it was easier for me to pick up the wine on my way home. Pennsylvania has interesting liquor laws: you can’t walk into any random gas station or grocery store and grab an alcoholic beverage; there are special stores for buying wine and spirits and separate bottle shops where you can purchase beer.

Jill’s request didn’t offend me at first. She knew I didn’t drink wine and she was supportive of my sobriety and told me she was proud of me. I knew her request for a bottle of wine meant we were likely going to have sex that evening. I had no issue with that – of course I could bring her a bottle of wine.

On the way home, I picked up the finest bottle of $10 red wine I could find. I guess we weren’t going to watch soccer after all.

We had the kind of evening you can only have when you are in a relationship that’s starting to heal after a long period of damage. You know, sexual healing? Jill had a glass of wine or two over the course of the night. I found out later Team USA had won their game.

Everything was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

There were a couple things I hadn’t told Jill about my trip to the wine store. First, I had broken out into a panic while I was in the store. I’m no stranger to anxiety attacks, but this one hit me hard.

Making matters worse, I chose to get her wine from a store directly across the street from the meetinghouse for the AA group I was attending. I felt like I was sneaking behind enemy lines as I came and went from the wine shop. I expected to see someone I knew from meetings standing outside smoking. I bent my head down and rushed back to my car.

To hell with them, I thought at the time. If someone sees me, I’ll tell the truth. I flashed back to the time my middle school friend told his parents the open beer he was holding was for a friend. Not a believable story then, still not a believable story as an adult.

No one from the group had seen me, but mentally the damage was done. I tend to ruminate on things until they drive me crazy and I spent the next few days stewing on what Jill had asked me to do. How rude. How disrespectful. Didn’t she understand my position? How absurd I should have to say that I don’t want to go into a wine shop as an alcoholic.

I decided I needed to tell Jill about my boundary issue when I picked her up from work that Friday. Every Friday I’d pick her up from the University of Pennsylvania campus where she worked, we’d get Indian takeout and go home to Netflix.

“You really screwed me over the other day,” I started the second she sat in the car.

“What are you talking about?” She asked.

“Why did you think it was OK to ask me to pick you up a bottle of wine?”

“You didn’t have to say yes. I could have gotten it myself.”

Our conversation spiraled into an argument.

“I don’t want that poison around me right now. What would I have done if someone from AA saw me?”

“I won’t ever ask you to pick me up wine again. That’s easy.”

“Oh, I’m beyond that,” I told her.

“Are you asking me not to keep alcohol at home? That’s easy too.”

“That’s the least you can do.”

“You can’t ask me never to drink. That’s too controlling for me. I’m a grownup.”

“Fine. I’d appreciate you not doing it around me for a while.”

We drove home without getting our food.

***

I told the story of the bottle of wine and our argument at my next men’s group meeting.

“I’d say I did a good job setting my boundaries,” I proudly told Counselor Gary and the group.

“You did a piss poor job setting boundaries,” Gary replied. “You willingly crossed your own unstated boundary. And then you got mad about it.”

“At least she knows now what I won’t stand for,” I shot back

“You don’t have a right to tell her what you won’t stand for. I’d say you have a lot of work to do on yourself before you get to that point. Especially with Jill.”

“Why should she get to drink still if I can’t? How will we get along?” I asked.

“You can remember she’s an adult and she can do what she wants. That includes choosing to stay with you. You should focus on that, and not nit-picking behaviors she has no idea rub you wrong.”

“I have boundaries, damn it!” I said.

“Right. That’s new for you. That’s new for the people around you. People can’t read your mind. You’re responsible for setting your boundaries. You’re responsible for maintaining them. Not Jill.” Gary shut me down.

I sat, arms crossed and unreceptive the rest of the session. Gary’s words stung. I was responsible for setting my boundaries? How could I do that? I drove home wondering how I could verbalize the things I was feeling.

***

I worked hard as my weeks of sobriety turned into months; hard at my work, hard at my relationships. Jill and I turned a corner. We found a way to work with each other and communicate our needs.

We set some basic boundaries, ones that would have made sense to a sober outsider. I would never be asked to handle alcohol in any way. No purchasing, no opening a bottle, no carrying a drink to her across the room. The tradeoff, although Jill didn’t ask for it, was that wine could exist in our house without upsetting me. She could have a glass of wine at a dinner out and I wouldn’t feel affronted.

Other boundaries were a little less perceptible. We had to negotiate the boundaries needed for a healthy relationship. I communicated my needs to Jill more often. She began to open up more to me about her needs. We found ourselves more in periods of harmony as we strengthened our bond.

Gary was instrumental on my end. He provided an unbiased view of my unacceptable behavior. He gave me feedback on how I could approach situations without sabotaging them. He coached me on identifying situations I wasn’t comfortable with, and how to better communicate them to my friends and family before things got out of hand.

Today, Jill and I are married with a three-year-old daughter. I recently passed the fourth anniversary of my sobriety. Parenting and being a husband are rewarding and challenging roles that require setting and respecting boundaries. It’s something I’ve gotten better at in my sobriety and something I’m thankful for the opportunity to continue improving.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
Macklemore Headlines First-Ever Recovery Fest 2018

The festival also featured free naloxone training, guest speakers in between sets, yoga, meditation and meetings before the event.

Seattle rapper in recovery, Macklemore, could relate to the crowd at the first-ever Recovery Fest last Saturday (Sept. 29). The Grammy-winning artist was in the lineup at the alcohol and drug-free music festival at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The event was hosted by the Above The Noise Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to hosting similar events that provide a music festival experience without drugs or alcohol. Proceeds will benefit local addiction and recovery organizations.

This year’s Recovery Fest, in addition to its artist lineup including Macklemore and Fitz & The Tantrums, featured free naloxone training, guest speakers in between sets, yoga, meditation, and meetings before the event. Even Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo made an appearance.

As reported by the Newburyport Current, jazz musician Grace Kelly performed a rendition of “Amazing Grace” with guitarist George McCann—while a list of people lost to addiction scrolled on the screen behind them.

When Macklemore (born Benjamin Haggerty) hit the stage, he asked the crowd how many people were in recovery, and “easily more than half the crowd raised their hands,” according to the Newburyport Current.

“You know you’re at a recovery fest, when you look out and see hella clouds of vape smoke,” the rapper joked.

Among Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ upbeat hit songs like “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us,” the rapper performed the song “Kevin,” about losing a friend to drug overdose in 2008. “He was gonna quit tomorrow, we’re all gonna quit tomorrow,” the song goes. “Just get us through the weekend, and then Monday follows…”

The Seattle rapper himself has been in recovery from opioid use disorder for about a decade, and is vocal about his experience. In 2014, he suffered a public relapse as his fame grew.

“I held it together for a while. But, eventually, I stopped going to my 12-step meetings,” he told Complex in 2015. “I was burnt out. I was super stressed. We weren’t sleeping—doing a show every day, zigzagging all over the country.”

His family inspired him to get it together. “Addiction—I think that’s the thing that always reminds me I could lose all of this at any minute. If I stop prioritizing the daily recovery program that I do to maintain sobriety… I will lose it all,” he said this year.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 October 2018
"Sober October" Gains Traction As Way To Reset Mentally, Physically

Sober October is derived from a UK campaign aimed at raising awareness about alcohol consumption.

Going alcohol-free doesn’t have to be just for those in recovery.

According to Forbes, there are both mental and physical benefits to taking a month off from alcohol—and anyone can dial in on those benefits by taking part in Sober October.

The idea borrows from a popular campaign in the UK, where Go Sober for October acts as a way to raise awareness around alcohol consumption and is also part of a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Sober October is a good opportunity for individuals to reset their bodies before the holiday season, as the holiday months often involve eating and drinking more than is recommended. The month of abstinence can also reset the body as the winter months approach, which, for some, can be draining and depressing.

For those who drink often and heavily, the idea of Sober October may sound intimidating. But, the Evening Standard notes, it’s doable if done in a safe manner.

Dr. Fiona Sim, former general practitioner and medical adviser to the non-profit Drinkaware, tells the Evening Standard that individuals should be aware of the dangers of quitting cold turkey.

“Because your body has been used to having lots of alcohol, you may experience some very nasty side effects, including trembling hands, headaches and lack of appetite,” she said. “The same can apply even if you’re a moderate drinker, although the side effects tend to more psychological, such as irritability and poor concentration. So unless you need to give up drinking quickly, you would probably find it better to cut down more slowly and steadily by having some drink-free days each week.”

Sim recommends telling those in your social circle the truth when participating in Sober October.

“Tell the people closest to you, because they’ll need to know why you turn down a drink of an evening, which you might not normally do,” she said. “Some people might even join you in stopping or cutting down their own drinking once they hear your story.”

It’s also important to remember that people who pass judgment on the decision may be facing issues of their own, Sim says.

“Like anything else in life, it’s important always to be yourself and not be swayed by other people judging you or by thinking they are judging you… So please remember that if you think people are going to judge you harshly for drinking less, it is those people who have the problem, not you.”

Sober October isn’t the only month designated for going alcohol-free. Also popular is Dry January, during which individuals abstain from drinking for the first month of the new year, as a way to reset and start off the year on a healthy foot.

View the original article at thefix.com

3 October 2018
Can Eating Less Junk Food Cause Withdrawal Symptoms?

A new study examined whether cutting back on junk food could produce symptoms similar to those experienced when quitting tobacco or pot.

A body of research on the effects of highly processed foods has suggested that cutting down on regular consumption of such items have resulted in physical and psychological symptoms.

The latest research to support this theory comes from the University of Michigan, where a study has suggested that reducing the amount of highly processed foods in one’s diet may produce symptoms similar to those experienced when quitting tobacco or marijuana.

The study, which utilized a modified questionnaire used to assess symptoms for other dependency-forming substances, may offer a new means of measuring and understanding the impact of processed foods on individuals.

In the study—published in the September 2018 edition of the online journal Appetite—a group of 200 adults aged 19 to 68 who’d been on diets that involved cutting down on junk food in the past year were given a questionnaire, called the Highly Processed Food Withdrawal Scale which is modeled after a similar tool used to measure symptoms that occurred after individuals quit smoking or using marijuana.

Based on the study group’s self-reported information, withdrawal symptoms, including mood swings, cravings, anxiety and headaches, were determined to be most intense between the second and fifth days after making an attempt to reduce junk food intake—which according to study lead author Erica Schulte, echoes a timeframe similar to one experienced by people who undergo drug withdrawal.

Researchers noted that the study did have several limitations, most notably a lack of information on the intensity of withdrawal symptoms or which methods participants used to change their intake, whether through gradual reduction or complete elimination from their diets.

The study also did not ask participants to record their withdrawal symptoms in real time, but instead asked them to only recall the scope of the symptoms as a whole.

Still, the study did contribute to growing awareness of the possible dependency-forming aspect of highly processed foods, and the results may help individuals who consider reducing such items from their diets to prepare for the possibility of side effects.

According to Schulte, it may also provide some insight into the barriers that may cause people to stop making such changes, or even leave treatment to address dependency issues altogether.

View the original article at thefix.com

3 October 2018