Author: The Fix

Opioid Crisis “More Deadly” Than AIDS Epidemic, CDC Director Says

CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield discussed the parallels between the crises and his plans to combat opioids during a recent interview.

Robert Redfield has only been the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since March, but in that time he has made his stance on the opioid crisis known.

Redfield, 66, tells The Washington Times that the opioid crisis will be worse than the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, which he was also involved in fighting. “I would say the opioids-fueled epidemic is clearly already more deadly than the AIDS epidemic ever was,” he told the Times.

According to Redfield, the CDC is working with pharmacies and states to keep up with the opioid epidemic in real time and collect overdose death data as quickly as possible. He says the goal is to release the figures for 2017 in the fall of 2018.

The most recent data, from 2016, has overdose deaths at 42,000. The Times notes that some researchers predict that the newest data will show that overdose deaths have passed the 48,000 HIV/AIDS deaths in 1995 which was the most fatal year of that epidemic.

Redfield says that when it comes to annual rates, drug overdose deaths have already overtaken those of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “If you look at all overdose deaths, not just opioids deaths, we’re over 60,000 now,” he told the Times.

The number of deaths isn’t the only similarity Redfield sees between the two epidemics. He tells the Times that with both, there have been empathy gaps, meaning people initially saw the diseases as something that happened because of dangerous behavior.

“It’s a medical condition. It’s not a moral choice,” Redfield told the Times. He added that as with the HIV/AIDS crisis, combating the opioid crisis will take new scientific innovations and “public health efforts.”

In June, Redfield told the Wall Street Journal that the CDC would be increasing efforts to fight the opioid crisis. He stated the organization would be developing new guidelines for opioid prescriptions for acute pain, as well as introducing a new system to track emergency department data.

Redfield also told the Wall Street Journal that he has personal experience with the opioid crisis, as a close family member had struggled with opioid use. “I think part of my understanding of the epidemic has come from seeing it not just as a public-health person and not just as a doctor,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It is something that has impacted me also at a personal level.”

Redfield also called stigma the “enemy of public health” and stated that it’s vital to find “a path to destigmatize” opioid use.

“We were able to do it to some degree for HIV, and I think pretty successfully, but it’s not over,” he said.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 July 2018
Florence Welch On Sobriety: "Performing Without Booze Was A Revelation"

“Before, I thought I ran on a chaos engine, but the more peaceful I am, the more I can give to the work. I can address things I wasn’t capable of doing before.”

Florence Welch, the voice of Florence and the Machine, is at a different pace in life. She’s more at peace, less afraid, and sober as well.

The singer admitted that she was “drunk a lot of the time” in the band’s last phase. “That’s when the drinking and the partying exploded as a way to hide from it… The partying was about me not wanting to deal with the fact that my life had changed, not wanting to come down,” Welch said in a recent interview with the Guardian.

The English singer and songwriter decided as she approached the 10th year of her illustrious career that she would sober up.

“When I realized I could perform without the booze it was a revelation,” she said. “There’s discomfort and rage, and the moment when they meet is when you break open. You’re free.”

Welch admits that every now and again, she’ll be tempted to go back to her old ways. But it never lasts. “It’s still there. This, ‘What if I could take a day off, a break from this magical energy?’ But, it passes,” she said.

Sobriety went hand-in-hand with inner peace. “Before, I thought I ran on a chaos engine, but the more peaceful I am, the more I can give to the work,” she said. “I can address things I wasn’t capable of doing before.”

Through self-reflection, Welch also came to terms with her eating disorder, addressing it for the first time in the single “Hunger” from the band’s upcoming album High as Hope. “At 17, I started to starve myself,” she sings.

She said the terror of admitting this to anyone, let alone the whole world, inspired her to sing about it. This terror, she says, has been with her for most of her life, fueling some of the “self-destructive” behavior that she’s now working on undoing.

“I learned ways to manage that terror—drink, drugs, controlling food,” she told the Guardian. “It was like a renaissance of childhood, a toddler’s self-destruction let loose in a person with grown-up impulses.”

Welch admits she’s “still figuring it out,” but is learning more than ever how music can be invaluable to her self-discovery journey, by helping her realize that she is not alone.

“I’ve realized that that nugget of insecurity and loneliness is a human experience. The big issues are there however you address them,” she said. “The weird thing is, that as personal as it feels, as soon as you say it, other people say: ‘I feel like that, too.’”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 July 2018
Dope Sick: Breaking Down Opioid Withdrawal

The strength it takes for a broken down, tormented person, feeling sick and hopeless every single day, to say, “No more” to their source of relief is something many people cannot even fathom.

Dope sickness (from opioid withdrawal) or even just the fear of dope sickness can trigger a desperation and panic unlike any other. This fear, in large part, drives the addiction that has led to the opioid epidemic, which claimed 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016 and is now classified as a public health emergency. Or some say it’s the high that keeps opioid users chasing the dragon all the way to hospitals, jails, and institutions. Much like an abusive relationship that long overstays its welcome—often by years and even decades—it starts with love and butterflies but then transforms into a much darker animal, tethering a person in place not with love but with the fear of what happens when you leave it behind.

How does someone know when their dose is wearing off and they need another fix? They’ll start to feel hot and cold at the same time, getting goose bumps and perspiring simultaneously; their eyes begin to water and they yawn repeatedly; they feel intense cravings coupled with severe anxiety, and their stomach starts to turn. These early onset symptoms of withdrawal work like an internal alarm in the brain, signaling to the nervous system that it desperately needs what is missing. These symptoms typically occur 6-12 hours after the last dose, and their intensity varies based on how often and how much of the drug the person is using. Opioid (painkillers such as oxycodone, vicodin, and codeine, as well as heroin) addiction is a progressive disease in which tolerance builds, so the required dose grows larger, and the withdrawal worsens. The deeper you are in the hole, the farther out you must climb.

Once someone begins to experience the first stage symptoms of withdrawal, panic sets in. There is an overwhelming sense of impending doom because, as most seasoned junkies know, the only thing worse than the first stage of opioid withdrawal is the second. Muscle aches, pains, and spasms can cause a person to kick their legs and flop around like a fish out of water. Just as a fish longs for water to breathe again, the person in opioid withdrawal longs for a hit to end their agonizing race toward what feels like death. Vomiting, diarrhea, and severe stomach cramps keep them crawling to the bathroom, if they even make it, if they even have access. These physical symptoms are paired with deep depression, anxiety, and the torture of knowing that the hell could simply cease if they get their fix. And this typically goes on all 24 hours of each day that it lasts—typically just over a week—because insomnia prevents any relief that sleep would bring.

It is the fear of that torment, which words can’t really do justice, that shackles people to a substance which indefinitely curses them with relief and pain. It is also that fear that compels them to lie, cheat, and steal. People who have become addicted to opioids wake up one day, deeper into their addiction then they’d ever anticipated, and look in the mirror only to see a stranger. They look at childhood photos of themselves and feel overcome with sadness, asking themselves, What happened? Their mothers do the same thing, looking at their baby’s photos and asking themselves where they went wrong. It’s difficult to separate the person from the addiction: although one entity does seem to overtake the other, that can be reversed and they are, in fact, two distinct realities.

In most cases, a rotten egg is not born into this world destined to be a thief, robbing to feed their addiction. What once was a promising honor student, the girl next door, the boy working behind the deli counter, or the kid who loved fishing has now slowly, pushing the limits a bit farther each time, transformed into that thief overcome with fighting the terror of withdrawal. It’s as if they’ve sold their soul to the devil, stealing for it, lying to loved ones, to anyone, cheating people just to survive, just to feel well. When someone with an addiction hits rock bottom, and they hate themselves at this point, they think they’ve had enough and they want their soul back. But they can’t just stop. There’s a debt to pay.

The strength it takes for a broken down, tormented person, feeling sick and hopeless every single day, desperate enough to do things they’d never imagine themselves capable of doing, to say, “No more,” is something many people cannot even fathom; it is standing up to the fear of the agony of withdrawal, of feeling like you’d gladly crawl out of your own skin if you could. For many people, it’s also facing the fear of life unaltered, buffer-less, possibly for the first time.

There are different methods of withdrawing from opioids. Doctors sometimes offer benzodiazepines or clonidine, a blood pressure lowering drug, to temper the misery. There’s the good old fashion “cold turkey” which comes from the cold flashes and goosebumps you experience, or “kicking dope” which comes from kicking your legs around in weird spasms for over a week. And of course, we can’t have this discussion without mentioning the two big whoppers, Suboxone and methadone. These are known as medication assisted treatment (MAT), and they work wonders for many people. But one day you might want to get off of them, and that’s another opioid detox.

Something worth mentioning about MAT is that if you take it long enough, you have the chance to rebuild a “normal” life. You can go to school, kickstart your career, do all the things that being a full-fledged junkie makes impossible. Stay on as long as you need; I even heard about one guy who got himself through law school on Suboxone. So there are upsides, incredible advantages really, but at the end of the day, after you’ve obtained your PhD, you still have to pay that debt.

I once heard someone say, close your eyes and picture an addict. Whatever picture came into your mind, that’s the stigma of addiction. But there’s not just one static image, because addiction comes in layers. There’s the first layer, how it originated. Maybe a doctor prescribed Norcos for an ankle sprain and neglected to mention what you might be signing up for. According to drugfree.org, almost 80% of people who shoot up heroin started with the misuse of prescription medication. The next layer is when the drug takes over, and your identity—who you are—is now overwhelmed by the addiction, hiding your actual self somewhere beneath. And finally, hopefully, there’s the detox—the week or two of pure hell as the drug leaves your system and you start learning how to function without it.

But when you do, finally, make it to the other side, however worn and broken down you may feel, it feels like the first day of the rest of your life. It’s a terrifying feeling, but you come out triumphant, and victorious.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 July 2018
Kids, Parents & Grandparents All Face Strain Of Opioid Crisis

One expert estimates that for every child in foster care due to a parent’s addiction there are 18 to 20 children who have been informally taken in by family members.

When parents are living with opioid addiction—or even trying to establish their lives in recovery—it can take a toll on the whole family, from kids to grandparents, as roles are redefined.

Donna Butts, the executive director of Generations United, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, has seen how families have coped with drug epidemics fueled by cocaine or meth. This time, she told CBS News, feels different.

“With the opioid epidemic, it seems so much more severe and, in some ways, more hopeless,” she said. “Which is why I think the grandparents and other relatives that are stepping forward are playing such a critical role because the hope is with the children.”

Oftentimes family members will step up to care for the children of people who are addicted without going through the formal foster care system, making it difficult to get an estimate on how many families have been rearranged because opioid addiction.

The foster care statistics themselves are overwhelming; Butts estimates that for every child in foster care because of a parent’s addiction there are 18 to 20 children who have been informally taken in by family members.

This has financial implications for the family member taking responsibility for the children, usually the grandparents. Twenty percent of grandparents raising grandchildren are living in poverty, and 40% are older than 60, which often means they are retired or semi-retired and living on a fixed income.

In addition, many children have been exposed to trauma, and their grandparents have been through their own traumatic experiences in seeing their child battle addiction.

“What they really need is to understand the impact of trauma on the children and try to help support them as they deal with that. Also, they need to have access to trauma-informed services, the services that can really help them to overcome what they’ve experienced,” Butts said.

However, she noted that having stable grandparents can really help children overcome the harms of having a parent battling addiction.

Even for parents who are working to get clean, keeping custody of the children can be challenging.

Jillian Broomstein, of New Hampshire, was in a methadone program when her son was born. Because the baby tested positive for opioids, he was taken by the Division for Children, Youth and Families. Broomstein had just one year to be off opioids and in a stable housing situation, or she would risk losing custody permanently, according to WGBH.

“I cannot stress enough that 12 months is a really short window for somebody who’s in early recovery,” says Courtney Tanner, who runs a New Hampshire recovery home where pregnant women and new moms can live with their babies while getting sober.

Situations like Broomstein’s are too common, she said.

“Here in New Hampshire what I have seen is a mom can be enrolled in this program and compliant in treatment and they are giving birth to a child and that child is still being removed and put into foster care.”

However, given the right resources, people in recovery are able to be reunited with their children.

“We see a lot of that,” said Dr. Frank Kunkel, the president and chief medical officer of Accessible Recovery Services. “We see a lot of people that spin out of control. They’re involved with the judicial system and all that. And we see grandma have the kids for a while. Then they’ll get back on track with things legally, and they’ll get on our medications, and they’ll get in seeing their therapist, and they’ll turn their life around. We see that every day.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 July 2018
Opioid Makers Cut Back On Marketing Payouts To Doctors

In 2016, Big Pharma shelled out more than $15 million to doctors for opioid-related marketing—33% less than the year prior.

Drugmakers are cutting back on opioid-related marketing payouts to doctors, according to a data analysis by ProPublica.

The newly released figures come as the latest update to the nonprofit news site’s Dollars for Docs online tool that tracks payments to physicians from drug companies and other medical companies.

In 2016, the latest numbers show, Big Pharma shelled out more than $15 million to doctors in exchange for opioid-related speaking and consulting work. That was 33% less than the 2015 figure and 21% less than the 2014 figure. Repeatedly, research has drawn a link between marketing and prescribing practices.

“Given the deluge of media attention with the opioid epidemic, I think we’ve seen the pendulum swing in the opposite direction,” Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard, told ProPublica. “If this is actually a result of manufacturers actually saying, ‘Holy crap, people actually care about opioids being used responsibly’ and they’re aware that their advocacy and payments to physicians could be seen as pushing these medications in a way that is ethically dubious, then that’s a beneficial development and something I’d like to see more of.”

The shift comes amid a growing number of lawsuits against drug companies accused of downplaying the risks of painkillers in aggressive marketing campaigns over a yearslong uptick in opioid use.

It’s not clear exactly what’s driving the changing numbers, though, experts said.

“It’s possible that the pharmaceutical companies voluntarily reduced their marketing, realizing that they may have been contributing to overprescribing,” Dr. Scott Hadland of Boston University School of Medicine told ProPublica.

At the same time the marketing dollars decreased, the number of opioid prescriptions started on the downswing as well. But, so far, the fall in marketing funds has outpaced the reduction in prescriptions.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma cut off its speaker program for the drug in 2016, and this year the company halted all physician-targeted promotional efforts of its addictive painkillers and laid off sales reps.

“While the development of important new medicines will be the company’s priority going forward,” the company said last month, “we will continue to support our opioid analgesic product portfolio while continuing our commitment to take meaningful steps to reduce opioid abuse and addiction.”

The FDA greenlit OxyContin in 1995 and since then it’s been Purdue’s biggest financial success, even amid the rise of generic alternatives and the growing popularity of other opioid painkillers.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
Kratom Draws Support And Controversy As Opioid Addiction Treatment

“It’s like a cruel joke that I finally found something that works and the FDA and DEA want it banned,” said one kratom user.

A controversial supplement, kratom, could have benefits when it comes to treating opioid use disorder, according to a new study. However, there is still much controversy around it due to safety concerns.

Kratom is a psychoactive drug that comes from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, which is an Asian plant in the coffee family.

Some believe it is effective for treating substance use disorders, but organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration are wary of that. In fact, the DEA even attempted to ban the substance.

In February, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb spoke against kratom, saying “there is no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use.”

Scott Hemby, a professor of pharmaceutical science at High Point University in North Carolina, led a new study recently published in Addiction Biology, which found that kratom may in fact have some benefits.

Kratom has two main ingredients: mitragynine (MG) and 7‐hydroxymitragynine (7‐HMG). MG accounts for 60% of the compound in the plant while HMG is about 2%. Using rats, Hemby’s study examined how both these ingredients affect the brain.

Hemby and other researchers allowed rats to self-administer both components of kratom. They found that the rats quickly began self-administering HMG, but did not have interest in MG.

“In other words, while one of kratom’s main compounds appeared to be addictive, the other wasn’t at all—in fact, it appeared to have the opposite effect,” Business Insider reported.

Because kratom affects some of the same receptors in the brain as opioids, the FDA announced in February that it would be called an “opioid.” But others believe kratom could be beneficial and treat cravings while reducing symptoms of withdrawal and the likelihood of relapse.

The results of the study suggest that it could be beneficial to breed the plant to have higher concentrations of one compound versus the other. However, the results are preliminary because the study was not done on humans.

Some people, such as 26-year-old Bryce Avey, began using kratom because they could not get access to other opioid treatments like buprenorphine and naltrexone. “It’s like a cruel joke that I finally found something that works and the FDA and DEA want it banned,” Avey told Business Insider.

David Juurlink, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, told Business Insider that the use of kratom makes sense, as it affects the same brain receptors as opioids. “It makes sense that this product would mitigate the symptoms of opioid withdrawal or allow someone to transition from a higher dose to lower dose, or help get them off of opioids altogether,” he said.

Business Insider notes that concern about the supplement arises because there is no “quality oversight of kratom,” meaning people don’t know what the pills actually contain.

“Personally, I would never take this stuff,” Juurlink told Business Insider. “When you go to a pharmacy, you know there’s quality control, you know precisely how much you’re getting, and you know exactly what you’re getting. With this, it’s impossible to know.”

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
Can Ayahuasca Help Those With Severe Depression?

Those suffering from severe, untreatable depression may find relief from the psychedelic drug ayahuasca.

A new study suggests that ayahuasca might be able to help people suffering from treatment-resistant depression.

The study is among the first of its kind investigating ayahuasca as a treatment for depression, testing 30 subjects in a randomized and placebo-controlled environment.

Such results could be significant, as some forms of depression do not respond to known drug treatments, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew derived from Amazonian plants. It’s been used for therapeutic and medicinal purposes for centuries by people living in the Amazonian regions in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. By boiling the vine banisteriopsis caapi and the shrub psychotria viridis together, the psychoactive compound DMT is extracted.

According to CNN, researchers at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte found 218 depression patients and selected 29 of those with treatment-resistant depression.

Some of the subjects were given the real thing while others were given a convincing placebo, a concoction made of water, yeast, citric acid, and caramel coloring to look brown and taste as sour and bitter as the real thing. As an extra touch, zinc sulphate was added to simulate the nausea and vomiting that often comes with ayahuasca.

Participants took their respective drinks in a hospital room made to look like a living room. In anticipation of the psychedelic effects that can last up to four hours, researchers prepared two playlists for participants, one instrumental and the other in the Portuguese language.

The day after the experiment, 50% of all the patients reported better moods and a reduction in anxiety. After a week, 64% of patients who took the real ayahuasca reported they still felt a reduction in their depression. In comparison, only 27% of the participants who took the placebo still felt better.

Using ayahuasca as a treatment for depression has been explored before, but without proper controls, such as a placebo group. This is a problem because placebos can result in a reduction in depression in 45% of patients, which researchers believe can muddy results and make it hard to find out what’s actually helping.

In the case of this study, participants who experienced more intense hallucinations from the ayahuasca seemed to have a greater reduction in depression, but the researchers warn against calling it a cure, as no single treatment works for everyone.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
New York Federal Judge Admits He’s Been Too Tough on Marijuana

The judge says he wants to make things right, in both his current and future judgments.

Judge Jack Weinstein of Brooklyn, New York admits he’s probably been too harsh on marijuana offenders throughout his career. To make amends, he has vowed to be more lenient in future cases and to fix the cases he can now.

To that end, he plans to dig back through his cases and do away with supervised releases for marijuana offenders. Assigning probation officers to offenders who are simply trying to get their lives together after time in jail is a waste of time for all parties involved, Weinstein reasoned.

He’s already begun by prematurely terminating the three-year supervised release of 22-year-old Tyran Trotter, despite the fact that Trotter had smoked marijuana to stay “calm and on the right path.” While Trotter was in the system after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin, Weinstein believes that booking him just for marijuana would be a mistake.

“If his supervision continues, he will probably end up in the almost endless cycle of supervised release and prison,” wrote Weinstein of the case in a 42-page ruling.

Besides Trotter’s case, Weinstein also wrote more broadly about marijuana’s legal status in general, mentioning that it’s “becoming increasingly accepted by society.” Law enforcement and the court systems are beginning to reflect this change in perception as well. Weinstein notes that even New York prosecutors aren’t aggressively pursuing lower-level marijuana cases.

Additionally, the New York Police Department has taken to issuing summonses to people caught smoking marijuana instead of arresting them.

However, Weinstein notes, the use of marijuana is still illegal at the federal level and federal probation officers will act accordingly. If marijuana offenders don’t stay mindful of this distinction, it could lead to getting booked for violating probation or even getting thrown in a cell.

Potentially, that’s a lot of offenders considering 13% of supervised releases in Brooklyn and Long Island area courts are drug-related. Weinstein isn’t the only judge who feels that way; a 2014 survey revealed that more than 85% of 650 federal court judges felt that offenders should not be automatically locked up when charged with illegal drug possession.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
Kelly Osbourne Gets Candid About Sobriety, Relapse & Mental Health

“What I’ve learnt is that no amount of therapy or medication is going to work unless you want it to.”

Fighting off stigma and advocating for self-care, Kelly Osbourne opened up to a British tabloid about her ongoing reliance on weekly therapy to help her battle with addiction.

“I believe everybody should have therapy,” the 33-year-old told The Sun. “Your mind, body and soul are the full package. I try and go once a week.”

The former reality star also spoke of her seven trips to rehab and two mental hospital stays, and what was different the last time, the thing that finally got her sober. “What I’ve learnt is that no amount of therapy or medication is going to work unless you want it to,” she said. “Until you want to be a good person, you will never be one.”

Osbourne—whose father, rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, has also had very public struggles with addiction—also touched on public perceptions around mental health care. “There’s still a huge stigma, especially in this country,” she said. “You work out to keep your body good so you go to therapy to keep your mind good.”

This isn’t the first time the perpetually purple-haired celeb has dished on her history of treatment and institutionalization; last year, she laid it all out in a book.

The TV star first got into drugs as a teen, when she started taking Vicodin after having her tonsils removed. “I found, when I take this, people like me,” she later told People. “I’m having fun, I’m not getting picked on. It became a confidence thing.”

Over the years, her drug use ballooned into a broader problem. “The only way I could even face my life was by opening that pill bottle, shaking out a few pills—or a handful—into my palm, and throwing them down my throat,” she wrote in her 2017 memoir, There is No F*cking Secret: Letters from a Badass Bitch.

After multiple trips to rehab, she sobered up once—then relapsed while living in Los Angeles. “Every day, I was taking more and more pills, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up,” she wrote.

But she pulled through it and got off drugs again, eventually going on to pen her book about it all.

“Now, I manage pain through creativity, friendship and self-care,” she wrote in a final chapter titled, “Dear Rehab.” “The crazier my life gets, the more focused I become on the things that make me feel good.”

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018
Eddie Pepitone: From Falling Down Drunk to Sober Stand Up

Comedy is totally addictive! It hits the part of the brain that drugs do. The love me love me I’m home I’m home part (that is when it goes well). You feel exhilarated because you are the center of attention.

I was a few months out of my second rehab facility when a friend and fellow stand up comic handed me a DVD, a documentary about comedian Eddie Pepitone called The Bitter Buddha. I was riveted by the documentary – not only was this man talking about real things that matter on stage (while I was mostly doing sex humor) but he was sober! And had been for a very long time.

I declared him my favorite comic and waited anxiously for his first Netflix special to come out, In Ruins. I actually planned to go to the taping in Brooklyn, but then I relapsed. And I came back. And I relapsed. And I came back.

My first article for The Fix was about giving up marijuana. I left out the role Eddie played in that, but here we are.

Last February I planned to go to LA, where Eddie lived, for some shows. I also planned to get a medical marijuana card. I emailed Eddie that I was his self-appointed very biggest fan, and he agreed to meet. We made plans. This was it! I was going to meet my comedy idol! And he was sober! But surely, I thought, he probably smoked weed. Living in California and all, and how could anyone even do comedy without imbibing in something at least–at the very least–after the show. (As if I could ever wait that long.)

I planned to meet Eddie at a vegan restaurant and then go to a play. But first, that day I took a girl I met at a meeting to Harry Potter world. And then when I dropped her off, I had to get super super stoned to make up for the few hours I couldn’t. And then I was on the phone with the sponsor I had at the time yelling about how I was going to be late. And then I just had to stop at a dispensary.

I was late to dinner. So late, in fact, that the first thing Eddie ever said to me was, “I ordered you dinner. And I ate it all.”

So we go to the venue and my car just stinks like weed, which Eddie noticed. He brought it up, and when I heard him say the word I got super excited. I knew it! He does smoke weed! This is all the validation I have ever needed!

However, I was wrong. He was bringing up weed to tell me it was the last thing he quit; that after that was when his career really started; that marijuana dampens the dreaming mechanism. The hole in my gut raged, as I knew he was right. After that I kept in touch with him more. He has helped me so much, and I know he can also help you.

I have relapsed since then, most often the same old story other chronically relapsing comics tell me: hanging out too late, too good a set, too bad a set. There are a ton of us out here, and I’m sure there are more in other industries, building it all up in the periods of sobriety, then – at best – coasting on those wins during periods of relapse, and starting all over again when we get scared enough.

Yet there are a number of comedians I know with sustained, continuous, joyous sobriety. Those are the ones I wanted to talk to, the ones whose secrets I desperately wanted to know, the ones who seem to hold all the horcruxes that I can’t find.

So I asked Eddie.

The Fix: What is the hardest thing about being sober in the comedy industry?

Eddie Pepitone: Feeling like you’re missing out on an exceptional post-show high. Comedy is all about the adrenaline rush, and booze and weed intensify it and make you feel like a god. Also, comedy is such an intense brain-centric art. I miss turning it off with pot. The brain relaxes with pot.

What is the best thing about being sober in comedy?

Feels so great to do it sober and kick ass. I actually remember everything and I did it without drugs! Also [I’m] much sharper when I’m not high. I create more sober and am surprisingly much [more] fearless. I see stoner comedians flounder sloppily a lot.

How did you deal in the early days of sobriety?

Early days I did (as I tend to do now) split right away after I perform and stay out of trouble. I can hang now if I want and not feel as needy but I usually get bored after a while.

What do you think it is about comedy that attracts so many addicts? Or addicts that are attracted to comedy?

Comedy is totally addictive! It hits the part of the brain that drugs do. The love me love me I’m home I’m home part (that is when it goes well). You feel exhilarated because you are the center of attention (what addict isn’t about me me me???). The pace of jokes, the racing mind, the intoxication of the good looking crowd. THE VALIDATION.

What advice would you give to comedians who struggle with chronic relapse?

Chronic relapse and being a comic is super hard, so preventative measures need to be taken. TAKE CARE OF THE MIND/BODY. Meditation practice (tough because comics thrive on chaos and have little discipline) but you have to try to slow down and get a good foundation during the day. Try to stabilize endless desires for sex and excitement by letting go of intense fantasy life. Yoga, 12-step meetings, a couple of sober or even-keeled friends (but I find all this hard as my habits are so ingrained). Gym and exercise helped me.

Any other advice you think is helpful?

Build up sobriety slowly. Feel the good feelings of not being fucked up and achieving stuff. It’s so nice not to be hungover. When depressed, talk to a deep friend who gets you.

That deep friend, for me, is the one and only Eddie Pepitone. Sometimes when I’m lonely and don’t want to bother him, I listen to his podcast, Pep Talks, in which he is exactly how he always is: brilliant and authentic and brazenly self-aware.

Thank you Eddie, for being a light that shines the way out of the dark. And to all my fellow chronic relapsers out there: all we have to do is stay sober ONE MORE TIME than we got drunk.

View the original article at thefix.com

9 July 2018