Category: Addiction News

Anne Hathaway Vows To Stop Drinking Until Son Is Older

Hathaway says before she stopped drinking she had been touring rum bars on the island Mauritius, an experience she doesn’t remember.

Anne Hathaway hasn’t had a drink since October—and she plans to keep it that way for the next 18 years.

According to USA Today, the actress made the announcement on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Tuesday (Jan. 22). Hathaway says she plans to stay sober until her 2-year-old son, Jonathan, is grown.

While Hathaway has never been in the spotlight for excessive drinking or partying, she says she still feels that stopping is the right decision when it comes to the effect it could have on the way she parents.

“I’m going to stop drinking while my son is in my house just because I don’t totally love the way I do it and he’s getting to an age where he really does need me all the time in the mornings,” Hathaway told Ellen. “I did one school run one day where I dropped him off at school. I wasn’t driving, but I was hungover and that was enough for me. I didn’t love that one.”

Hathaway says before she stopped drinking, she had been traveling on the island Mauritius, with her Serenity co-star Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves. The friends had been touring rum bars and Hathaway tells Ellen that she doesn’t recall much of it.

“Wow, and how was that?” Ellen asked, referring to the travels.

“I don’t remember,” Hathaway replied. “I have no idea.”

Hathaway added that while she enjoys their company, she simply couldn’t keep up with the drinking.

“They’re both cool, and I just can’t drink as much as them,” she said. “We drank the night away, and then I had to go to a meeting with Steven Knight, our director, the next day, and I was just kinda—have you guys ever had to do a meeting hungover? I was just kinda stumbling in with one eye open and I was trying to convince him about certain things about my character.”

Hathaway says at the end of the meeting, she told Knight she was hungover.

“He just goes, ‘Oh, really? I couldn’t tell,’” she told Ellen. “And then two days later we had another meeting and I showed up and he said ‘Oh, now I can.’”

View the original article at thefix.com

24 January 2019
Dry January's Popularity Leads More Bars To Mix Non-Alcoholic Drinks

Bars are crafting specialty drinks with flashy names to draw in alcohol-free customers during the month of January.

The Dry January public health campaign started several years ago by a group called Alcohol Change UK, a London-based advocacy group. Now the campaign has spread to the U.S., and many New York bars are finding themselves mixing mocktails (cocktails without alcohol) for their customers.

This is great news for those trying to abstain or reduce their alcohol consumption, making it easier to do a night on the town with friends and still participate in the festivities—without the drinking.

New York bars such as Existing Conditions are crafting specialty drinks with flashy names to draw in alcohol-free customers, such as the “Serendipity,” a drink with a tomato and passion fruit blend.

At $16, the drink is expensive but delicious—just refrain from calling it a mocktail. According to Channel Three News, owners Dave Arnold and Don Lee say, “It contains the word ‘mock.’ Why would I want to mock the guest who’s coming in?” Arnold and Lee want to take their customers seriously, they say—alcohol drinkers or not.

They continue, “We put more time and effort into going from a raw ingredient to a final product, because that’s what it takes to put that much flavor into something without alcohol.”

Not all bars are happy about Dry January.

“We hate it!” says Johnny Swet, a bar owner in New York. “You don’t see your regulars. Where are they?” he says. “A guy comes in for four or five bourbons, four or five nights a week, and then you don’t see him. Is he out of town? His friends say, ‘He’s not drinking this month.’ Oh lord.”

Swet says that January has gotten so slow that he is encouraging his bartenders to go on vacation. Tips are down by as much as 25%. The average person at a bar might drink two or three cocktails in one sitting, but just one or two mocktails, says Rick Camac at the Institute of Culinary Education in The Wall Street Journal.

Mocktails also often involve complicated recipes with pricey ingredients, and fresh-squeezed juice in an alcohol-free drink can cost more than the alcohol itself. $16 is the average cost for a virgin drink, and customers aren’t always willing to pay that much.

Though Dry January may not be good for business, the month-long public health campaign is about health and wellness. Mintel Senior Beverage Analyst Caleb Bryant told Channel Three News, “For some that means reducing alcohol consumption, or abstaining from alcohol entirely.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Pete Davidson Returns to SNL With Support From A Sober Star

Comedian John Mulaney joined Davidson during Weekend Update where they joked about mental health, hanging out and watching The Mule.

After a tumultuous 2018 filled with personal and professional challenges due in part to mental health conditions, comedian Pete Davidson returned to Saturday Night Live last weekend, guided by former SNL writer John Mulaney, who is in recovery.

The two appeared together in an interview portion of Weekend Update, where Davidson makes an appearance from time to time to discuss his personal life and sometimes his mental health for laughs.

“As you know, I’ve had a really crazy month and I want to talk about something that really matters to me,” Davidson told Colin Jost.

“Mental health?” Jost asked.

But no—the sketch was about the new Clint Eastwood film The Mule.

Seeing Davidson and Mulaney side by side, Jost remarked that he didn’t know the two hung out together.

“We do, but a lot of time it looks like I’m Pete’s lawyer,” Mulaney said. “For real, I’ve been spending time with Pete to try to show him that you can have a life in comedy that is not insane. A sober, domestic life.”

“And after observing John’s life I publicly threatened suicide,” Davidson retorted. “I know I shouldn’t make that joke, but it’s funny.”

In December, Davidson was cut almost entirely from an episode of SNL because he had missed dress rehearsals, TMZ reported. Davidson reportedly was in his pajamas in his dressing room for most of the show.

Before that taping, Davidson posted a message on Instagram before deleting his account, saying, “I really don’t want to be on this earth anymore. I’m doing my best to stay here for you but i actually don’t know how much longer I can last,” according to Vanity Fair.

That was concerning because Davidson has discussed his suicidal ideations in the past. His former fiancée Adriana Grande was so worried that she stopped by the set, but security refused to let her see Davidson, who had reportedly asked that Grande be kept away.

“I’m downstairs and I’m not going anywhere,” she tweeted to Davidson, before deleting the message.

However, in Saturday’s SNL return, Mulaney didn’t let the suicide comment slide without being acknowledged.

“Pete, look at me, look me in the eye,” he said. “You are loved by many and we are glad you’re okay.”

Mulaney doesn’t often talk about his sobriety, although he has mentioned it occasionally.

“I don’t drink,” he said in his show New in Town, according to Vanity Fair. “I used to drink, then I drank too much and I had to stop. That surprises a lot of audiences because I don’t look like someone who used to do anything.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Can Cannabis Alter The Teenage Brain?

A recent study examined how marijuana use impacts the gray matter in the teenage brain.

A recent study consisting of brain scans of 46 teens in Europe found that smoking just one or two joints seemed to produce changes in the gray matter of their brains.

The teens appeared to have a greater amount of this tissue, which is a major component of the central nervous system and is responsible for information processing. However, this does not necessarily mean that more gray matter is better.

According to a 2006 article in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, the brain naturally shrinks as people age. This process is called “pruning” and is part of the normal development process at all ages.

This new study, titled “Grey Matter Volume Differences Associated with Extremely Low Levels of Cannabis Use in Adolescence,” notes that gray matter volume (GMV) in the temporal regions of the brain is “associated with contemporaneous performance on the Perceptual Reasoning Index and with future generalized anxiety symptoms in the cannabis users.”

While there has been little research on the effects of cannabis on the brain compared to substances like alcohol, it is generally considered true that permanent changes and damage to the young, developing brain are more significant due to the compounding issues that development disruption causes over time. However, it’s difficult to determine whether the increased gray matter observed in the studied teens is a bad thing, a good thing or a little of both.

“At the age at which we studied these kids (age 14), cortical regions are going through a process of thinning,” said Hugh Garavan, lead author of the study and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont School of Medicine, to NBC News. “So, one possibility is that the cannabis use has disrupted this pruning process, resulting in larger volumes (i.e., a disruption of typical maturation) in the cannabis users. Another possibility is that the cannabis use has led to a growth in neurons and in the connections between them.”

Gray matter can also be altered by a number of common activities other than drug use. Studies have found that meditation can result in changes to this part of the brain. Others have found that habitual interaction with action video games reduces gray matter in the hippocampus while playing 3D platformer video games increases it. Even becoming pregnant has shown to create significant changes in gray matter structure that last for two years after birth.

In this latest study, the 46 teens self-reported smoking very small amounts of cannabis in their lifetimes, equivalent to one or two joints, and reported that they had not consumed any other illicit substances.

Not only did the study find greater GMV levels around the amygdala, hippocampus and other areas of the brain, follow-ups found higher levels of “sensation seeking” and anxiety symptoms among the cannabis-using teens compared to controls. However, the authors of the study specifically stated that these behavioral differences were unrelated to the amount of gray matter.

“Of the behavioral variables tested, only sensation seeking and agoraphobia differed between the cannabis users and controls and these factors were not related to GMV differences,” the study reads.

The authors also noted that behavioral differences should be “interpreted with caution” due to the low sample size, but they are notable as “panic and anxiety symptoms are frequently reported side effects by naïve and occasional cannabis users.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
How Big Pharma's Payments To Doctors Affected Overdose Deaths

A new study examined the link between large payments and gifts to doctors from pharma companies and overdose deaths.

In counties and states where opioid manufacturers offered large payments or gifts to doctors to promote their product, a new study has suggested that both opioid prescriptions and opioid-related overdose deaths were higher than in other areas.

Coverage of the study in The New York Times showed that the study culled information from a variety of sources, including the Open Payments database, which tracks payments by pharmaceutical companies to doctors, and data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Information from these sources suggested that spending on physicians was most highly concentrated in the Northeastern United States, where certain cities and counties claim some of the highest overdose death rates in the country.

The study, conducted by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center and New York University School of Medicine, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, filtered data from the aforementioned national databases through three criteria: total dollar value of marketing efforts by companies spent on doctors, number of payments and number of physicians that received any marketing.

According to the researchers, the pharmaceutical industry spent approximately $40 million promoting their opioid products to nearly 68,000 doctors between 2013 and 2015. The marketing efforts included paid meals, trips and consulting fees.

By referencing overdose data and opioid prescription numbers from the CDC, they determined that for every three additional payments made to doctors per 100,000 people in a county, overdose deaths involving prescription opioids would rise 18% over a year’s time.

Marketing to doctors dropped significantly in the period immediately following the years included in the study by 33%, which The New York Times attributed to public pressure on companies after the opioid epidemic began reaching critical levels.

Cities and counties in the Northeastern US that received some of the largest payments also had some of the highest overdose rates, including Salem and Fredericksburg in Virginia, Cabell County in West Virginia and Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania.

As The New York Times noted, the study authors also suggested that the number of interactions such as free meals appeared to be more strongly linked to overdose deaths than the amount spent on such interactions.

“Each meal seems to be associated with more and more prescriptions,” said study lead author Dr. Scott Hadland of Boston Medical Center’s Grayken Center for Addiction. Hadland and his co-authors also wrote that the study did have limitations: They were unable to differentiate between overdose deaths involving prescribed opioids and those caused by painkillers obtained through illegal means.

“We acknowledge that our work describes only one part of the very complex opioid overdose crisis in this country,” said Hadland. “Even still, prescription opioids remain involved in one-third of all opioid overdose deaths, and are commonly the first medications that people encounter before transitioning to heroin or fentanyl. It is critical that we take measures now to prevent marketing from unnecessarily exposing new people to opioids they may not need.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Artists in Recovery Find Their Fix in "The Creative High"

Creativity — making art — is another way to find that aliveness and spiritual connection often sought through drugs and alcohol. The creative process can be transformative for people with addiction.

Recovery that consists of meetings, step work, and an unfulfilling job makes for a very black-and-white life — at least for me it did. That wasn’t the recovery I wanted. I was bored. When I got involved in creative endeavors, however, it was like adding color back into my world. For some people, creative expression becomes a new high.

As I started to explore creativity and art, I realized that I’d opened a door to a part of me that had been closed since I started using drugs. As a child, I loved painting and crafting. I reignited that passion and began expressing myself in new ways: blogging, writing and journaling; painting and drawing; making art and attending craft classes; and creating new recipes. My world feels so much more livable with art in it.

I’m not alone, fellow creative Jules tells me: “Art is everything, really. I don’t care if you write, paint, dance, sculpt, make movies, or whatever. It’s a way to choose an expression to share who you were and who you’re becoming. We’re all messes of insecurity and works in progress. The key is to keep working.”

A big stumbling block for many of us is that we don’t know where to start, and, like Jules says, we have insecurity about our work. That’s where artist Tammi Salas comes in. Over the past few years, Tammi has been sharing her creative journey in recovery. Through Instagram, the #RecoveryGalsArtExchange, her podcast The Unruffled, and other ventures, Tammi gives us a starting point and inspires us to play.

“Art helped me fill the void alcohol once occupied. My entire recovery is centered around making and creating art,” she says. “Not a day goes by without me tapping into my creative groove and seeing what comes out. Art anchors me and helps me reframe old stories and visually create new ones.”

San Francisco-based filmmaker, educator, and arts therapist Adriana Marchione finds her creative outlet in film. For the last 20 years, she has been dedicated to supporting people struggling with substance use disorder and other addictions. Recently, she directed a new a documentary feature-length film, The Creative High.

The Creative High Footage Teaser, Spring 2018 from Adriana Marchione on Vimeo.

The documentary shares the stories of working artists — including Wesley Geer of Rock to Recovery and Ralph Spight, a punk musician who plays with Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys — who have faced addiction. The film reveals their transformational paths to recovery, and the natural “high” of making art. The Creative High brings the viewer into the world of hip-hop, drag performance, punk music, dance, theater, and visual art, demonstrating “the tension that exists between the altered states of creativity and addictive behavior.”

Andriana Marchione took some time out of her schedule to discuss her creative process with The Fix.

The Fix: How has art and creativity influenced your own journey in recovery?

Adriana: I came into recovery 25 years ago as a photographer/visual artist, and at that time I didn’t see a lot of creative role models in recovery. To be safe and away from triggers around my addiction that mainly stemmed from alcohol abuse and unhealthy relationships, I felt that I needed to move away from my creative life and artist connections. Life slowly became manageable. I started to heal, I found peace of mind, but I missed the excitement and vibrancy that my art making gave me. I found more internal ways to express myself (art journaling, poetry, small collages) versus making art to exhibit or be in environments where I mingled with other creatives and had to confront drinking and social life — galleries, parties, bars. This led me to study expressive arts therapy after several years into recovery, and then I made a career out of this. This has been incredibly rewarding to me, giving me a life of purpose, and also finding a focus where I specialize in working with addiction recovery, and artists who face addictions and eating disorders.

Along the way, I have found new ways to express myself: improv performance, Argentine tango, being an art curator for many years, and coming back to my love of media through filmmaking over the last five years. It also took a while (and continues to challenge me) to find the balance with creating art and being public in art making, taking risks but still being grounded in recovery.

What motivated you to create this film, and what does it represent to you?

Being dedicated to a creative project of substance and collaborating with the film team has been one of my hopes and visions in recovery. For the last 25 years, I have focused on art therapy and supporting people one-on-one or in a teaching setting, but when I started making documentaries I felt a strong calling to tell stories and make a larger statement through my art. Films have the power to do that.

My first documentary film, When the Fall Comes, was released in 2014 and was about my personal journey with grief and using the arts to heal. This film gave me the inspiration to do more films because I realized how many people a film can reach and what a rich experience it is to be involved in the making of a film. It is also a passion project since the topic of creativity and addiction is so close to my heart. This is something I have lived and watched others struggle with in my work — how to have a creative life successful in recovery. I wanted to tell the artist’s story from a new perspective, with many voices. I wanted to give hope to artists in recovery and artists who are still caught in addictive cycles, but I also wanted to show how the arts can be an important vehicle for healing in recovery.

In what ways do you think the film will speak to both people in recovery and to those seeking it?

I hope this film will give people a window into the real challenges and successes that artists who have suffered from substance use disorders face. I also think it is important for people to speak publicly about their addictions, so the public can see that recovery happens and so that we can continue to combat stigma that comes along with the disease of addictions.

Some of the artists in the film have had to go through a process with this, and I applaud their courage and willingness to reveal their stories with the public. I hope that people viewing the film will have a deeper sense of the highs and lows that accompany the creative process and take the risk to create. I also want to convey the fact that seeking an alternative “high” through making art gives another channel to find that aliveness and spiritual connection often sought through drugs and alcohol. Art can be the new medicine, one that is productive and meaningful rather than destructive and life-diminishing.

You chose nine working artists from diverse backgrounds to feature in the film, rather than choosing celebrities. What unique qualities do you think that will bring to the overall production?

It felt very important to tell a different story than the celebrity story. So many films, TV shows, memoirs have been put out that tell the dramatic story of famous people struggling with addiction. Addiction affects us all in some way, and there are so many artists who live ordinary lives (and extraordinary as well) who are trying to be successful with their art without falling into addictive behaviors. Documenting a variety of stories, from musicians to dancers to visual artists, shows all different sides of life. We wanted to show many recovery perspectives and how each one is unique but they all experience the power of the arts practice.

Conceptualizing and producing a film is a huge task. What other challenges have you faced making a film that was funded through donations?

Making a feature-length documentary is a huge feat that requires endless determination. We have been making The Creative High and are now in post-production, which is the most expensive part of making a film. We have pursued many avenues for funding including applying to grants, crowdfunding, reaching out to private foundations, and seeking investors, sponsors and executive producers. In general, funding is not easy to procure for independent films, and we have found that the most effective way to gather the funds has been through individuals making small donations that add up. We are very open at this completion stage to have sponsors and executive producers join us with larger donations to help us get to the finish line!

Last, how can we support your fundraising?

You can support our fundraising by making a donation here. The sooner we gather our remaining funding, the faster we can complete the film and get its message to the public. All donations are tax-deductible.

Find out more about director Adriana Marchione’s work: www.adrianamarchione.com

How do you express yourself in recovery? Tell us below.

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Critics Respond To Malcolm Gladwell's Controversial Cannabis Article

In a recent New Yorker feature Gladwell makes the case that marijuana is not as “safe as we think.”

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell’s recent feature in The New Yorker about the possible connections between marijuana use and paranoid/psychotic behavior has drawn fierce critical responses from both cannabis consumers and fellow writers alike.

A new editorial in The Atlantic crystallizes the core issues that opponents have voiced about the story: In citing former Los Angeles Times reporter Alex Berenson’s book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, both Gladwell and Berenson appear to be making broad assumptions about the potential for marijuana use to incite paranoia, schizophrenia and violent behavior based on research and anecdotes that do not reach the conclusions that the authors state.

As James Hamblin, who wrote the Atlantic piece, noted, Gladwell and Berenson’s assertions are the “public-intellectual equivalent of just sayin’.”

In the New Yorker story, Gladwell sought to make the case that marijuana is not as safe a drug as proponents claim it to be. His primary source for this assertion is Berenson’s book, which cites statistics from the state of Washington, which at first blush, seem to indicate that murder and aggravated-assault rates rose by 40% between 2013 and 2017 — the period immediately before and after the state legalized recreational marijuana.

Berenson also cited a 2017 report on the health effects of cannabis by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), which found “substantial evidence of a statistical association between cannabis use and the development of schizophrenia or other psychoses.”

But as Hamblin and others note, Gladwell appears to focus less on the wealth of inconclusive or conflicting results found in both sources, as well as the many other factors that contribute to mental illness and violent behavior.

Gladwell writes, “We don’t know that an increase in cannabis use was responsible for that surge in violence” in Washington State. Nor do Gladwell or Berenson appear to mention that the NAM research also found statistical evidence of a link between “cannabis use and better cognitive performance among individuals with psychotic disorders,” as well as “moderate evidence of no statistical association between cannabis use and worsening of negative symptoms of schizophrenia.”

As Hamblin and science writer Dave Levitan both noted, there are two issues at hand with Gladwell and Berenson’s assertions. One is a cherry-picking of data to prove a point: In regard to the statistics about Washington, Levitan noted that while the state did experience an increase in murders between 2013 and 2017, the rate actually fell between 2015 and 2016. Additionally, the murder rate from 2012 to 2017 actually only increased by 3%. So, as Levitan wrote, “Which murder rate do you use?”

Both authors also noted that Gladwell and Berenson continually confuse correlation with causation. As Hamblin writes, “Berenson argues that if marijuana can cause psychotic breaks from reality, and psychotic people are more inclined to violence, marijuana is a cause of violence.” Levitan breaks it down even further: “Crime tends to spike in the summer; so does ice cream consumption. Did all that ice cream cause the crime?”

Ultimately, what emerges from Gladwell and Berenson’s narratives is the undeniable fact that more research into cannabis is necessary. But linking its use to mental illness and violence will actually make such efforts more difficult. Hamblin cited Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who said, “Many people who are making the decisions about funding going to the [National Institute of Health] and other organizations will now say that we should have a moratorium on a drug that increases murder. Why would we want to do that and put people’s lives at risk?”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Can Treating Insomnia Ease Depression Symptoms For Menopausal Women?

Researchers explored possible treatment options for depression and insomnia in menopausal women.

Depression symptoms in women going through menopause may decrease when insomnia is treated, new research has found.

According to Reuters, researchers enlisted 117 women going through menopause who also had insomnia. Most women, according to Reuters, experience menopause anywhere between age 45 and 55. Menopause occurs when the hormones estrogen and progesterone stop being produced by the ovaries. One of the main symptoms for women is insomnia.

The women were split into three groups randomly. One group received cognitive behavioral therapy, the second group received a type of CBT called sleep restriction therapy, and the third was given information about habits to make sleeping and falling asleep easier (also referred to as sleep hygiene education).

Of the women in the study, 4.3% had been diagnosed with moderately severe depression. Researchers found that both types of therapy helped to alleviate depression symptoms, while the sleep hygiene education did not have the same results.

“We can add targeted cognitive behavioral treatment of insomnia to the current arsenal of treatments available to alleviate menopausal associated insomnia and with this treatment we have the added benefit of reductions in depressive symptoms which frequently co-occur with sleep disturbance associated with menopause,” senior study author Christopher Drake of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan, told Reuters via email. “We hope to one day show that targeting insomnia symptoms early when depression is mild or yet to develop can prevent depression from ever developing in the first place.”

When it comes to insomnia, CBT helps people learn techniques that address the mental aspects of insomnia, like overcoming negative emotions, anxiety and a racing mind.

Previous research has found that CBT can help those with insomnia to create better bedtime routines and improve their sleep patterns.

When it comes to sleep restriction therapy, it can be done solo or in addition to CBT. The goal of this type of therapy is to limit how many times a person wakes during the night and to decrease the total amount of time they spend in bed but not the total amount of time they spend asleep.

In this particular study, women receiving CBT went through six face-to-face therapy sessions with a medical professional in the behavioral sleep medicine field. Those undergoing sleep restriction therapy had two face-to-face sessions and three phone sessions. The remaining group undergoing sleep hygiene education received six emails per week, each with tips for better sleep routines and information on sleep and its connection to health and lifestyle.

Researchers do note that this study has some limitations, such as the fact that women with major depression were not included in the study. The study also did not take into account hot flashes, which are a common symptom of menopause that could interfere with sleep.

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Judge Rules Firing Of Nurse Caught Stealing Opioids "Unfair" Because Of Addiction

The nurse had falsified patient requests for drugs, used them, and then further falsified records that the medications were delivered to the patient.

A nurse who was caught injecting herself with opioids she had reported as being delivered to patients has had her name cleared of wrongdoing because a judge has ruled her addiction a disease.

Not only has the long-term care facility where she works been forced to take her back on the job, but the Regional Municipality of Waterloo has also been ordered to financially compensate the nurse for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

The presiding judge, arbitrator Larry Steinberg, argued that the nurse suffered from the disease of severe opioid use disorder, leaving her with “a complete inability or a diminished capacity” to resist stealing and using opioid medications meant for patients at her place of work.

The nurse in question, named in records only as DS, was found to have falsified patient requests for drugs, used them, and then further falsified records that the medications were delivered to the patient. A fellow nurse also caught DS using patients’ drugs in the restroom.

Faced with accusations from management, DS at first denied using the drugs but later admitted to becoming addicted after using drugs as part of her treatment for a kidney condition.

The incidents that DS stands accused of happened in 2016, and DS said she has not used any such drugs since going to rehab later that year.

Legal representatives for the long-term care facility argued that reinstating DS’ employee status would burden the facility with “undue hardship.” They claimed that if DS were to steal a fentanyl patch from one of the many patients there who suffer from dementia, the patients would not be aware enough to realize it and report her.

Additionally, other nurses cannot be depended on to go above and beyond their duties to monitor DS to ensure she does not commit further thefts. Furthermore, they argued, DS was not fired for being addicted but for falsifying records and stealing.

However, Steinberg ruled that the theft and falsification of records were symptoms of a disease DS suffered from.

The nature of addiction became central to the case. An addiction expert who was brought in to weigh in on the case, a professor of psychiatry named Lawrie Reznek, testified that addiction is more like a “bad habit” than a disease. He did admit that his opinion “was a minority view in the psychiatric profession and that it was contrary, for example, to the DSM-5.”

Steinberg argued that calling addiction a “bad habit” actually “stigmatizes these conditions and makes it harder for people to get help.” Science backs the judge’s opinion, as studies have found addiction to affect those with genetic predispositions to it and actually change the brain and body in measurable ways.

However, the Canadian justice system has not historically treated addiction as such, convicting several nurses accused of similar crimes.

View the original article at thefix.com

23 January 2019
Doctor Uses Instagram To Start Mental Health Conversation

Dr. Jessica Clemons has launched an Instagram page aimed at helping those in need of mental health care.

These days a lot of people are reaching out through social media to talk about mental health, whether they’re world famous celebrities or everyday people who want to share their difficulties and ask for help.

Now Forbes reports that a psychiatrist named Dr. Jessica Clemons is using social media to not only help open up the conversation on mental health but to also guide people on where and how to get help.

Dr. Clemons’ Instagram page has over 40,000 followers, and she also appeared on a VH1 special, In Session: Live with Dr. Jess, where she did a therapy session live. (Another therapist who has done live therapy sessions, in this case with celebrities, is Dr. Siri Sat Nam Singh, who did a widely seen talk with Katy Perry in 2017.)

Dr. Clemons told Forbes, “I’m really happy my work in mental health gives me the opportunity to take care of people when they need it the most. I think having compassion and the ability to empathize with people is my gift. And I use it to remind people, who may be feeling like they’re suffering mentally, that they are not the summation of the negative things that have happened to them. I remind people that they are not their pain and that they have access to love.”

In launching @askDrJess, Dr. Clemons said attending therapy herself inspired her to have a social media presence. “I had this idea to try to normalize conversations about mental health . . . I remember the day when Instagram debuted the feature where you could post a poll. People had already started asking me things about anxiety . . . I’d done a lot of group work where I’d lead discussions that were also teaching people. So I thought I’d give it a try on Instagram. I posted the poll and 90 percent of people said they wanted to learn more about anxiety.”

While therapy is a private experience, Dr. Clemons didn’t feel reservations about being public on social media. “Using social media, I found ways to connect and talk about things that are real. So I just kept doing it and it felt natural.” Dr. Clemons’ husband also encouraged her to do a live stream every weekend, then “before I knew, eight or nine months had passed and people are still tuning in.”

Where Dr. Clemons does one-on-one therapy with her clients during the week, her weekend live streams “feel like a group experience. It’s not group therapy, by any means, but there is this shared sense of empathy . . . And when they share, there’s this feeling that the group gets to share some of the burden. . . . I’m there as the expert but people also use each other as support.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 January 2019