Answer Addiction

Tag: Facebook

  • Finding Recovery and Support for Opioid Addiction on Social Media

    Finding Recovery and Support for Opioid Addiction on Social Media

    The rules state: We support everyone’s path to recovery, including Suboxone, Subutex, Methadone, Vivitrol, cannabis and kratom. We do not allow any debate as to whether or not being on maintenance meds means you are or aren’t clean.

    Four years ago, Dorothy had no support for her opioid addiction. As a mother and stepmother, she was afraid to be open about her struggle; if her children’s father or stepchildren’s mother found out, they might question her ability to be a good parent. She thought about attending recovery meetings but was worried they would shun her for being in active addiction or, some years later, for taking Suboxone, a partial opioid agonist, to manage her chronic pain. Luckily, she discovered a private Facebook group that supported people like her with opiate addiction.

    For the sake of full disclosure, I’m also a member of this group. While I enjoy my social media fill of cats dressed in dinosaur costumes, babies getting slices of Kraft singles thrown at their heads, and I love dad jokes just as much as the next person, I value this group the most.

    Addiction Support…on Facebook?

    The group quickly became a refuge for Dorothy and me, a digital safe haven where we could share our pains and joys behind the privacy of a screen.

    “I have made friends that I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life. I feel supported and secure here. What I love the most is how diverse we are. We run the gamut from people who are using to people who are totally abstinent and everything in between… All we ask is that people respect each other and everyone’s path to recovery,” Dorothy said.

    After participating in another group where members were shamed for taking Suboxone or methadone to manage their opioid addiction, I found Dorothy and the group’s perspective on harm reduction refreshing. In order to join the group, members must agree that they will not bash medication-assisted treatment (MAT). According to the official group guideline: “We support everyone’s path to recovery, including Suboxone, Subutex, Methadone, Vivitrol, cannabis and kratom. We do not allow any debate as to whether or not being on maintenance meds means you are or aren’t clean.”

    Another administrator added, “If you hate the fact there are active addicts in this group, if you don’t support MAT or [you] want to be a douche canoe to everyone you meet who doesn’t live up to your standards, LEAVE.”

    After nine months of participating in this group, Dorothy became a volunteer staff member, then administrator. On an average day, she spends six hours involved in the various tasks that keep the group running. Dorothy, along with eight other administrators and nine moderators, approves each post before it hits the page, ensuring that the posts follow group guidelines. The guidelines mirror that of an in-person support group: members must maintain each other’s confidentiality and privacy, be respectful, and refrain from giving medical advice, selling or seeking drugs, asking for money, or posting links to treatment centers.

    Sarah Burbank has also been a volunteer group administrator for four years and spends four to eight hours on the group each day. Sarah considers the members of the group to be family. “The group is a touchstone and an inspiration. I have watched some group members pass away and have to announce to the group a loved one or cherished member has passed away from the disease. Those are the darkest of days. But there are little milestones that we share that make it so special. Day 1! 30 days! Years clean! Getting children back and jobs and lives back. Those are the truly beautiful things that keep me here.”

    Dorothy and Sarah are not alone. This particular Facebook group has blossomed to 22,000 members. Members are hungry to share their stories, to be supported, validated, and encouraged. Posts reveal a complex tapestry of emotions: of recovery, struggle, pain, joy, heartbreak, victory and defeat, often all in a single post.

    Using Social Media to Forge Connections in Marginalized Groups

    It may seem contradictory to turn to social media for support for addiction. According to a 2018 Fix article based on research from Penn State, social media use is correlated with increased rates of depression and loneliness. Similarly, in 2011, Researchers Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths systematically reviewed psychological literature and found that social media can be used for connection, but also that it may negatively impact relationships, work, and academic achievement. This and other evidence suggest social media can be an addiction just like alcohol and drugs.

    While it’s important to acknowledge this research and the potential negative impacts of social media, this critique fails to recognize the power of online social networks, especially for marginalized people. Toronto-based mental health professional Krystal Kavita Jagoo says, “For some, authentic human connection may only come online. Sometimes you don’t have those options in person.” Jagoo pointed out that social media or internet forums can feel safer for people of color, queer, trans, and non-binary folks, and people of differing abilities.

    Jagoo continued, “If you’ve had a traumatic experience and are able to hear from others about things someone has struggled with, you don’t feel as alone. Sometimes it’s just knowing that others understand what you’re going through; they can offer strategies or things that have worked for them that you might be more inclined [to try] than a professional who doesn’t have lived experience.”

    Jagoo herself has found valuable support online. “I think of how healing it has been to connect with folks of color around the world with respect to surviving oppression.” In order to maintain balance in our lives and avoid social media burnout, Jagoo recommends finding a group that is anti-oppressive, accepting, and feels rewarding. Setting and maintaining boundaries is important, as is making sure that you only check notifications when you have time and energy to engage, and unfollowing or leaving groups if they are feeling more draining than helpful.

    Both Dorothy and Sarah mentioned that it is difficult to be a group administrator while balancing their work and home lives. But by far, they feel the benefits outweigh the challenges of spending hours volunteering in the group. “The online community is really important because it allows people to connect in the safety of their own homes, anonymously if they choose. It gives us the ability to reach so many more people, people that we wouldn’t have otherwise had any contact with.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Do Problematic Facebook Users Make More Impulsive Decisions?

    Do Problematic Facebook Users Make More Impulsive Decisions?

    A small-scale study examined the impulsivity of problematic Facebook users.

    Impulsive decision-making may be added to the list of negative effects of too much Facebook use, according to new research.

    The study, published in Addiction Research and Theory, was done at a Midwestern university and consisted of surveying 75 students. In doing so, researchers discovered that students who scored higher on the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale had a higher probability of exhibiting “delay discounting.”

    According to PsyPost, delay discounting is when a person is more inclined to take a smaller reward that they can have immediately, rather than waiting for a larger reward. For the study specifically, students were asked whether they wanted $70 immediately or $200 in two weeks. 

    According to the research, many of the students who said they would choose the $70 were also the students who reported utilizing Facebook to forget about personal issues, who tried to decrease Facebook use without success and used the social media platform so much that it impacted their jobs and studies in a negative way. 

    “Steep delay discounting, or a preference for smaller immediate rewards instead of investing in a larger payout in the future, has been an observed behavior across addictions,” researchers wrote. “This finding thus strengthens the proposition that [Facebook addiction] may share neurocognitive processes similar to other addictions.”

    Licensed psychologist Tyler Fortman told Guy Counseling that for those in the field such as himself, the results of this study were expected. “I’m not surprised to see the results of this study. We’ve known for some time now that frequent social media usage has a negative impact on delayed gratification,” he said. 

    In their conclusion, the researchers acknowledge that in the future, such a study would benefit from having more participants from more diverse backgrounds. 

    “More advanced and better powered research on this topic is warranted,” researchers wrote. “Although Facebook can be innocuous for many users, and even provides apparent benefit to users by maintaining social connections, for some persons, Facebook use may be problematic.”

    This research supports a prior study’s findings that measured impulsivity with a “go/no-go” task and found that Facebook addiction aligned with impulsive decision making.

    “The findings indicated that at least at the examined levels of addiction-like symptoms, technology-related ‘addictions’ share some neural features with substance and gambling addictions, but more importantly they also differ from such addictions in their brain etiology and possibly pathogenesis, as related to abnormal functioning of the inhibitory-control brain system,” that study’s researchers wrote. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Video: Activist Pours Fentanyl On Hands To Dispel Exposure Myth

    Chad Sabora performed the experiment to reassure first responders that may be reluctant to perform CPR in the early moments of an overdose.

    Harm reduction experts are pushing back on what they believe is a dangerous myth circulating among emergency responders and the general public.

    Illicit fentanyl and its analogues are increasingly contaminating batches of heroin sold on the street, and contributing to skyrocketing overdose rates. Thanks to naloxone, people experiencing an opioid-related overdose have a fighting chance—if first responders get to them in time.

    There is a growing belief, however, that risk of exposure to these powerful synthetic opioids is so high that mere contact with an overdose victim’s sweat—or even inhaling a small amount of powder—is enough for a potentially fatal amount of the drug to get into the bloodstream.

    If true, first responders fearing exposure might be reluctant to perform CPR during the critical early moments of an overdose, so Chad Sabora, Executive Director of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Advocacy (Mo Networks), decided to perform an experiment to reassure them.

    Sabora, in a video he posted on Facebook, took a bag of street heroin that he confirmed through a strip test contained acetyl fentanyl and carfentanil, poured the powder in his hand and waited.

    Moments later, the naloxone standing nearby stayed in its box, unused, and Sabora appeared to be exhibiting no signs of an overdose.

    “[This is] the same dope that has caused ‘overdoses’ in first responders,” Sabora told The Fix. He obtained the tainted batch from one of the participants of Mo Network’s syringe exchange and naloxone distribution programs, known as a “second-tier exchange,” where an active heroin user brings sterile needles and overdose reversal kits to hand out on the street.

    Sabora is the first person to attempt to deliberately overdose in order to show that the risk to first responders may be an overblown and even dangerous myth. As a former prosecutor and someone in long term recovery himself, Sabora brings a unique perspective to his work in advocacy.

    “This belief is validating people that don’t want to rescue users. I used to be in law enforcement, I know it’s a very difficult job, but we have to bring balance through education and awareness while still respecting the job they’re doing,” he said.

    Last spring, journalist and The Fix contributor Zachary Siegel, dedicated the entire first episode of Narcotica, a podcast he co-hosts, to dispelling the myth that fentanyl or its analogues can cause an overdose through skin absorption.

    “I spent weeks researching this phenomenon for [the episode]. Every toxicologist, pharmacist, physician, and researcher I spoke with said hands down, illicit powdered fentanyl is not skin-soluble,” Siegel tweeted.

    A lethal dose for fentanyl in humans is around 3 milligrams, so appropriate precautions are certainly recommended for anyone who may come in contact with the drug.

    But in a position statement published in the journal Clinical Toxicology by the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, the task force authors concluded that for inhalation exposure risk, “At the highest airborne concentration… an unprotected individual would require nearly 200 minutes of exposure to reach a dose of 100 mcg of fentanyl.”

    And for dermal exposure risk, “it is very unlikely that small, unintentional skin exposures to… [fentanyl] powder would cause significant opioid toxicity…”

    Sabora hopes the video will make an impact, but he admits, “there’s not much more I can do, but between myself, writers like [Siegel], and a lot of others out there, we’ll keep doing our best to hammer the truth home.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Facebook Helped Me Overcome My Anxiety

    How Facebook Helped Me Overcome My Anxiety

    More than the actual anxiety was the anxiety about the anxiety. I felt tremendous shame for having negative feelings at all.

    It was 3pm on a Tuesday, and I was sitting at my desk with my head on my keyboard; I was too revved up to sit still, much less concentrate on work. I was in the midst of a resurgence of my lifelong anxiety and couldn’t talk to anyone or even focus on anything. Months later, I would finally be diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

    The diagnosis was a relief. It made sense of overwhelming feelings I’d had my whole life that had mostly been regarded as a character flaw. I grew up in an alcoholic home, and I’d been going to therapy for years to face the trauma of my childhood. For the first time I was feeling my emotions instead of mashing them down, and expressing anger before it turned into resentment. My anxiety had decreased throughout this process, but then I decided to get married. My fiance did nothing wrong, mind you, but somehow the thought of marriage made me feel trapped and put me mentally back in my childhood home. I grew incredibly anxious — and yet completely unaware of it.

    I’d had trouble sleeping for months but I wasn’t upset or stressed about anything — at least not anything conscious. My stomach felt like it’d been glued shut. I couldn’t eat. Soon enough my weight starting dropping enough for other people to comment on it. Compliments at first that slowly morphed into expressions of concern. I felt nervous all the time and I was hyper-vigilant, no matter who I encountered or where I was. If I was in a car, I’d flinch at the sight of another vehicle pulling out of a parking space as though it was about to hit me — even if it was well outside my physical range. I was sleeping two hours a night and not even feeling tired the next day. Sitting still felt like torture, and I was constantly second guessing myself as if I couldn’t trust my perceptions. I’d had episodes like this off and on for most of my life but I’d always pushed it down. But now, after a lot of therapy and ACOA recovery work, when the anxiety attacks returned, I had to acknowledge them. My overwhelming anxiety was there and I couldn’t hide it no matter how badly I wanted to.

    But that was the problem: I really really wanted to.

    More than the actual anxiety was the anxiety about the anxiety. I felt tremendous shame for having negative feelings at all. (All you ACOAs out there know what I’m talking about, right?) Growing up in my house, negative feelings had been treated like a disease that had to be banished. This didn’t just come from family but from the entire culture where I was raised. I explained to my therapist that even as an adult I felt like a streak of tar ran through me that marked me as broken, and I lived in constant fear of people seeing it. So when my anxiety revisited me, I tried to hide it, but piling that shame on top of it only made it worse. I wanted simultaneously to jump out of my own skin and hide inside my house forever.

    Then I remembered what Brene Brown said in her book on shame: that silence fed shame while a sense of common humanity combatted it. That meant talking about what I was feeling. Reaching out to tell someone was a major part of fighting shame because it made you feel less alone. Then it occurred to me: what if I just preempted this terror of someone discovering my anxious state and just told them? If I owned how I felt in advance, perhaps I’d feel less shame because I wouldn’t be so desperate to hide it. Problem was, any time I tried to talk about it in person, I completely fell to bits and I didn’t exactly want to put myself through that over and over again.

    So instead I opted to put it on Facebook.

    Of course, Facebook is the capital of oversharing and I normally kept my digital shouting box strictly to jokes. But I just didn’t see a better way to inform people of what I was going through or that my behavior might be different than my usual. In fairness to Brene Brown, she clarifies that reaching out to others in order to combat shame needs to be aimed at people who are receptive to hearing your pain. She definitely doesn’t suggest blasting it all over your social media. But that’s what I did.

    I wrote a long explanation of my mental state asking for compassion rather than advice and hit “post” before I could change my mind. Now, I should be clear that I didn’t exactly blast this to everyone I knew on Facebook. I used customized security settings so only those in the same city as me and my oldest, closest friends could see it, and I blocked my whole family as well as loose acquaintances. I hit post and immediately shut my laptop, vowing not to log into Facebook for at least a couple hours. I’d purposely planned my post to coincide with a concert I was attending because I knew it would prevent me from checking my phone constantly. I figured if anyone was judgemental or shaming, the bite might sting less if several hours had gone by — or possibly I wouldn’t even notice it in a flood of other tiny red notifications.

    When I finally gathered the courage to open Facebook again, I had a torrent of messages and notifications. Most of them carried the same sentiment: I have anxiety, too. While I’d certainly blasted my personal world with my emotional state hoping to get some level empathy, I didn’t anticipate which corners of my social circles would be delivering it. Close friends of mine, people I used to share every secret with, messaged to tell me they’d recently gone through something similar and not talked about it. Acquaintances wrote with ideas and (indeed) some advice. Much of the advice wasn’t especially helpful, but knowing that I wasn’t alone made a world of difference. For months afterward, casual acquaintances told me that sharing my experience actually helped them feel less alone, which I hadn’t even thought about.

    I can’t pretend like simply talking about my anxiety made it go away or even lessen much. It still took another year of focus, self care, and work before I truly felt like myself again. Sharing my anxiety online allowed me to deal with it without shame and without feeling like I was broken. In other words, it meant one less roadblock to contend with, and — given my emotional state at the time — I might not have made it through the anxiety without it.

    View the original article at thefix.com