Answer Addiction

Tag: addiction and recovery

  • Michigan Man In Recovery To Walk 280 Miles For A Good Cause

    Michigan Man In Recovery To Walk 280 Miles For A Good Cause

    Mike Hamp wants to show people that they don’t need to rely on substances in order to live a full life. 

    A Michigan man plans to walk 280 miles this August as a way of bringing attention to mental health and substance use disorder. 

    Fox 17 reports that Mike Hamp, the founder of nonprofit Values Not Feelings Organization, is dubbing the journey “A Walk For Thought” and plans to walk roughly 25 miles daily. He will begin in his hometown, Hastings, Michigan, and finish in St. Ignace, Michigan. 

    Hamp has personal experience with substance use disorder, as he struggled with it in high school after numerous surgeries on his shoulder. 

    “Addiction for me started back in high school, I was 16 years old when I had four shoulder surgeries and got hooked on opioids,” Hamp said, according to Wood TV 8. “It wasn’t easy you know, overdoses, almost losing my life and losing marriages and my kids. I realized what I was doing was probably going to take my life.” 

    Hamp says that over the next 16 years, dialing in on nutrition and exercise helped him overcome his struggles. And when an injury kept him from being able to go to the gym, he turned to walking. 

    “The funk, the darkness, the depression, it hit like tenfold and got so intense that I really didn’t know what to really do,” he said, according to Fox 17. “I just started walking; I had to get outside of the house.”

    “I feel more clear here, I feel like I can think, like it’s not chaos as much when I’m out here doing this,” he added.

    Hamp started his nonprofit in hopes of using his own experiences to show others that it is possible to overcome obstacles. 

    “Treating our bodies with respect mentally and physically plays a crucial role in the overall function of our being,” Hamp writes on his website. “Exercise, proper nutrition, proper life and thinking habits, positive thoughts and positive self talk… This is when we begin to find ‘Our Path.’”

    As he prepares for the walk in August, Hamp says his intention is to show people that they don’t need to rely on substances in order to live a full life. 

    “I’m going to show the people that are really battling that you can really do this without turning to that stuff without literally killing yourself as you’re trying to live,” Hamp said.

    More information on A Walk For Thought, as well as sponsorship opportunities, can be found at www.valuesnotfeelings.org. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artist In Recovery Auctions Work For a Good Cause

    Artist In Recovery Auctions Work For a Good Cause

    The proceeds of the auction will go to the Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition.

    Artist Benjamin Grippo is in recovery and he has found a way to reach out and help others struggling with addiction.

    In West Hartford, Grippo founded Artists Against Overdose, reports Eyewitness News. He seeks out artworks by local artists who are willing to part with their creations and to be sold at an annual auction.

    The proceeds of the auction go to the Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition, which helps people impacted by drug use.

    Specifically, Benjamin Grippo wants to make Narcan available to those who cannot afford it. Narcan (which contains naloxone) is a medication that rapidly reverses opioid overdose. It is an opioid antagonist, which means that it binds to opioid receptors in the brain, reversing and blocking the effects of opioids.

    Naloxone is commonly delivered in a shot or nasal spray which first responders, health workers, and laypeople across the U.S. now carry. Public libraries and YMCAs are also being equipped with naloxone, supplied at no cost by the drug maker.

    “There should be Narcan in every restaurant, there should be Narcan in every school,” Grippo said.

    Benjamin Grippo began using drugs after he was discharged from the army. “I started using more and more regular drugs and more and more a little cocaine, little pain pills here,” Grippo said.

    Grippo’s drug use escalated when a friend offered him heroin, and he accepted. “I quickly transitioned to intravenous using,” Grippo said. “I quickly got up to doing more bags at every time because I couldn’t get high off of it.”

    Now recovering from his addictions, Grippo wants to use the art auction to both raise money and awareness of the depth and scope of the opioid overdose crisis. Artists Against Overdose educates people about the impacts of drug use.

    “This epidemic and this problem is very dark and bleak and a lot of people aren’t living,” Grippo said. “People need to know what’s going [on]. They need to be educated, children need to be educated.”

    The auction is on Saturday, March 30, in Hartford, Connecticut. Some of the featured pieces will be artwork by artists who have overdosed and passed away, and include a range of artistic expressions from photography to graffiti and tattoo art.

    For more information about the event, to donate or to attend, check out www.aaoshow.com.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Jack Black Details What He Learned About Recovery While Filming "Don’t Worry"

    Jack Black Details What He Learned About Recovery While Filming "Don’t Worry"

    “It’s a battle for survival for millions of people around the world, and some of them are battling silently by themselves and no one else knows it.”

    Actor Jack Black said that he gained new perspectives about addiction and recovery filming “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot.”

    The film, which was released last week, tells the story of real-life artist John Callahan, who became famous for his cartoons. Callahan was a heavy drinker who nearly died after a night of partying when he was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

    After the accident he entered treatment for alcoholism and started drawing, eventually gaining a following. 

    Black, who plays a supporting role in the movie, said that being on set and learning what the real Callahan went through renewed his empathy for people in recovery.

    “Whether it’s alcohol or heroin or food or sex or whatever is it, people can get stuck in a hole and it can take all of your energy and powers and spiritual awakenings to get out and survive,” Black said, according to USA Today.  

    He noted that you can’t always tell from the outside who is struggling with substance abuse.

    “It’s a battle for survival for millions of people around the world, and some of them are battling silently by themselves and no one else knows it. They seem to be perfectly fine on the outside,” he said. “And some people are visibly heading down a dark path.” 

    He hopes that people will find hope from the film, which is based on a memoir that Callahan wrote. 

    “This is just one man’s journey on his way back to living a healthy happy life,” Black said. “It’s a cool story and a cool way to experience that in a small way.”

    Black didn’t mention his own substance abuse in relation to the movie, but in the past he has admitted to using cocaine as a teenager growing up in Los Angeles.

    “I remember just lots of turmoil from that time period,” he said in 2015. “I was having a lot of troubles with cocaine … I was hanging out with some pretty rough characters. I was scared to go to school [because] one of them wanted to kill me. I wanted to get out of there.”

    Ultimately, his mother put him in an alternative school that helped him address his cocaine problem.

    “It was a huge release and a huge relief,” he said. “I left feeling euphoric, like an enormous weight had been lifted from me. It changed me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Recovery Boys" Doc Candidly Explores Addiction, Trauma & Rehabilitation

    "Recovery Boys" Doc Candidly Explores Addiction, Trauma & Rehabilitation

    The documentary follows 4 young men who find support and relief through delving deep into their emotions in a rehabilitation setting.

    The documentary Recovery Boys, which is screening on Netflix as well as in select theaters, focuses on four young men seeking recovery from opioid dependency at a rehabilitation facility in West Virginia.

    Directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon, whose Oscar-nominated short Heroin(e) looked at women on the front lines of the opioid epidemic in the Mountain State, Recovery Boys breaks from what The Guardian calls the established narrative about dependency, with poor people locked in a cycle of use and despair in impoverished areas.

    Instead, Sheldon’s camera follows young men who find support and relief through delving deep into their emotions in a rehabilitation setting.

    Recovery Boys unfolds over an 18-month period in the lives of four men in treatment at the Jacob’s Ladder rehabilitation program in West Virginia.

    Each of the individuals struggled with not only opioid addiction but an array of related wreckage in their lives—Ryan, 35, told The Guardian that he went through “overdoses and car wrecks, and I was jailed a couple of times, but I didn’t want to give up.”

    For 26-year-old Rush, his stint at Jacob’s Ladder was his tenth try at rehab. “I know what people want to hear, so it is really easy for me to skate through a program undetected,” he said in the film.

    But through a program of long-term residential treatment focused on holistic therapy like meditation and daily responsibilities of farm work, the men learn to speak plainly and honestly about the pain of their emotional lives and the depths of their dependency. The benefits of such work are touched upon by a patient named Jeff, who said in the film, “Now that you’re not high, you come out and listen to all the birds. When you’re high, you don’t focus on shit like that.”

    Anchoring the film on a message of hope and not despair was crucial for Sheldon, who said in a statement, “I make this film not to victimize, pity or make excuses for individuals, but to uplift the stories of people who are actively trying to make change, no matter how big or small.”

    Her intention resonated with the film’s subjects, whose desire to portray their struggle with equal shades of dark and light has carried forward after the film’s completion. “My hope for this documentary is that it destigmatized the addict,” said Rush. “Everybody thinks of the guy under the bridge with the tattoos, the beard. We’re not just all bad people. We are good people inside.”

    View the original article at thefix.com