Answer Addiction

Tag: Features

  • How I Found My Mother Through Forgiveness

    How I Found My Mother Through Forgiveness

    I realized that in order to change my family’s lineage I would not only have to forgive everyone who ever hurt me, I would have to learn to forgive myself.

    It was early morning when the security guard at the cemetery came and used the weight of his shoulder to open the heavy gate. I drove in, making my way through a long tunnel of magnolias. The sun threw pillars of light through the canopy of trees while a gust of wind sent brown leaves spiraling along the roadside. Headstones and crypts were spread out like pop-tarts in rows across the lush green lawns. At the end of the road I turned left, driving all the way to the chain link fence where I parked my car.

    After I turned off the ignition, I took a deep breath. I got out and walked with my flip-flops snapping against the bottoms of my soles. When I got to the curb I counted five graves in and froze when I saw my mother’s name etched in a stone: Nancy Adamson, 1922 to 1960.

    Why is it, when you say “I will never be like my parents,” it’s almost like you’re giving the universe the exact coordinates for where you need to land?

    My mother was schizophrenic. At 38, she had a psychotic break, cut her wrists, and pulled a large shipping trunk over her in the bathtub where she drowned. I was only seven at the time.

    But, as if the universe had conspired against me, I was 38 and the mother of two young boys, 16 and 9, when I had my own drug-induced psychotic break. I shot my husband’s mistress in the arm and landed in jail on assault charges.

    I recently attended a conference on trauma and addiction where a renowned clinical psychiatrist said, “As children, our relationships with our parents are unconsciously imprinted on our psyche.” So yes, we are destined to repeat the same mistakes unless, and I’m paraphrasing here, we wake the fuck up.

    The process of waking up for me has been one eyelash at a time. It started 25 years ago when I was released from jail and went to live at a shelter for women and children. Up until then I had been extremely self-sufficient, but as I found myself leveled by the circumstances in my life, I started to ask for help. I was extremely fortunate to fall into a group of people who were kind to me when I needed it the most.

    The image of my mother drowning under a trunk stuffed with photographs of her children haunted me for years. I couldn’t even tell people what she had done, let alone write it down for the world to see as I’m doing now. I was deeply ashamed that she had chosen to leave this world and me behind. By the time I was a teenager I was filled with rage and as I turned to alcohol and drugs for relief, I turned that rage loose on myself.

    I blamed everybody for what was wrong with my life and became extremely fluent in Victimese. It was my mother’s fault, my father’s fault, and later it would be my husband’s fault. What I didn’t realize was this belief system that I had adopted was giving me the exact excuse I needed to use drugs and alcohol with abandon. All of my so-called justified resentments were the very things that were drowning me. And if I wanted to stay sober I would have to drop the rocks and swim to the surface.

    After a lot of therapy and self-reflection, I wrote down a list of the resentments I had toward all the people who I believed had harmed me. As I unspooled the jumbled thoughts from my mind onto paper, a clear pattern emerged: While I had been busy blaming everybody else, I had also been giving away my own power. I knew, instinctively, I would have to change that.

    And that’s how I found myself standing in front of my mother’s grave 45 years after she died.

    A lump formed in the back of my throat as I reached for the letter. I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching me before reading it out loud:

    Dearest Mom,

    It’s taken me a while to get here because I’ve been so angry that you left me like you did. I was resentful and those resentments defined my life, they defined who I became.

    I missed having a mother and I was profoundly sad but no one talked about you after you were gone.

    I wish you could have been there in my teenage years. I could have used some maternal guidance because dad clearly didn’t have a clue.

    I wish you could have been there at my wedding day. I wish you could have been there when I was pregnant and when I gave birth to my two boys. I wish you could have watched them grow up into the men they are today. You would be so proud of them. I certainly am.

    Every single thing in my life, large and small has echoed with the absence of not having you by my side. But I want you know Mom, I’m okay now. I want you know that I’ve finally learned how to move on with my life.

    Getting sober was the hardest, yet, the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to reconcile things I was holding on to, including my relationship with you. It seems if I wanted to be free I had to let you off the hook. And so, Mom, I’ve come here to say I’m not angry at you anymore and want you to know, I love you very, very much.

    Your Daughter Forever…

    A soft rush or air escaped my lips. I stuffed the letter in my jean pocket and turned to leave. I wasn’t struck by a lightning bolt, there was no burning bush or chariot in the sky, but I did realize that in order to change my family’s lineage I would not only have to forgive everyone who ever hurt me, I would have to learn to forgive myself.

    It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy. It took willingness combined with herculean effort, but over time, as I became more and more present for my boys, showing up for them through all their failures and successes, I eventually found the mother I had always wanted.

    She was inside of me.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • When Getting Sober Reveals an Underlying Illness

    When Getting Sober Reveals an Underlying Illness

    People who have had multiple traumatic events (adverse childhood experiences) in their youth are more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses, alcohol use disorder, and more in adulthood.

    Getting sober is often considered the ultimate solution to our problems. In many ways, it is: we stop the behaviors that led to the self-destruction to our bodies, our relationships, and how we live our lives. We wake up without feeling hungover or in withdrawal from drugs we’d taken the night before. By dealing with the issues that led to using, we begin to experience healing and generally feel better.

    But for some of us, that isn’t enough. Physically, we can actually feel worse after we stop using or drinking. We may discover that drugs and alcohol were masking the symptoms of a serious and deeply rooted illness.

    Discovering My Autoimmune Condition

    When you get sober, it usually isn’t all pink fluffy clouds and going about your day with a spring in your step. For me, in addition to the struggles of early sobriety, I’ve had to deal with something much greater: I’ve spent the last seven years with chronic fatigue so bad that many mornings I struggle to get out of bed — sometimes every day for three months at a time — and, at times, I have so much pain in my body that it hurts to even move my toes.

    I have an autoimmune disease — a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. Some of the more commonly known autoimmune conditions include Type 1 diabetes, lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, and Crohn’s disease.

    And I, along with many others in recovery, suffer with a chronic and sometimes life-threatening condition that has a strong link to our childhoods.

    For years my autoimmune condition went undetected. I was told that its recurrence each year — with symptoms including chronic fatigue, aches and pains, low energy, lack of motivation to do anything apart from sleep and lie on the sofa — was simply an episode of depression. My doctor would sign me off work for a month. Doctors ordered rest and gave me a prescription for increasing doses of antidepressants. Invariably, after a month off, I’d get better. I had no reason to question the doctor’s advice because I was improving with their prescribed course of action.

    Then I moved to a new country.

    Moving to America caused a profound amount of stress both mentally and physically. I had to start my life over in an unfamiliar place. I launched a new business as a full-time writer and consultant, built a new life, and developed a new community of support. I didn’t have the luxury of paid leave or intensive medical care.

    Around this time, my fatigue became chronic for much longer periods than before. I’d get up at 8 a.m. and have to take a nap by 11. It was very challenging to function. I also started to suffer with chronic pain throughout my body, shooting nerve pain and numbness in my arms and legs, loss of strength, reduced thyroid function, degeneration of my teeth, weight gain, intestinal and digestive issues, chronic headaches, inability to focus, unexplained rashes and bruises, and abnormal blood work. I felt as stiff as a 90-year-old, not a 39-year-old.

    I had a dilemma: I could only work for short periods of time, but I wasn’t able to stop working because I had to support myself.

    For the last two years I’ve tried to determine exactly what’s been going on in my body. After many doctor visits, I was finally taken seriously enough to be referred to specialists for suspected multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus. None of these conditions have a great prognosis, particularly MS, but it was a relief to finally be taken seriously after a lifetime of being dismissed, told I’m a hypochondriac, or diagnosed with depression. Only the coming months will tell exactly what I have and how to move forward.

    Being the curious person I am, I wasn’t able to just accept the fact that I had an autoimmune condition. I had to understand why I had it. Through nearly two years of therapy and by doing intensive research, I now understand the strong psychological link between my childhood and my sickness.

    The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Adult Illness

    Autoimmune conditions are more prevalent than you might think. They affect 23.5 million Americans, nearly 80 percent women. But why? And why do so many of us in recovery discover when we stop using that we have unexplained physical sickness?

    Simply, and more often than not, the answer is to be found in our childhoods. Gabor Maté, in his book When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Condition, talks extensively about the role of our childhoods on our ability to deal with stress, emotion, and sickness in later life. He believes it is crucial that we are taught these coping strategies and that we receive sufficient support in our upbringing.

    “Emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past,” Maté writes.

    He goes on to say, “What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health.”

    I had a very stressful childhood growing up in a household with substance misuse. I relocated to the UK at just three years old and started a new life in a single-parent family. I didn’t have the emotional support and attention that I needed, I suffered terribly from my father’s abandonment, and consequently I developed maladaptive coping strategies: eating disorders, smoking, and addiction.

    My story is no different from those of millions of others in recovery. The vast majority have had adverse childhood experiences.

    See a larger version of this image here.

    The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

    One reason we get chronic illnesses is from the effects of stress on our bodies, and adverse childhood experiences create a lot of stress. These experiences include physical and or emotional neglect, parents’ substance use and mental illness, loss, abandonment, divorce, humiliation, and other types of abuse. Doctors Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda performed a large-scale study on these types of traumas, known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study.

    Their results were profound. Felitti and Anda were able to predict the effects of ACEs on long-term health:

    • 64 percent of the population have at least one ACE
    • 12 percent have a score of four ACEs or more
    • Those who experienced ACEs are at a higher risk of autoimmune conditions
    • Having a score of four or higher:
      • doubles the chance of heart disease
      • doubles the chance of becoming a smoker
      • increases by seven times the likelihood of to developing alcohol use disorder
      • increases the risk of suicide by 1,200 percent
      • increases the risk of depression by 460 percent
      • doubles the chance of being diagnosed with cancer
    • For each ACE experienced by a woman, the risk of being hospitalized with an autoimmune condition rises 20 percent
    • A male with a score of 6 or more has a 46-fold (4,600 percent) increase in the likelihood of becoming an intravenous drug user

    Source: The Origins of Addiction: Evidence from the ACE Study, Vincent Felitti, MD, 2004

    Felitti concluded that adults were — largely unconsciously — using psychoactive drugs to gain relief from childhood traumas. However, he says, “Because it is difficult to get enough of something that doesn’t quite work, the attempt is ultimately unsuccessful, apart from its risks.” He continues, “The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences and their long-term effects are clearly a major determinant of the health and social well-being of the nation.”

    In my own experience, and the experience of many in recovery, once we remove the drugs, we remove the anesthesia from our adverse childhood experiences. So many of us reach for other addictive substances to cope: relationships, food, smoking, excessive exercising. The reality is that nothing really works. The pain only gets worse, and this is frequently when we discover we have autoimmune conditions.

    So what is the answer? Felitti says, regarding our traumatic childhoods: “Taking them on will create an ordeal of change, but will also provide for many the opportunity to have a better life.” For me, that means taking good care of my physical and mental well-being: trauma-focused psychotherapy, regular exercise, sufficient sleep, outdoor activities, community, alternative medicine, and referrals to specialists who can help treat the symptoms I am experiencing.

    The longer that I am in recovery, the more I realize we have more to recover from, and our childhoods are at the very heart of that pain.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 100 Million Texts from People in Crisis: What Have We Learned?

    100 Million Texts from People in Crisis: What Have We Learned?

    On Election Night 2016, Crisis Text Line received four times their average volume. The biggest surge came from people concerned about issues including LGBTQ+, sexual assault, and immigration.

    Crisis Text Line, which is like the Suicide Hotline but with texting, recently processed its 100 millionth text. All the data they’ve recorded from the texting sessions since launching in 2013 has now been compiled into what they’re calling the biggest mental health data set ever collected. There are different ways of accessing the data including a visualization tool that allows users to see which issues are the biggest in which state (plus Puerto Rico), which issues co-occur with others, and when they occur (day of week and time of day). Plus, they made word clouds for each key issue such as anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harm, and paired them with example texts.

    I’m so nervous it’s making me nauseous

    The Crisis Text Line is a free 24-hour texting service powered by volunteers who are trained to help texters process and get through any personal psychological crisis. It’s about much more than suicide; people are encouraged to text when they feel at a loss about their relationships, school problems, substance use, LGBTQ+ issues, or “health concerns.” To access the service, you just send a text to 741741 from anywhere in the U.S.A.

    It’s no secret that younger generations prefer texting to talking on the phone. Sending a text, as opposed to making a call and actually speaking to someone, can take a lot of pressure off of someone who is already upset, so it’s not surprising that Crisis Text Line has grown so rapidly, especially among young people who make up the majority of the texters (75 percent are under age 25). In addition to providing a much-needed service, the company is dedicated to collecting and reporting data from the texts in order to help communities across the country better understand mental health and hopefully aid in the prevention of future crises and suicides.

    The Data

    There’s a lot of data to pore through with the Crisis Trends tool alone, but there are some key trends that stand out. The most common issue people contact the Crisis Text Line about is depression/sadness, followed by relationships. The number one state for depression is Montana. Looking at the timeline, you can see that depression/sadness calls weren’t always the most common, but there was a big jump in December 2017. It was certainly a volatile month, but it’s unclear why this trend has continued — depression calls peaked at over 35 percent in February 2019.

    I’ve got recurring feelings of worthlessness, despair, and overwhelming sense of I can’t stop was [sic] going on in my head… Why can’t I be happy?!

    For most issues, texters are more likely to contact the line at night. Which day of the week people reach out depends on the issue. Not surprisingly, depression calls dip on Friday and Saturday, increase on Sunday, and peak on Monday.

    Substance use-related texts most often come from North Dakota. States like New York and California, where you might expect more drug use due to having large metropolitan areas, are low on the list. However, this type of text is also one of the least common to Crisis Text Line, hovering between 1.5 and 2 percent.

    Ashley Womble, Head of Communications at Crisis Text Line, was able to offer more insight into drug use-related texts:

    • People are more likely to text about substance use between 4-10 a.m. than texters with other issues.
    • Mondays are the most common days for conversations about substance misuse.
    • We see an increase in texters about substance misuse during the summer, from June to September.
    • For all ages, the most common additional issues mentioned in conversations about substance abuse are, in order: Depression/sadness, relationships, suicide, anxiety/stress, and isolation/loneliness.
    • For texters 24 and under, the most common issues mentioned in conversations about substance abuse are, in order: Depression/sadness, suicide, relationships, anxiety/stress, and school.
    • Within the last seven days, Xanax and Ativan are on our trending topics list, meaning that many more people are using that word in texts than on average.

    The word clouds provide some interesting insights as well. One of the most commonly used words across the board is “people,” which makes sense since the most common topic that comes up in addition to any of the main conversation topics is “relationships.” Some words you would expect to come up in substance use-related conversations are in there, such as “drugs” and “need” and “take” and “hard.” The word “cut” is also present, suggesting possible overlap between substance abuse and self-harm, though “cut” could also refer to cutting the dose of a drug or mixing in other ingredients.

    I feel like going to buy them…just need anyone to talk to.

    “Mom” is also a very common word across the word clouds, but not “dad.”

    Crisis Text Line also published their own list of “100 Things We Learned From Our First 100M Messages,” which is full of fascinating tidbits. The season with the most texts about suicidal ideation? Surprisingly, spring. Others are a bit more expected, such as the fact that texters over 65 are the most likely group to contact the line about bereavement.

    What Have We Learned?

    Looking at the data brings up more questions than answers. Why is bullying such a big problem in the Dakotas? Why is Hawaii at the top of the list for every type of abuse? Why is there so much self-harm in the northern states and not in the southern?

    It’s important to keep in mind that the data only keeps track of how many people are contacting Crisis Text Line about each issue, not necessarily how many people are actually experiencing it. Therefore, each bit of data warrants the question: “Is this a big problem in this state, or are people just more willing to reach out for help about the problem here?” Looking at additional statistics from other sources, we can make some educated guesses.

    For example, Crisis Trends shows that they get the most texts about suicide from Montana. In 2016, suicide rates were highest in the country in Montana. We can therefore conclude that an aggressive campaign addressing suicide in this state is a good idea.

    I don’t want to live anymore…

    It’s also understandable that anxiety and stress texts went up across the nation shortly before November 2016 and have stayed up. Looking at data from Election Day, it’s pretty clear what happened there.

    “During the November 2016 election night, we were swamped with 4X our average volume,” says Crisis Text Line. “The biggest surge we saw came from issues including LGBTQ+, sexual assault, and immigration.”

    Turning Information Into Action

    Through its Open Data Collaboration program, Crisis Text Line provided data to researchers at MIT, Purdue University, Yale, Columbia University, and elsewhere. Analyses have been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, PubMed, and the MIT Media Lab.

    After analysis comes action. The great thing about the map function of Crisis Trends is that it shows exactly where specific targeted mental health campaigns should be directed. We need anxiety/stress relief in the Northeast. We need addiction treatment programs all down the Rocky Mountain area, plus Vermont and New Hampshire. Send bullying intervention advocates to the Dakotas and West Virginia. Figure out what’s up with the abuse problem in Hawaii. People are lonely in Florida and Puerto Rico, send them friends.

    Also, while texters access the service from every part of the country, statistics show that a significant number are poor and from rural areas. Nineteen percent of texters are from the ten percent lowest-income zip codes; Fourteen percent are Latinx. And though only 1.6 percent of the U.S. population is Native American, they make up six percent of texters to the crisis line. Mental health resources are usually concentrated in big cities and services are more available to people with money or good insurance. More than anything, we need more and easier access to mental health services in rural and low-income areas and marginalized communities.

    Hopefully, the big number of 100 million texts in six years combined with the visualization of the data will help inspire both individuals and governments to take action. Mental health in the U.S. has been declining, with rates of suicide, addiction, and PTSD reaching new highs. Part of the blame lies in our society continuing to treat mental health conditions as less important than physical health. Having a comfortable way to talk to a trained person is a good start, but it’s up to our leaders to fund the additional resources that we need, and it’s up to the rest of us to motivate them to do so.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • You Are What You Eat: How Chemicals in Food Affect Your Mood

    You Are What You Eat: How Chemicals in Food Affect Your Mood

    Low-nutrient foods, plentiful in the American diet, are made of ingredients which can cause the same effects in the brain as mind-altering substances.

    Lifestyle diseases include diabetes, obesity, stroke, heart disease, smoking, and substance use disorder. According to the CDC, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S.

    Trying to Quit Everything in Sobriety

    When I finally quit rum and cocaine, I wanted to change everything about my lifestyle immediately. With close to no impulse control and without alcohol and drugs to distance me from my feelings, I was a revved up raw nerve of angst. My original plan was to quit smoking, lose ten pounds, and quit picking the wrong guys. Thankfully, when I was newly sober I made a new friend, let’s call her “Anne.”

    “I’m getting fat,” I told Anne two weeks after we met. “I need to go on a strict diet. I can’t let myself put on even more weight now that I’m quitting cigarettes.”

    Anne said, “Crash diets rarely work and smoking is one of the toughest habits to break. The way to get healthy is to tackle one problem at a time. For now, maybe putting down drinking and drugging is enough.”

    Anne gave me that excellent advice decades ago. We’re still friends and it’s been educational watching her change over the years. Unlike me, she preferred living at a thoughtful and slower pace. Many of her great habits like meditation, mindfulness, and exercise rubbed off on me.

    After two years clean, I met a woman who’d had throat cancer. She had a huge scar across her neck and talked like a frog. I ran home that night, threw out my brand-new carton of Newports and quit cigs cold turkey. I began going to the gym. Two years after that big change, I went to Weight Watchers and lost 12 pounds and I’ve kept it off. But I was still in love with sugar and picked up compulsively chewing Bazooka Joe. Anne didn’t like sweets, which I could never understand. She said they made her feel like she’d had too many cups of coffee. She also drank decaf.

    Addicted to Sugar

    I’d been a sugar addict since childhood; I used to sell my lunches to kids on line in the cafeteria and sneak to the corner store for Milky Ways and Snickers. Due to the high cost of dentists, I finally switched to sugar-free gums like Extra and Trident but when an old filling was pulled loose, I was done with gum.

    Everyone knows that sugar isn’t good for you, right? I’d read Sugar Blues as a teen while dating a health nut. And I knew that diet soda wasn’t full of vitamins and nutrients, but I didn’t want to dig too deeply into its ingredients. Anne mentioned it a few times so I’d glanced at articles about aspartame here and there but the truth is, I avoided learning about it because I didn’t want to know. I love soda. I’ve tried to give it up many times without success. Based on Anne’s suggestion, I switched to water but couldn’t keep it going after a few short spurts. The longest I ever went was two weeks — water was boring. I always gleefully ran back to Diet Coke and Diet Cherry Pepsi.

    In 2017, Donald Trump announced “We’re going to be cutting regulations at a level that nobody’s ever seen before.” Since then, I’ve wondered who is approving what and if anyone is checking anything anymore. For all we know, big companies are paying big amounts of money to keep us eating crap. That’s when it first hit me that I should become a more informed consumer; I knew it was stupid to keep ignoring what I was ingesting. But by that time, I was in the habit of making changes slowly and not in the informed way Anne did. I was putting off quitting anything else but it was starting to gnaw at me.

    The Diet Soda Trap

    At a recent work conference, I met a handful of health and wellness experts. While chatting I asked, “How bad is it that I’ve been addicted to diet soda for-like-ever?” Talking stopped, heads whirled toward me, jaws fell slack and I felt like an idiot.

    “It’s full of toxic chemicals,” one said, finally breaking the silence.

    “Aspartame is the worst,” said another.

    A third woman chimed in with sarcasm. “It’s great if you love mood swings and gaining weight.”

    That evening I googled articles about aspartame and additional sugar substitutes. The more I read, the more it reminded me of the immutable hold that cocaine had had on me. When I was in rehab I’d learned that my addiction had nothing to do with me being a “bad” person or having weak, wimpy willpower and everything to do with brain pathways and ingrained habits. By the time I left treatment, I had a newfound understanding that no matter how many times I’d tried to quit snorting sparkly white powder, my brain was as trained as any of Pavlov’s dogs. Through the repetition over many years, my brain had developed deep grooves and these ingrained patterns became triggers for my Pavlovian compulsion to sniff out and snort up rewards.

    So here I am with all this knowledge that any self-destructive habit I want to break is going to take work. It means changing my lifestyle until I build new brain pathways or at least block off the old ones.

    Soon after reading more about aspartame, I received a timely email from Jaya Jaya Myra (née Myra Rodriguez), with a link to her new TEDx talk. I remembered Myra’s strong background in neuroscience, which gave her opinion more weight in my mind. I knew she looked for solutions to her problems by studying her own brain, and that she sometimes found life-changing answers. Myra became a nutritionist, healer, Tedx-talker, and bestselling author of the book Vibrational Healing: Attain Balance & Wholeness. Understand Your Energetic Type, which I’d already read.

    I was impressed by the new talk, so I asked her to meet me for lunch.

    The Connection Between Trauma and Illness

    “I cured myself of debilitating fibromyalgia,” she said as we sat in a diner. “Doctors couldn’t help me. The pain was debilitating and I lost everything—my job, my marriage, the bank foreclosed on my home, I couldn’t take care of myself or my three kids. When I was at my lowest point, I knew I had to figure out how I went from being totally healthy to completely debilitated.”

    She described a long road to self-discovery that included meeting a Native American healer and Eastern medicine practitioners. “In Western medicine,” she said, “they focus on treating the symptoms, but fibromyalgia is a mysterious illness with no known causes or cures. Doctor after doctor treated me like I was an emotional female and it was all in my head.”

    The only way to get better was to pinpoint the source of the problem. She went into therapy, worked hard, and found out she had repressed traumatic childhood memories. Her mother was an alcoholic who couldn’t take care of herself or of her daughter. Myra was neglected and traumatized and had developed self-destructive habits that made things worse.

    I told her about my recent research. “Diet stuff can cause many more problems because of chemical sweeteners,” she said. “Aspartame is used in diet soda, sugar-free gum, yogurts, and so much more. It’s one of the worst sugar substitutes because it tricks your brain into thinking, ‘Ooh, sweet taste. I’m going to get a reward. But diet sodas don’t do that, they inhibit good hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin. So you’re not satiated and it makes you crave more. It actually increases your appetite and wreaks havoc with your moods—depression, anxiety.”

    Next I reached out to Emily Boller, author of Starved to Obesity, a self-help book about her journey out of food addiction. “Modern-day foods are completely abnormal,” she said. “They promote disease. I never chose depression. I didn’t want an addiction to food.”

    Like Myra, Boller believes that eating disorders are symptoms of underlying conditions “like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.” And, like Myra, Boller had experienced her own trauma. “My son Daniel died by suicide in 2012, in part it was due to his addiction to artificial and processed foods. He had type 1 Diabetes.”

    If Daniel’s blood sugar got too high, the avalanche of brain-damaging spikes would create a medical delirium called metabolic encephalopathy, with symptoms like psychosis. He was only 21 when he died. Losing her son sent her into shock, then a “suffocating depression.” She’d struggled with food since childhood—first with binge eating and weight gain which brought on cruel teasing in school. In her teens, she swung the other way, dangerously into anorexia. As an adult she became obese.

    Craving Low-Nutrient Foods

    “You know that you’re addicted to a certain food if you try to give it up but the cravings are so strong you cave,” said Boller. “Our bodies weren’t meant to eat artificially sweetened shakes, diet soda, sugar-free Jell-O, pudding or protein bars.”

    Boller raves about her doctor, Joel Fuhrman, MD, a six-time bestselling author and president of the Nutritional Research Foundation who specializes in preventing and reversing diseases through nutrition. Boller credits Dr. Fuhrman for teaching her a whole new lifestyle. What she shared was in keeping with what Jaya Jaya Myra had said about aspartame, chemicals and nutrition.

    Dr. Fuhrman taught Boller about addictive substances. “They activate the reward system and cause the brain to demand more and more.” Boller learned that willpower is no match for addictive drives and that low-nutrient foods — high in calories, intensely sweet, salty, or fatty — make up the majority of the standard American diet. “The ingredients cause the same effects in the brain that mind-altering substances do.”

    Here’s one way to think of addiction: Imagine walking in a field of grass. When you walk to one spot, you make a connection that gives your brain a good feeling, just like when an opioid floods your brain with a rush of dopamine. Now, imagine going back to that spot so you can have that pleasurable experience again. With each repetition you have matted down the grass in the field into a pathway. It would be odd to walk any other way than along the pathway that directly leads to the brain’s reward. When your brain doesn’t get the expected reward, it keeps craving it and looking for it.

    “That’s why whenever you want to change a habit,” said Myra, “you need to replace it with something positive until you build a new pathway.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 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

  • Healing the Self: Yoga as Addiction Treatment

    Healing the Self: Yoga as Addiction Treatment

    Yoga offers a healthy outlet to cope with daily stress and triggers, aids in preventing relapse, and reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings.

    In the classical definition of Yoga given by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, ahimsa (non-harming) has a place of relevance. It is the first of the five yamas. And its definition is clear: nonviolence. As the first yama, it also means that it comes before all others, perhaps the most important of them all, the guiding force and motivation to live a life full of serenity. 

    In its most literal sense, nonviolence may be interpreted as not hurting or killing others. And it is, indeed. The goal is to practice compassion toward all sentient beings, including self. Embodying ahimsa extends beyond this literal interpretation to include not just violent actions but also thoughts, feelings, and words. We must pay constant attention, be vigilant yet compassionate. What do we do with inclinations toward hostile behavior, harmful thought, and hurtful speech?

    Practice Non-Violence to Self, First

    While it might feel natural to practice non-violence towards the world around us, the best way to start a true non-violent lifestyle is to start with self. When we love self, we naturally aim to remove unnecessary suffering. Non-violence doesn’t just address action, but thought. First, we must learn to speak to self with compassion.

    The act of self-love says that we’re on a mission for healing. It says that putting self first is not selfish, but rather necessary in order to achieve greatness and effect change. It says that loving others cannot happen without first loving self.

    By being an example of love, by committing to a practice of non-violence towards self, we’re better equipped to teach others. As a result, we learn to love others more because we love ourselves. Or in some cases, through giving love to others, we can finally begin to give and accept love for ourselves.

    Non-Violence in Consumption

    Food, drink, and substance are not the only things we consume. We ingest through all orifices, including the eyes and ears. Non-violent food choices promote higher vibration through connecting with the world around us. Non-violent consumption of visual and auditory stimuli facilitate a more balanced life. In today’s world, non-violence is nearly impossible, so the best option is to reduce violence as much as possible. Yoga teaches non-violence as a road to success, abundance, and happiness. Of course, these terms are not used in the conventional sense. Success is encountering a new sense of self. Abundance is receiving and giving large amounts of love, support, and compassion. Happiness is found inside and not outside the body.

    Non-Violence in Design

    If you know your triggers, design a lifestyle that helps eliminate them. Places and people can trigger our need to return to old, negative, destructive patterns. But if we’re well-equipped with that knowledge, we can change the entire atmosphere. That means avoiding those aspects of life that don’t allow for growth. If passing a certain street corner gives you an urge, avoid it at all costs. If seeing a specific person reminds you of former ways that you’d rather forget, take action so that you do not see that person regularly. Yoga is a powerful reminder of how much we can push into growth edges by facing uncomfortable feelings and sitting with them, fully aware that they are temporary and will eventually fade away or transform. Set up your day with yoga to reinforce positive habits, but also to fortify your brain, body, soul connection. With high vibration surging through the body early in the day, we’ve already set ourselves up for success in healing. The brain, body, and soul will recognize this and start to align with similar vibrations, thereby pulling us into a vortex of healing and possibilities.

    Benefits of Yoga on Addictive Behavior

    According to eastern religions, addiction is not treated separately as it often is in western religions, it’s simply one of the various forms of suffering. We are all destined to suffer, however, we can reduce the amount we give and receive with the help of yoga. Yoga offers a healthy outlet to cope with daily stress and triggers, aids in preventing relapse, and reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Yoga is not a religion, but it is spiritual in nature. It requires a small space, a mat, the body, and intention. With these tools, people gain skill sets to better approach and heal from the suffering of addiction.

    Trains the Brain

    Meditation and yoga make the best duo. Their objective is to train the brain for optimal living. One of the biggest causes of unhappiness in today’s world is stress. It creates the need to escape from reality and keeps us in a constant fight of flight mode. Once stress creeps in, and it seems to be doing this even in young children, the desire to escape increases. Yoga regulates and balances some of the stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These chronically high levels of hormones are toxic to the body and central nervous system. And they’re not only hard on the system, they are hard on our emotional selves, pushing many people to seek substances to cope. With a yoga practice, stress hormones are reduced which reduces negative behaviors that can accompany it.

    Builds Better Habits

    Yoga promotes stillness, mindfulness, breathing, and awareness. These are the keys for living a balanced life. When we become more aware of what we’re feeling and why, suffering can shift from impossible to manageable. In yoga, we find moments of reflection so palpable. We shift to seeing a craving as a lack of something rather than a need to fill the hole. We find space to recognize the craving rather than react to it immediately. Yoga becomes the new method for attack as it is full of slow, sustainable, steps that promote new, healthy habits built for long term success.

    Accepts Suffering and Change

    We cannot escape suffering, but we can diminish it. Yoga has proven itself over the centuries to be both a teacher and a best friend for those struggling with addiction. Spending time on the mat brings a sense of acceptance for what is, what has been, and what will be. Yoga embraces an “as if” attitude rather than “what if.” Suffering and change are challenges that promise healing and growth if used the right way. Yoga offers a way that may not be perfect, but it is surely a way that’s helped many achieve an addiction-free life based on non-judgement and accepting self as is, full of potential to be better each and every time. It’s a series of steps on a path towards non-attachment, the ultimate goal in rejecting suffering.

    Fosters Heightened Confidence

    Yoga focuses energies inward and increases a sense of ownership over emotions and actions. There’s a new sense of control and in gaining that control back, confidence is boosted. Subsequent actions then take on a whole new meaning. This promotes self-reliance which is essentially empowerment. When power is regained in the body and mind space, the need to escape or harm is reduced. Yoga is a tool for empowerment that should be used not only to battle addiction, but to live a life full of healthy thoughts and actions.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How to Manage Depression: 6 Simple Reminders

    How to Manage Depression: 6 Simple Reminders

    Treat yourself with gentleness and forgiveness. With every negative thought about yourself, throw in a dose of self-love. Self-compassion can reduce the severity of depression and anxiety.

    Depression is not easy.

    If depression is new to you, or coming back after a long absence, you need to give yourself time and patience to adjust to new ways of being. I’ve had depression most of my life, but I am learning to live differently than I once expected myself to. Even though it may feel strange and uncomfortable, try to be kind to yourself and give yourself space to take things slowly.

    1. Dealing with Fatigue

    I can see it begin to creep up on me. Depression, self-consciousness, low self-esteem, loneliness, tiptoeing towards me. I’m cornered and I don’t see an exit plan. At the moment, I’m still using fancy footwork to confuse and tire out those demons. Behind me, on the other side of the wall, is joy. I want to turn to that entirely, but a wall separates us. It’s exhausting.

    A feeling of deep tiring sorrow is just one possible symptom you may experience with depression. For me, fatigue is a debilitating part of my daily life. It’s constant and powerful. Even when everything else is good on a particular day and my symptoms are minimal and I feel joyful, I will still be tired. My heavy fatigue makes everything more difficult to do.

    Part of practicing self-care is that I don’t fight the fatigue; I accept it and adapt. Instead of trying to force myself to do what my body cannot, I adjust my tasks and expectations of myself to better suit my abilities.

    2. Occupy Your Time

    And now I’m stuck here, me and depression. I can’t look directly at it. But it senses my weakness and fear. My defenses are down. I want to go on the attack and Charlie’s Angels my way out of here. But fear keeps that thought bubbling just below the surface, it remains ideation and not action. I turn every which way, eyes darting here and there. Nothing stays in focus longer than a few seconds.

    To deal with the short attention span, I find it helpful to occupy myself with a variety of distractions. Find things to do that can take up your time, whether that’s sleeping a bit more or watching television or playing a game on your phone. Maybe pick up a book, or work on something with your hands. Music can be very soothing. There are times when I’m experiencing sensory overload and have to stop completely, but usually even then if it has the right tempo and volume and no words, music can help.

    3. Breathe

    Depression is growing bigger, having eaten Alice’s fantasies. It’s the demon in Spirited Away, gluttonous for pain. Now my head hurts and I can’t remember what I did in the past to get out of this corner. I sink to the floor, close my eyes and take several deliberate breaths. In and out, focusing only on that breath. When I open my eyes, I can see a sinister troll cackling behind Depression.

    Depression’s troll tells me that I don’t know who the girl smiling in my photos is. That the joyful image I sometimes portray isn’t me. Depression tells me, “You don’t know where that joy is, what a facade. What a phony getup.”

    When the anxiety that often accompanies depression rushes in, what helps me (even when it helps only a little) is to take a few seconds to just remember how to breathe. In and out, deep and slow. If I can close my eyes for those few seconds, even better; thinking just about the breath. Sometimes it helps a lot, sometimes it provides only those few seconds of relief; either way, it presses pause on everything else and lets my body relax for a moment.

    4. Accept Yourself

    When I get closer, not to examine but because I am no longer running away from it, I can see my depression for what it really is. It looks ridiculous, rubbing its hands together like a cartoon villain. I push myself up off the ground and walk up to Depression. I want to make it cower in terror, but when I stand up it shrinks down and the costume falls to the floor in a heap. I can see the air pump in the back that was blowing it up to such a size. Then I notice the heart of the facade is not a demon or a monster. It’s a sad little girl who looks just like me, maybe she is me. Her armor has been taken away and she is vulnerable. She looks at me with fear.

    I swear one of the most common inspirational phrases in a Pinterest black hole is “Let it go.” When it comes to depression, I don’t know if letting go is as useful of a strategy as acceptance. They’re distinct routes to finding contentment. Moving on from a painful feeling or experience requires the ability to process memories and have healthy emotional control. Letting go implies that you can “get over it” and move forward. Someone who has depression cannot just “let it go.” Depression is a diagnosable medical condition. It affects many more aspects of life than just emotional. Some symptoms can severely impact quality of life.

    Acceptance, on the other hand, is a powerful tool that people with depression can actually use. My negative feelings are recognized and the sad thoughts that come in are not to be trusted as the whole truth, they’re just there because I have this condition. Acceptance takes away some of depression’s power. Resisting depression is exhausting and doesn’t make it disappear. But practicing acceptance changes the lens through which we see our depression, making it more manageable.

    5. Practice Self-Compassion

    Should I destroy her, now that I’ve emerged the victor? No, I won’t do that. She needs love. I don’t embrace her in a hug, not yet, but I do walk up to her and bend down to her height. I want to tell her something, but no words come, so I just give her a small kind smile. We will get to know each other. She will see that everything will be okay, and I will see pain at its correct size, not in its monstrous manifestations.

    Be compassionate with yourself. Without self-compassion we can spiral so quickly and we only prolong our own suffering. Self-compassion is a continual process that can be started over at any moment. It simply means being nice to yourself. Treat yourself with gentleness and forgiveness. With every negative thought about yourself, throw in a dose of self-love (even when you don’t believe it). Dis-identify from your thoughts.

    Self-compassion can reduce the severity of anxiety disorders, depression, and improve success rates of sobriety. Researchers have found that self-compassion lowers how harshly we judge and criticize ourselves. Mindfulness inspired the notion that self-compassion may be an effective therapeutic tool and self-compassion is like a stepping stone for practicing mindfulness. This is critical for people who blame themselves for their own suffering, since a lack of self-compassion perpetuates an unhealthy cycle of self-hate and aversion to treatment (i.e.; why get treatment when you don’t think you deserve it?).

    6. Love Yourself and Your Depression

    This isn’t some emo quote on MySpace, it’s a simple piece of advice that can bring around positive results. Loving your depression doesn’t mean you love feeling this way, but it means you accept your current reality and are willing to feel it. Feel what you feel. Accept what you feel. Love yourself and your feelings. I know firsthand the changes that can come when you stop fighting yourself and start loving yourself, in all your manifestations.

    Please share your tips for dealing with depression in the comments.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Harm Reduction vs. Gentrification in Asheville, North Carolina

    Harm Reduction vs. Gentrification in Asheville, North Carolina

    “Harm reduction is on the front lines [of drug overdose] but we have to argue for our existence and the lives of the people we serve. That is unconscionable.”

    In August 2018, Hillary Brown received a bizarre notice from the city of Asheville. The small syringe exchange program that Brown ran three hours a week in the backroom of a bookstore was ordered to shut down within 30 days for operating an illegal homeless shelter.

    At first, 31-year-old Brown, the sole employee of harm reduction nonprofit Steady Collective in western North Carolina, thought it was a joke. Every Tuesday since 2016 the Steady Collective had visited the backroom at Firestorm Books to hand out sterile syringes, condoms, and overdose prevention supplies to people at risk for overdose and drug-related infections.

    Syringe Exchange or Homeless Shelter?

    Separated from the bookstore by a curtain, the backroom is dimly lit and bare except for a couple of red-cushioned church pews against a wall and two gray folding tables where Brown lays out the supplies. The room contains no food, no beds, no bathrooms, and no showers. People who stop by to stock up on supplies rarely linger more than five minutes. And many of them do have homes.

    Brown followed up with the notice, which had been served to the building’s other tenants as well: Firestorm Books & Coffee, 12 Baskets (a small free-lunch program operating in the basement), and Kairos West, a community center run by the Episcopal Church. All four tenants were accused of violating zoning laws having to do with the operation of a homeless shelter in the city’s rapidly gentrifying west end. A $100 per diem penalty would be levied against all tenants if the Steady Collective did not cease operations within 30 days.

    The initial notice of violation seemed bizarre, but it was only a hint of the ongoing legal battle it would spark.

    Within the 30-day grace period, the city withdrew the notices of violation from 12 Baskets and Kairos West, leaving Firestorm Books and the Steady Collective to face the legal hurdles alone.

    Remarkably, Firestorm Books, which could have easily saved itself by asking the Steady Collective to stop coming on Tuesdays, chose to dig in for a fight, risking its 10-year business history and the livelihood of its four employees.

    Beck, one of Firestorm’s co-owners, explains that the Firestorm team see themselves as “community organizers first and business people second.” Throwing a community nonprofit out to save their own skins would run counter to their business and personal ethos.

    Lucky for Firestorm and Steady Collective, local attorney John Noor offered to take the case pro bono. Noor has worked the case since September and helped secure meetings between city management and the Steady Collective.

    Attracting the Wrong Kind of People

    According to Brown, during one meeting to make the case for why a small once-a-week syringe exchange should not be classified as a homeless shelter, a city official commented: “It’s less about what you do and more about who you serve.”

    Brown considers this a rare—and likely accidental—moment of honesty. The city wasn’t arguing against the need for the program or its efficacy. (There are mountains of evidence that point to syringe exchange programs as safe and effective for reducing bloodborne disease transmission and overdose death). And Asheville is in desperate need of help. Its surrounding county, Buncombe, has one of the highest overdose rates in western North Carolina. The Steady Collective, one of the few programs in the city that attempts to mitigate the overdose crisis, reported 719 successful overdose reversals since 2016—no other program in the county can claim those results.

    But as the city official admitted, it’s not about what the program does. It’s not about science or results or lives saved or providing resources to a population in desperate need. No, the city’s concern is the program attracting the “wrong kind” of people to a rapidly gentrifying part of the city; the eyesore of folks who might look homeless gathering on a street that is trying hard to look hip. And the fear of what “those people” might bring.

    Asheville’s tactics mirror similar efforts by other cities and states, including Los Angeles, Charleston, Claremont, and Lawrence County, to shut down syringe exchanges. “Zoning violations” are a favorite tool, as are concerns about discarded needles (a problem that can be addressed through syringe disposal bins) and policymakers’ personal discomfort with the idea of harm reduction.

    “At a time of crisis we are having resources taken away,” says Brown. “Harm reduction is on the front lines [of drug overdose] but we have to argue for our existence and the lives of the people we serve. That is unconscionable.”

    Fighting City Hall to Help Drug Users

    Earlier this month I traveled to Asheville to witness the state’s largest legal battle over syringe exchange with my own eyes. The day I visited, Brown and a volunteer were in Firestorm’s backroom riffling through bags of packaged syringes, condoms, Band-aids and naloxone, a medicine used to reverse opioid overdose.

    Although Brown remained calm throughout our interview, the past few months of legal battles have taken an emotional toll.

    “What is really exhausting is to hear [the city] debate people’s dignity,” Brown said. The legal process “has undone me in ways I wasn’t prepared for.”

    Brown described the frustration of having people come into the exchange crying over the loss of a loved one to overdose who “can’t talk about the loss [outside the harm reduction program] because they are engaged in a criminal activity.”

    And the whole process hasn’t exactly occurred in the open.

    “The city of Asheville wants to talk behind closed doors and go through their rules. They don’t want the public to know [what they are doing],” said Brown.

    In March, after months of legal wrangling, the city finally made an offer: the Steady Collective could operate under the classification of “medical clinic” if they kept a physician on site during all hours of operation.

    Brown described the offer as a slap in the face. The tiny exchange can barely afford a single employee to run operations. To pay a supervising physician—when the only real task is to hand out non-prescription supplies from the back of a bookstore—is a non-starter. (Notably, the Steady Collective operates another exchange on Wednesdays out of a church in a non-gentrifying part of town; the city has not required that location to keep medical personnel on site.)

    Thanks to legal help, the Steady Collective was able to counter the offer and settle for an agreement to keep a nurse on site. They are the only syringe exchange in the state with such a requirement.

    The day I visited, Vanessa Bourgeois was the on-site nurse. Bourgeois works weekends at a local hospital but volunteers on Tuesdays for the Steady Collective where she puts packets of syringes and condoms in plastic bags and hands them across the table to participants—hardly work that requires a nursing license.

    The absurdity of the predicament is not lost on her.

    “This is not a situation that needs a nurse,” she says bluntly. “Harm reduction is appropriate for laypeople.”

    Though she is happy to support the Steady Collective’s work, she denounces the city’s actions as “part of the narrative to make people who use drugs seem dangerous or scary.”

    Because Bourgeois volunteers her time during exchange hours, the Steady Collective and Firestorm Books are no longer under threat of being shut down. But to Brown, their work is far from over.

    Asheville Impedes Harm Reduction Efforts

    Asheville, a city often touted as one of North Carolina’s “most progressive,” has shown little evidence of progressive thinking towards drug users in any of its major government facilities. When North Carolina legalized syringe exchange in 2016, Asheville police responded aggressively, ripping up the ID cards that syringe exchange participants are required to carry by law.

    In 2018, Mission Hospital, the largest medical facility in Asheville, implemented a draconian policy against drugs users: If any patient is suspected of IV drug use, regardless of the medical condition for which they are being seen, hospital staff will confiscate their electronic possessions, refuse them visitors, and keep a staff member in the room at all times to supervise them.

    And the City of Asheville Planning Department has not given up their war on harm reduction. The city plans to write syringe exchanges into the zoning code, which would allow the city to impose restrictions on their locations. Brown believes fighting against such legislation is “the most important issue facing harm reduction in the state” and urges other programs not to be complacent.

    Asked what the Steady Collective would do differently if faced with the situation again, Brown says that the organization would be more aggressive about raising public awareness of the city’s actions and mobilizing people to fight back. At the time, the concern was that drawing too much negative attention to the city would disrupt the negotiation process. But now Brown sees that there was never much negotiation to begin with.

    To other harm reduction programs facing similar threats, Brown advises: “Be more vocal about the process. Invite other people in. Organize the community to fight back. Mobilize medical professionals and faith leaders.”

    North Carolina accomplished a great feat when it legalized syringe exchange programs in 2016. But the real work still lies ahead. We still live in a world that stigmatizes and devalues the lives of people who use drugs. Until this changes, every harm reduction program in every community is at risk. People who use drugs and their allies must stick together. Stay vigilant. And be ready for the fights when they come.


    Maribel Lopez and Hillary Brown at the church location

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Scared Straight: How My Fear in Early Sobriety Evolved Into Lifesaving Discipline

    Scared Straight: How My Fear in Early Sobriety Evolved Into Lifesaving Discipline

    I was free from myself. And this freedom was a direct result of being completely mortified at having put myself in such a precarious, powerless position. It was the most honest fear I’d ever felt – and the healthiest.

    The date was October 12, 2011. It was my second morning of sobriety, the first that I’d woken up in my bed rather than jail. Two days earlier I’d sideswiped a cab, blind drunk, and kept going. Cops frown upon that.

    For some time, I’d been building toward a last straw scenario – a no-doubter dealbreaker to finally cost me my marriage and (yet another) job. The dead silence with which my spouse departed for work that day spoke volumes, and God knew how I’d keep my suburbs-based job without a license to drive there.

    As it turned out, I still have both – the wife and the job – today, seven-plus years into recovery. And what I’ve realized is that the unprecedented fear I felt that fall morning was key to sparking my long-term sobriety.

    Recently in this space, I wrote a piece about how, for all its faults, AA groupthink can help newcomers develop much-needed discipline, as it encourages a standardized structure recommended for recovery. Meeting, sponsor, stepwork, repeat.

    But for me and for many, there was also a second, more self-sufficient catalyst to recovery: fear. Fear that you’ve already done enough to be doomed; or if you haven’t, you can’t stop yourself from making it worse still; fear to do anything at all because you’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can’t trust yourself to do anything, at all. Fear not only of consequences, but of self.

    Sometimes it truly is darkest before the dawn. This seemingly debilitating state can, ironically, lead to lifesaving discipline of a sort we alcoholics and addicts had thought far beyond our grasp.

    Freedom in Fear

    Despite the divorce/firing 1-2 combo I felt certain was coming, that second sober morning I felt free – and not just because I was no longer behind bars.

    Rather, my freedom was twofold. First, what’s done had been done and I couldn’t undo it. So although I was scared shitless of how my marriage and career could both abruptly end, I was free from worrying about whether I’d do something to warrant those outcomes. Been there, drank that.

    More importantly, I was free from myself. And this freedom was a direct result of being completely mortified at having put myself in such a precarious, powerless position. It was the most honest fear I’d ever felt – and in hindsight, the healthiest.

    Starting that day I became deathly afraid of my erratic, addiction-driven actions. All the vows of abstinence inspired by a worsening set of consequences and hangovers had accomplished nothing. The 7am “never agains” had become the 4pm “once agains,” again and again.

    I simply couldn’t trust myself to make decisions, and I knew it. And considering its origin – the brain of a nervous wreck, two-day-sober insane person – my next thought was illogically logical:

    “Then stop making fucking decisions.”

    This, of course, was easier said than done, and in fact sounded suspiciously similar to many former miserably-failed declarations of self-restraint. This time around, the only fresh variable was the agoraphobic, fetal-position-caliber fear permeating my body, with an assist from a stupefying fog familiar to those of us who also suffer from depression.

    I was scared. I was stunned. And I had to be at work in 45 minutes. My uncle gave me a lift. In the car ride over, one thought reverberated in my head:

    “Just get to work, do your job, and come right home.” It was all I could handle that day. It was also the genesis of an invaluable recovery tool: keep it simple.

    From Fear to Powerlessness

    I got to work and back that day, and the next. I managed to walk myself to an AA meeting a half block from home. That weekend I shadowed my miraculously still-there wife like a toddler would his mommy.

    My daily deeds had dwindled to a precious few, and fell into one of two categories: everything I did was either obligatory (work, AA meeting) or subjugated, meaning it was accompanied and determined by someone else (my wife, an in-the-know family member). If that sounds pathetic… well, it is. But it worked.

    This decision-free existence, I’ve come to realize, was a real-world Step 1, whose dual recognitions of powerlessness over inebriating substances and life unmanageability are, I believe, near-universal to recovering alcoholics and addicts regardless their particular method of sobriety.

    What ensued was a lifestyle minimalism in which my days were rigidly pre-planned, and I still had enough of my secret ingredient – fear – to prevent any deviating from this preset course. A typical day looked something like this:

    Wake up, get dressed, coffee, breakfast. Board the first of three buses (New Jersey’s transit system leaves a lot to be desired) for work. Work. Eat lunch – bagged and brought, because the fewer times you walk out of your office, the smaller the chance you’ll walk into a bar.

    Work again. Three buses home. Gym or AA, time and rides permitting.

    During this time I was never on my own in private for more than five minutes if at all possible. Being (amazingly still) married was obviously a key factor here; as someone who spent early sobriety in a self-constructed cage, I still have no idea how anyone gets sober while single – that feat would have meant too much me time to accrue clean time.

    During this period it was crucial that I built a solid sober foundation. For me, that meant making meetings, getting a sponsor, and making an honest start on the 12 steps; I strongly encourage those in other recovery programs to dive into the prescribed action plan for newcomers.

    How to Build a Foundation in Recovery, Quickly

    The point – the universal goal – is building a foundation of recovery as expediently as possible. Because fear, like our once-vivid memories of alcoholism’s harms and humiliations, fades over time. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a race against the clock to develop reliable recovery tools before my stubborn self-will—in the form of the idiotic notion that I was prepared to once again make my own decisions—returned in brute force.

    Luckily, we only need to win early sobriety once. And in this perfect storm of circumstances, I was just scared enough and stiff enough for long enough to eke out a victory. By the time my fear began to waver and wane, I had a few months and a few steps under my belt. I was on my way.

    Inch by inch, the closed door of my life began to creak open. I started to take little excursions by myself, informing my wife precisely where I was going and when I’d return. I dared go out for lunch at work from time to time. I went to the trigger-laden New York City by myself for a doctor’s appointment. And finally I passed the biggest test of all: getting my driver’s license back and, with it, all the potentially disastrous decisions that come with the open road.

    Not surprisingly, none of this success was the result of any grand master plan hatched by a raw, frightened newcomer. This was far more fortune than forethought. Regardless, it’s the results that count – both for me and, I hope, for others just beginning their journey in recovery.

    If you’re reading this as a scared-witless newcomer, take the advice of someone whose experience was accidental but nonetheless useful: Make the decision to stop making decisions. There’s plenty of time to get your life back. Now’s the time to save it.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 5 Unexpected Things That Happened When I Surrendered

    5 Unexpected Things That Happened When I Surrendered

    Spiritual surrender is like letting out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. My next relapse no longer feels like it’s coming for me. I made it out. I’m alive!

    You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.
    -Pema Chodron

    New Year’s Day, West Hollywood. I had three days sober off a brief marijuana relapse and was headed to an AA marathon. After parking, I realized I was out of juul pods so I went on a search, rectangling around the block on my way to the meeting hall, hoping to find a store.

    When the first meeting ended, I panicked. Where did I park? I ran out, saw my car, took a picture, and ran back in. 

    Several hours later I discovered that the photo wasn’t of my car. I have a gray Prius in L.A., which is every third car. I scoured the neighborhood. A well-meaning valet tried to help and I yelled at him. Hours passed. It grew dark and cold, my phone now at 11%. I stopped to breathe. Big fear.

    Voices and the tinkling of glass tumbled onto the street from a bar. The thought of drinking or using hadn’t occurred to me. And why would it? A glass of wine or a joint wouldn’t help me find my car.

    Just at that moment, the heavens opened up and God reached down a golden hand through pearly gates and spoke.

    That didn’t happen. But what did was pretty fucking rad.

    I saw that every problem in life is exactly the same as losing your car.

    I walked past the valet again and apologized. I knew that I had parked headfirst rather than parallel, near Robertson Boulevard.

    He pointed. “You’ve got one more block like this.” I stood at an actual turning point.

    I had been looking for my car on the wrong side of the street.

    I found it 30 seconds later. That was the moment the course of my life changed forever.

    These are some things that happened for me, and may happen for you when you cross the street of spiritual surrender. 

    1. I’ve stopped trying to get over on my addiction.

    Am I allowed to drink kratom? Vape CBD? Take pills? A doctor will happily prescribe whatever I think I need. And aren’t magic mushrooms a spiritual experience? I spent years in fauxbriety. I spent an entire summer posted up in a Kava Kava bar while we all nodded out on kratom tea and talked about our favorite AA meetings. Note: I am not talking about anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, other psychiatric medication, non-narcotics in general, and supervised pain management after injury.

    For the problems I have encountered in my own life thus far, holistic alternatives work better than anything big pharma wants to sell me. I never win. Addiction always wins. I was constantly sending myself the message that I wasn’t enough or okay just the way I was; I needed a drug that I considered not really a drug to fix it. Actually? I don’t. 

    2. I feel relieved. Like amazingly fucking relieved.

    Spiritual surrender is like letting out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. The shoulders go down the back, the face softens, and the respiratory system begins the great energetic exhale. It sounds like the ocean. My next relapse no longer feels like it’s coming for me. I made it out. I’m alive! There is hope. I don’t live in fear of what I may do to myself anymore.

    3. I can let go of people and summon new ones.

    I lived in a perpetual state of war. I believed that you were my problem and I saw boundaries as a personal attack. I clung to people who had limited love and empathy to give. I would give you more of my time, money, and energy than I could afford and blame you for it. I would let things build and build and build until I got blackout drunk and told you OFF.

    I have been working on myself pretty hard since 2012, and haven’t done most of the things most of the time since 2016. But until I surrendered, I didn’t believe I could let go of people before the relationship blew up. I didn’t even know what I wanted; I would just sense what you wanted, then decide whether or not I would give it to you. We live in a sick society full of broken toddlers. Emotionally, I’m in elementary school now. I no longer need to punish myself with reflections of a past me. Every time I let someone go I make space for someone new. I can see that many people are simply lost in their own pain, and can’t see past themselves. I can have compassion, and empathy. From a distance. 

    4. I can be in a world of pain without bleeding on everyone.

    As I grow older, traumas and patterns emerge, deeply embedded toxins and conditioning that wants to be felt and released. This week has been intense and painful. I felt attacked by the universe. In the past, when things like this happened, I panicked and made desperation phone calls to anyone who would listen. “I have to call in the troops,” I would say.

    Today I am able to allow emotions to flow through me even if it feels wrong at first. I can put down the looping stories and let myself feel. I can make the connections from current triggers to past traumas, advocate for myself when necessary, get on stage and be funny even when my life feels like it’s been dropped on the floor. Before surrender, the only time I was accused of being professional was on Seeking Arrangements. And there are lessons in pain. There are always lessons for those who are brave enough to look.

    5. I believe in myself enough to do the things I believe in.

    I am practicing Ashtanga yoga again, something I’ve been talking about for years. I’ve given up meat and most dairy. I believe that pigs enjoy warm baths just like I do, maybe more because they aren’t thinking about how many people downloaded their podcast. Also please download my podcast: Comics Book Club’s: Drunk & High on Petfinder.com with Amber Tozer. I pray, I meditate, I have cut down caffeine and have a plan to get off nicotine. I completed my first pilot script, waking up at five a.m. to write and rewrite so I’d be finished in time for a fellowship deadline.

    I used to hate myself so much I could rarely let myself enjoy anything, most of all my very favorite things. Now I am ready to do what I came here to do, with enough wild stories to last the rest of this life and a different sort of story to write into the fabric of my future.

    I’ve got my head just enough out of my own butt to see the world beyond myself. There is so much out there! Awakening is very exciting, and it feels. Oh, does it feel.

    I wish the same for you: May you be happy, may you be free, may you be at peace, may you be loved. May you believe in yourself. May you find a way to be ready to do what you came here to do. We are all worthy of that.

    Please feel free to share your stories of self-love, surrender, spiritual awakening, personal redemption, and your trolling (if you need to) in the comments. 

    View the original article at thefix.com