Category: Addiction News

San Francisco Unveils Safe Injection Site Prototype

Alongside accommodations for drug use, the facilities will offer a range of services geared toward giving clients a chance to get well.

With the city of San Francisco now closer than ever to opening the nation’s first supervised injection facility (SIF), it unveiled a prototype to show how a real facility will operate.

The public was invited to view the demonstration, titled Safer Inside, at Glide Memorial Church in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood from August 28-31.

San Francisco is not the only city that has fielded the possibility of opening a supervised injection facility, which is prohibited under federal law. However, that’s closer to reality than ever, after final revisions of the bill (AB186) to allow the city to establish a SIF were approved by the state Assembly. AB186 now awaits the signature of Governor Jerry Brown.

The goal of opening such a site is to keep drug use off the streets, while giving people a safe place to use.

“I refuse to accept what we see on our streets—the needles, the open drug use, the human suffering caused by addiction—as the new status quo,” said Mayor London Breed in a statement. “Safe injection sites are a proven, evidence-based approach to solving this public health crisis.”

The San Francisco Chronicle offered a glimpse inside the Safer Inside demonstration. “Clients” who wish to use the facility register upon entering, and are then led to the injection room. They are provided with a “harm reduction kit” containing clean syringes, disinfecting wipes, cotton balls, tourniquets, and “cookers” to cook the drug.

They may inject at a table facing a small mirror that will allow staff to observe from a distance. “This way, we can check in on them without actually having to invade their space and their privacy,” said Kenneth Kim, clinical director at Glide. Afterwards, clients are ushered to a “chill-out room” where they can ride out their highs.

Despite the accommodations for drug use, public health officials are most proud that these facilities will offer a range of services geared toward giving clients a chance to get well. Services include meal services, showers, dental care, and mental health and medical referrals, according to the SF Chronicle.

“The readiness to take that next step or maybe go to recovery can start in a place where there’s dignity and respect and relationships,” said Anel Muller, who designed the prototype facility. “That’s not something that will happen overnight, but once you’re creating those great foundations, it becomes much easier to talk about a lot of different things.”

The greatest hurdle San Francisco officials may face is the federal government. Last Monday (August 27), US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reiterated the federal government’s stance on SIFs—declaring them “very dangerous” and that they will “only make the opioid crisis worse.”

“Because federal law clearly prohibits injection sites, cities and counties should expect the Department of Justice to meet the opening of any injection site with swift and aggressive action,” said Rosenstein.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 September 2018
Don't Blame Ariana Grande for Mac Miller's Death

The idea that someone holds another person’s very life in their hands and has the power to determine whether that person lives or dies is a painful and damaging misconception.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know very much about Mac Miller. I’ve never listened to his music or attended one of his concerts. My knowledge of him has mostly been in the headlines I’ve seen about his relationship with Ariana Grande and their subsequent breakup earlier this year.

And yet, the second that news broke of Miller’s death Friday, I instinctively knew what was coming. I knew that following the shock over his untimely death, the shame and blame would begin.

I knew because I’ve been there. I’ve lived it. And I’m here to tell you that casting blame is just about the most unhelpful thing you can do for someone following the death of a loved one.

Sadly, I was right. Just a few hours after it was reported that Miller died of a suspected overdose, people began hurling blame on social media. Their target: Grande, who first fended off trolls after their May split when fans blamed her for her ex’s DUI. She even took to Twitter to explain their relationship.

Now, four months later, Grande is battling trolls yet again. Trolls who are blaming her for Miller’s death and leaving hateful comments on her Instagram like “His spirit will forever haunt you,” “There’s a special place in hell for people like u [sic],” “You could’ve done something,” and “You should have helped him.”

Grande has since disabled comments on her Instagram and fans quickly came to her defense on Twitter, but unfortunately, what happened to her is nothing new. It’s reflective of a pattern we’ve seen before, most notably with Asia Argento following Anthony Bourdain’s suicide in June. Argento was cyberbullied and blamed for the celebrity chef’s death, which prompted those in Hollywood to rally around the actress in the form of an open letter published in the Los Angeles Times.

When someone dies suddenly and traumatically, it’s typically their loved ones who are caught in the crosshairs of other people’s grief and the struggle to understand the death. But what about those who don’t have an army of support like Grande or Argento? How are they supposed to traverse the minefield of grief following a traumatic death when they have so many questions and those around them are saying things that are more harmful than healing?

It’s human nature to want to make sense of death because a part of us will always resist the idea that death is natural. And when the death is unexpected, like Miller’s, we rail against death even more, looking for any explanation we can find that will help us make sense of everything. Even if it’s misguided, sometimes those explanations come in the form of lashing out and assigning blame to those closest to the deceased.

However, trying to place all the blame in the world isn’t going to magically bring the person back to life. Death isn’t something that we can wrap up neatly like a half-hour sitcom where everything is solved by the end. Just like life, death doesn’t work like that.

When I was 21, my father suddenly and unexpectedly died from suicide. Although the day he died was the most traumatic day of my life, I wrestled with feelings of guilt and shame for years. I was the last one to see my father alive, and the questions swirled around my head in a never-ending loop. What if I’d woken up just 15 minutes earlier? What if I’d seen the signs that he was struggling? What if he said something on the last day of his life, something significant that I just casually brushed aside?

What it? What if? What if?

Those are the questions that plagued me, and I’m sure those are the types of questions on Grande’s mind as she mourns the loss of Miller. The best thing we can do for her — and everyone grieving the loss of a loved one — is to let the grieving process take place. Let people mourn in peace without hurling vindictive words at them. Those words are incredibly hurtful, not to mention cruel and damaging. The idea that someone holds another person’s very life in their hands and has the power to determine whether that person lives or dies is a misconception that has no place in the journey following someone’s death.

As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we’re not superheroes who can swoop in and rescue someone. We can do everything to help them, of course, but we don’t have the all-knowing power to save them. And maybe even more importantly, it’s not our job to cure them. We can offer love, hope and compassion, but in the end, everyone on this planet is responsible for their own life.

I can only hope that those trolls who are blaming Grande have never lost a loved one to a traumatic death like Miller’s. Trust me, people who lose someone to an overdose or suicide struggle enough with self-blame. They don’t need the world shaming and blaming them too. What they need is love and compassion. And space to grieve without shame.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 September 2018
Are Moms With Opioid Addiction At Heightened Risk For Overdose?

A new study examined pregnant women and new moms with opioid use disorder.

After finding out she was pregnant with her second child while in a Massachusetts prison, Katie Raftery entered treatment for heroin use. She stayed seven months, until her son was born. It wasn’t until he was about six weeks old that she began to feel the familiar urges to return to using.

According to the Sarasota Herald Tribune, a new study shows that women who use opioids, like Raftery, are at greater risk of an overdose in the year following their child’s birth.

Rather than return to using, Raftery was able to use her insurance coverage and reach out to her doctor to ask for buprenorphine, a medication that can treat opioid use disorder. But not all women in the country have the ability to take similar actions.

According to the Herald Tribune, in states that do not offer expanded Medicaid, low-income women lose their insurance coverage eight weeks after giving birth. Addiction experts say this is concerning, as it makes a relapse during postpartum depression and opioid cravings more likely.

“As a whole, women with substance use disorders do quite well during pregnancy, due in large extent to access to care, insurance coverage and attention from social services,” Mishka Terplan, an obstetrics and gynecology physician at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, told the newspaper. “Where things fall apart is postpartum. We actually abandon women after delivery.”

Terplan served as the co-author of the study published last month. During the course of the study, researchers kept track of more than 4,000 women with opioid use disorder in Massachusetts, for the duration of the year before and after giving birth.

The study’s results indicated that deaths from opioid overdoses decrease during pregnancy, but increase in the seven to 12 months following birth. Since all of the women involved in the study resided in Massachusetts, insurance coverage was not a factor.

Davida Schiff, lead author of the study and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, tells the Herald Journal that sustaining care for women well after childbirth is vital.

“Pregnancy seems to be a time for change. Women tend to make healthier decisions during pregnancy. So, for women with an opioid addiction, it can be a motivating moment,” she said.

“We should capitalize on the emotions women feel during pregnancy, and sustain their care or enhance it during the postpartum period, which is arguably the most challenging.”

The Herald Journal states that while the opioid epidemic has hit the country hard as a whole, it has impacted subgroups, like pregnant women and new moms, especially hard.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that between 1999 and 2014, the number of pregnant women who used opioids more than quadrupled.

View the original article at thefix.com

11 September 2018
Woman Caught Trying To Smuggle Cocaine In Heels For Online Charmer

The woman believed she was just smuggling artifacts for a promising love interest.

Before a charlatan offering an internet romance lured her into smuggling 2 kilograms of cocaine in her gold high heels, Denise Marie Woodrum once dreamed of becoming a nun.

But after crippling medical debt, a difficult surgery, a tough divorce, the loss of her job and a long battle with depression, the Missouri woman’s devout faith alone wasn’t enough to get her through.

Maybe, she thought, her new lover—a mysterious online charmer known as Hendrik Cornelius—was.

Instead, the short-lived internet romance with the mystery Lothario she never actually met landed Woodrum in an Australian prison. She was reportedly sentenced last week to 7.5 years behind bars for her role in the smuggling scheme, a baffling illicit plot she claimed she knew nothing about.

“There are fraudsters out there who are relying on women who are vulnerable,” said her lawyer, Rebecca Neil, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “She was groomed to provide a financial gain for this person, Hendrik Cornelius, whatever person or persons it was behind this identity.”

The series of personal dramas that ended in the Aussie hoosegow started years earlier in California. Woodrum had been living with her husband and working as a grade school teacher when her marriage collapsed, according to the Washington Post.

She moved to Montana and into her father’s condo, but her life continued on a downward slide until she found herself saddled with medical debt and selling vitamins at the mall.

Then in the spring of 2017, she finally saw hope, a desperate grasp at something new that played out over the course of hundreds of text messages.

“Can you promise you will never leave me?” Woodrum wrote in a message, according to the Sydney paper. “You are my Only and First True Family!!!”

It may have seemed that way at the time, but when Woodrum found herself at the airport with a key of coke and some hard questions to answer, Cornelius was nowhere to be found.

The then-50-year-old started her ill-fated smuggling run in Missouri, then flew to Texas, then Trindad and Tobago, then Suriname. Then, she hopped back to Trinidad and Tobago, then Miami, then Los Angeles and finally Sydney.

But when she touched down in the harbor city, her bags were flagged for additional inspection—and a swab test and X-rays found a heel full of blow.

“How much did they put in the shoes?” Woodrum allegedly asked while the felonious footwear went through the scanner. “Sorry, just talking to myself,” she added.

Despite that muttered question, Woodrum consistently told the courts she’d been duped, and that she thought she was just bringing artifacts for the man she’d never met.

District Court Judge Penelope Wass didn’t buy it, deeming her story “at times unbelievable” and noting the apparent lack of contrition.

“I am being asked to accept that unknown to the offender the relationship was not genuine and created by the internet to dupe the offender,” Wass said, according to BuzzFeed. “There is a limit to which even her own expressions show she is genuinely remorseful for her conduct, rather than the position she now finds herself in.”

And so, on Thursday, the New South Wales District Court sentenced Woodrum to a maximum of 7.5 years in the pen. She’ll be eligible for parole in 2022.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
Dolores O’Riordan's Alcohol-Related Cause of Death Revealed

The Cranberries singer’s body was found in a London hotel in January.

The Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan had a blood alcohol level four times the legal driving limit at the time of her death, according to coroner’s inquest, AP News reports.

A police officer reported to the inquest at Westminster Coroner’s Court that on January 15, O’Riordan, 46, was found in a London hotel submerged in a bathtub in her pajamas. There was no note and no evidence of any self-harm. As such, the AP states, the inquest determined that O’Riordan’s death was accidental and caused by alcohol consumption.

In Britain, inquests are usually held after a sudden, violent or unexplained death. The purpose, according to the AP, is to determine the facts of the circumstances surrounding the death.

In O’Riordan’s room, authorities discovered five mini alcohol bottles as well as a bottle of champagne. In addition to O’Riordan’s high blood alcohol content, “therapeutic” amounts of prescription medications were also found in her body, the AP states.

“There’s no evidence that this was anything other than an accident,” coroner Shirley Radcliffe stated.

Prior to her drowning, O’Riordan had reportedly struggled with her physical and mental health. The AP reported that in 2017, the band had to end their world tour early due to her back issues.

In interviews, she had also spoken about being sexually abused during her childhood, as well as struggling with depression and bipolar disorder.

After the iconic singer’s death, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar stated that “for anyone who grew up in Ireland in the 1990s, Dolores O’Riordan was the voice of a generation.”

After the inquest, The Cranberries released a statement on Twitter.

“Today we continue to struggle to come to terms with what happened,” it read. “Our heartfelt condolences go out to Dolores’ children and family and our thoughts are with them today. Dolores will live on eternally in her music. To see how much of a positive impact she had on people’s lives has been a source of great comfort to us. We’d like to say thank you to all of our fans for the outpouring of messages and continued support during this very difficult time.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
Elon Musk's Apparent Pot-Smoking Sparks Backlash

An ex-Tesla employee who was reportedly fired after testing positive for THC says seeing Musk smoke pot was “like a slap in the face.”

In a rambling two-hour conversation on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tesla founder Elon Musk apparently toked a spliff during the live show, a move that fed concerns about his increasingly erratic behavior.

The long-winded chat between the business magnate and the comedian covered everything from robots to web presence, but it was a short exchange about cannabis near the end of the show that drew the most attention.

“Is that a joint, or is it a cigar?” Musk asked when Rogan pulled out the ganja. “It’s marijuana inside of tobacco,” the host replied, before asking if Musk had ever tried it.

“Yeah, I think I tried one once,” he said. Rogan seemed skeptical, and asked if stockholders prevented him from toking.

“I mean, it’s legal right?” Musk asked. “It’s totally legal,” Rogan said. (The show tapes in California.)

To some, the move may have seemed hypocritical, since Tesla drug tests at least some of its employees, according to Market Watch.

Crystal Guardado, a former Tesla employee, told Bloomberg News that she was fired from the company after testing positive for THC.

“It was just like a slap in the face to me and my son,” she said. “Elon Musk is just smoking it out in the open, knowing that he uses his very vague drug policy as a way to fire people that are a threat to him.”

But even if he didn’t have to pass a drug test, there seems to have been some consequences for the CEO.

One day after the show, Tesla stock went down 9%, closing at 6%, according to Vox. This may not have been just about the on-air pot use, though, as the company generally suffered a trying week.

That same day, two top executives announced their departures, continuing the string of turnovers. Also on Friday, reports began surfacing that the Air Force had begun looking into the alleged post use.

Earlier this year, Musk sparked speculation about his love for cannabis when he tweeted about taking the company private at $420 a share. Not long after, though, he specifically shot down the idea of cannabis use and dismissed any efforts to read into the number.

“It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” he told the New York Times. “But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
Mac Miller Dies At Age 26

Miller was found dead in his home of an apparent drug overdose.

Rapper Mac Miller was found dead in his home in Studio City, California on Friday (September 7). The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner pronounced Miller dead at 11:51 am, People confirms, and a source says his death was caused by cardiac arrest following a drug overdose.

“Malcolm McCormick, known and adored by fans as Mac Miller, has tragically passed away at the age of 26,” his family wrote in a media press release. “He was a bright light in this world for his family, friends and fans. Thank you for your prayers. Please respect our privacy. There are no further details as to the cause of his death at this time.”

Miller was born in Pittsburgh and struck fame at age 18 with his fourth mixtape, K.I.D.S., in 2010. He was in a public relationship with pop star Ariana Grande for about two years until they broke up earlier this year.

Just hours before he died, Miller was posting videos of himself in a recording studio on Instagram.

He had struggled with substance abuse throughout his life. His most recent episode came just a week after his public breakup with Grande when he was arrested for drunk driving. He ran into a power pole and fled, but law enforcement was able to match the plates to his Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and charged him with DUI and hit-and-run.

“I made a stupid mistake. I’m a human being,” Miller explained at the time. “But it was the best thing that could have happened. Best thing that could have happened. I needed that. I needed to run into that light pole and literally have the whole thing stop.”

Fellow musicians openly mourned Miller’s passing on social media.

“I dont know what to say Mac Miller took me on my second tour ever. But beyond helping me launch my career he was one of the sweetest guys I ever knew,” Chance the Rapper tweeted. “Great man. I loved him for real. Im completely broken. God bless him.”

Post Malone also shared condolences.

“God fucking dammit. You were such an incredible person. You changed so many lives. Had so much love in your heart,” Malone wrote on Twitter, “You inspired me throughout highschool, and I wouldn’t be where I was today without you. Never a more kind and sincere and beautiful person. I fucking love you mac.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
Kim Kardashian On A Mission To Free More Non-Violent Drug Offenders

Following her initial success, the reality TV star is gearing up to convince the Trump administration to do it again on a larger scale.

Kim Kardashian West managed to commute the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a non-violent drug offender, with a single meeting at the White House.

The 37-year-old reality television star is back to present the case of Chris Young, 30, who received life in prison for drug possession after three strikes.

However, this time she is expanding the scope, calling for a systematic change to stop drug criminals from receiving extreme sentences at a listening session headed by Jared Kushner.

“It started with Ms. Alice, but looking at her and seeing the faces and learning the stories of the men and women I’ve met inside prisons I knew I couldn’t stop at just one,” West wrote on a Twitter post with photos of the meeting. “It’s time for REAL systemic change.”

West spoke about Young’s case on the Wrongful Conviction podcast, sharing that Young has already been in prison for 10 years at this point.

“Yesterday I had a call with a gentleman that’s in prison for a drug case, got life. It’s so unfair… It was just a crazy—there’s so many people like him,” she told the podcast’s host, Jason Flom. “His prior conviction to get him to his three strikes was marijuana and then marijuana with less than half a gram of cocaine.”

Summing up all the drugs that Young was sentenced for, Flom calculated that the total weight of all the drugs Young was serving a life sentence for weighed less than three pennies.

West also revealed in the interview that the judge who presided over Young’s case, Kevin Sharp, actually stepped down from his position because he felt the life sentence was “so wrong … [Sharp] was like, ‘I’m gonna make this right. I’m gonna step down and I’m gonna fight to get him out.

West has reportedly been in touch with Kushner regarding minimum sentences for drug offenders. This new battle is likely to be long-fought, unlike her first success in freeing Johnson.

“I spoke to the president … He let me know what was going to happen [with Johnson] and he was going to sign the papers right then and there and she could be released that day,” she recounted. “I didn’t know, does that happen right away? Is there a process? What is it? So he was going to let her go. He told me she can leave today.”

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
Depression in Recovery: Do You Have Low Dopamine Tone?

I just felt like shit and slept as much as I could. I showed up to work. I kept my commitments. I spoke when asked to, but I felt more than unhappy. I felt like I just didn’t care.

(The Fix does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, nor does anything on this website create a physician/patient relationship. If you require medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, please consult your physician.)

I just came out of a six-week depression. That might not sound very long, but when you’re in hell it feels like forever. Good news: I didn’t bone any 25-year-old strangers; I didn’t cut myself; I didn’t get loaded; I didn’t smoke or vape although I really, really wanted to. I didn’t even eat pints of Ben and Jerry’s while binge-watching I Am A Killer. I just felt like shit and slept as much as I could. I showed up to work. I kept my commitments. I spoke when asked to, but I felt more than unhappy. I felt like I just didn’t care. I didn’t return phone calls. I didn’t wash my hair. Suicidal thoughts bounced around my head, but I ignored them like I do those annoying dudes with clipboards outside Whole Foods.

I’ve suffered from symptoms of depression since I was 19, so it’s an old, old friend. What really annoys me was that some (dare I say many?) people think at five and a half years of sobriety, you shouldn’t feel depressed. What I kept hearing from AA fundamentalists was:

“It’s your untreated alcoholism.”

“Listen to these tapes about prayer and meditation.”

“You’re not connected enough to your Higher Power.”

“You’re not going to enough meetings.”

“You need to do more service.”

Thankfully my sponsor, who has a foot in the medical world, did not say something along those lines.

One of my big problems with AA is that it looks at every mental problem through the paradigm of your “alcoholism.” If you’re suffering, you should look to the program for relief. Nobody would tell you to “drive around newcomers!” more if you had diabetes or kidney failure, but if you’re feeling down, that’s what you’re told to do. As it turns out, AA is not completely off the mark: “Addiction is a not a spiritually caused malady but a chemically based malady with spiritual symptoms,” addictionologist and psychiatrist Dr. Howard Wetsman told me. “When some people start working a 12-step program, they perceive a spiritual event but their midbrain is experiencing an anatomical event. When they’re working a program, they’re no longer isolated and they no longer feel ‘less than,’ so their dopamine receptor density goes back up [and they experience contentment],” he explained.

But what if your program hasn’t changed or feels sufficient and you still feel depressed? What if you’re working your ass off in your steps and helping others and you still feel like shit?

“Well, low dopamine tone experienced as low mood can be brought on by fear and low self-esteem (the untreated spiritual malady part of alcoholism/addiction) but it can also be brought on by biochemical issues,” Wetsman added.

Huh?

So was I experiencing the chemical part of my “addiction” or was I having a depressive episode? Perhaps my whole life I’d been confusing the two. Of course, all I wanted, like a typical addict, was a pill to fix it. But as I’ve done the medication merry-go-round (and around and around) with mild to moderate success, I was hesitant to start messing with meds again. I didn’t have a terrific psychiatrist, and SSRI’s can really screw with my epilepsy. And Wetsman was talking about dopamine here, not serotonin. Hmmm…

Dr. Wetsman has some interesting stuff about brain chemistry and addiction on his vlog. He mentions something called “dopamine tone” which is a combination of how much dopamine your VTA (Ventral Tegmental Area) releases, how many dopamine receptors you have on your NA (Nucleus Accumbens), and how long your dopamine is there and available to those receptors. Stress can cause you to have fewer dopamine receptors and fewer receptors equals lower dopamine tone. He’d explained to me in previous conversations how almost all of the people with addiction he’d treated had what he described as “low dopamine tone.” When you have low dopamine tone, you don’t care about anything, have no motivation, can’t feel pleasure, can’t connect to others. In addition, low dopamine tone can affect how much serotonin is being released in the cortex. Low midbrain dopamine tone can lead to low serotonin which means, in addition to not giving a shit about anything, you also have no sense of well-being. Well, that certainly sounded familiar.

Dr. Wetsman has a very convincing but still somewhat controversial theory that addiction is completely a brain disease and that using drugs is the result, not the cause. I really suggest you get his book, Questions and Answers on Addiction. It’s 90 pages — you could read half of it on the john and half of it while waiting at the carwash. It explains in detail why most of us addicts felt weird and off before we picked up and why we finally felt normal when we used. Again, it’s all about dopamine, and it’s fucking fascinating. No joke.

In his vlog, he explains that dopamine production requires folic acid which you can get from green leafy veggies (which I admittedly don’t eat enough of) but it also requires an enzyme (called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase or MTHFR for short) to convert folate into l-methylfolate. Certain people have a mutation in the gene that makes MTHFR, so they can’t turn folate into l-methylfolate as effectively, and those people are kind of fucked no matter how many kale smoothies they drink.

But it’s not hopeless. If people with this genetic mutation take a supplement of l-methylfolate, their brain can make enough dopamine naturally. Of course once you have enough dopamine, you’ve got to make sure you release enough (but there’s medication for that) and that you have enough receptors and that it sits in the receptors long enough (and there’s meds for that too).

So this all got me wondering if maybe my MTHFR enzyme was wonky or completely AWOL. Dr. Wetsman urged me to find a good psychiatrist (since I’m on Prozac and two epileptic medications) or a local addictionologist in addition to taking a genetic test for this mutation. In his experience, patients who had a strong reaction to taking the l-methylfolate supplement were frequently also on SSRIs. They either felt much better right away or really really shitty. But if they felt even shittier (because the higher serotonin levels work on a receptor on the VTA which then lowers dopamine), he would just lower their SSRI or sometimes even titrate them off it completely. And voila. Success.

It’s all very complicated, and this whole brain reward system is a feedback loop and interconnected with all kinds of stuff like Gaba and Enkephalins (the brain’s opioids) and Glutamate. But you guys don’t read me for a neuroscience lesson so I’m trying to keep it simple. The basics: how do you know if you have too little dopamine? You have urges to use whatever you can to spike your dopamine: sex, food, gambling, drugs, smoking, and so on. What about too much dopamine? OCD, tics, stuttering, mental obsession and eventually psychosis. Too little serotonin? Anxiety and the symptoms of too high dopamine tone. Too much serotonin? The same thing as too little dopamine tone. Everything is intricately connected, not to mention confusing as all hell.

Being broke and lazy and having had decades of shitty psychiatrists, I decided to go rogue on this whole mission (not recommended). I mean I used to shoot stuff into my arm that some stranger would hand me through the window of their 87 Honda Accord so why be uber careful now? This l-methylfolate supplement didn’t require a prescription anymore anyway. What did I have to lose? I did however run it by my sponsor whose response was: “I’m no doctor, honey, but it sounds benign. Go ahead.”

I ordered a bottle. A few days later I heard the UPS guy drop the packet into my mail slot. I got out of bed, tore open the envelope and popped one of these bad boys. A few hours later I started to feel that dark cloud lift a little. Gotta be a placebo effect, right? The next day I felt even better. And the next day better still. I didn’t feel high or manic. I just felt “normal.” Whoa. It’s been weeks now and the change has been noticeable to friends and family.

Normal. That’s all I ever really wanted to feel. And the first time I felt normal was when I tried methamphetamine at 24. It did what I wanted all those anti-depressants to do. It made me feel like I knew other people felt: not starting every day already 20 feet underwater. I found out later that my mother and uncle were also addicted to amphetamines which further corroborates my belief that there is some genetic anomaly in my inherited reward system.

When I emailed Dr. Wetsman to tell him how miraculously better I felt, his first response was “Great. I’m glad. The key thing is to take the energy and put it into recovery. People go two ways when they feel amazingly better. One: ‘Oh, this is all I ever needed. I can stop all this recovery stuff.’ Or two: ‘Wow, I feel better. Who can I help?’ Helping others in recovery will actually increase your dopamine receptors and make this last. Not helping people will lead to shame, lowered dopamine receptors and it stops being so great.”

So no, I’m not going to stop going to meetings or doing my steps or working with my sponsor and sponsees. Being part of a group, feeling included and accepted, even those things can create more dopamine receptors. But sadly I’m still an addict at heart and I want all the dopamine and dopamine receptors I can get. However, I also know that enough dopamine alone isn’t going to keep me from being a selfish asshole…. But maybe, just maybe, having sufficient dopamine tone and working a program will.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 September 2018
5 Useful Practices for Mindful Social Media Use

5 Useful Practices for Mindful Social Media Use

2018 marks the very first Scroll Free September campaign which encourages participants to take a digital detox or hiatus from all personal social media accounts during the 30-day calendar month. In light of increasing research around how social media overuse can impact our well-being and especially that of our children, the campaign aims to promote better balance with our social media feeds, or rather, the amount of time we spend scrolling through them. If you’re fed up of being caught in a constant cycle of scrolling, we encourage you to adopt these practices for mindful social media use and challenge you to sustain them long after Scroll Free September is over.

1. Allow Yourself To Be Bored

We often get trapped in the social media scroll-cycle when we’re bored, waiting for something, or even trying to deflect awkwardness. If grabbing your phone in these situations is the first thing you do, practice being present instead. Take in your surroundings, people watch and put your phone away. Breaking the link between free moments and unconscious social scrolling will make you mindful about just how much you rely on your phone in everyday situations.

2. Use Social Media with Intention

That’s obvious, right? As we mentioned above, a lot of our social media scrolling and feed checking is a subconscious action. So, try to make yourself aware when you are reaching for your phone to check social media and you’re not reacting to a notification. Ask yourself, what are my intentions? What do I want to find out? Unless you have a clear answer to these questions, avoid opening your social apps.

3. Set Scroll Free Special Occasions

While most of us enjoy a good selfie at a party or when celebrating something special, try to keep your phone in your bag or pocket when with company. Give your friends or loved ones your full attention and it will feel more intentional when you do reach for your phone. Struggling to keep your phone away? You could even try phone-stacking. This mindful practice includes you and all of your friends putting your phones in the middle of the table and agreeing that the person who picks up theirs first has to get the next round. We’d say it will keep not scrolling at the forefront of your mind!

4. Be Non-Judgemental To Yourself and Others

Social media has created a comparison culture. In fact, according to a survey by disability charity Scope, half of 18 to 34 year olds say that social media makes them feel inadequate. Becoming more mindful around your social media use is about recognising when scrolling is making you feel negatively about yourself. But it’s not only this, it’s about trying to actively be non-judgemental to others posting online. After all, the only person who will feel negative about these negative thoughts towards others is yourself.

5. Clean Up and Curate Your Feed

Make your feeds less distracting by filtering out clickbait accounts you may follow and old acquaintances who overshare. Curate your feed into people you care about and accounts that inspire you. This will ensure that time you do spend on social media is more rewarding, rather than a continuous search for that interesting or meaningful update.

Try these mindful social media practices to make the most out of your feeds, whether that’s by finding inspiration or staying connected with friends. Let’s put a stop to mindless scrolling and wasted time online!

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

9 September 2018